Stern's Guessgen Reloaded: Is America Destroying the West?

(By Ray D.)

Before Christmas, Davids Medienkritik published an article on a Stern commentary entitled "America is Destroying the West" by Florian Guessgen. Guessgen responded to our article with a second piece of his own that actually addressed a few of our arguments. Ray then promised a prompt response which was subsequently delayed by Christmas and New Year's related travel and family gatherings. But now the holidays are past and our response is here.

Guessgen's Predictable Smear Attempt

Not surprisingly, we at Medienkritik have already been attacked and called names on numerous occasions by members of the mainstream German media. SPIEGEL ONLINE labeled us the "conservative click guerilla" and the former America correspondent for the Tagesspiegel, Malte Lehming, associated us with right-wing "Krawallos" or "ruffians."

Florian Guessgen recently joined the club in his response, labeling Davids Medienkritik "decidedly conservative" and perhaps "neo-conservative." He further pointed out that our site is (gasp) pro-American, pro-Israeli and pro-capitalist. Unfortunately, for the average Stern reader, those are all quite negative characteristics, which is why Mr. Guessgen brings it up. And that, in itself, says quite a lot about Mr. Guessgen, his publication, and his target audience.

Guessgen's Big Rowback

In our first critique of the article, "America is Destroying the West", Davids Medienkritik pointed out several weaknesses with the arguments put forth by the author. To his credit, Mr. Guessgen actually made several rowbacks in his second piece, entitled "Is America Destroying the West?", including a major one on the death penalty in the United States. Furthermore, his tone was decidedly more reserved, humble and introspective the moment he realized that Davids Medienkritik had exposed his writings to a broad, English-speaking audience. Here is a little sampling of that:

"With this argument Ray D. actually weakens my critique of the government of George W. Bush. He makes clear that the death penalty is not to blame on any single president or even one party, but instead obviously reflects the broad, consistent political will in the USA."

Guessgen goes on to mention that "55 percent of Germans questioned (in 1998) would favor the introduction of the death penalty in certain instances." Despite that fact, however, Guessgen continues to insist that the death penalty contradicts what he calls the "European canon of values" and therefore represents an "ethical rift" between Europe and the USA. Here again, Guessgen presumes to speak for all Europeans, not imagining that anyone within a thousand miles might disagree with his interpretation of "European values." He also maintains, rather unconvincingly, that he was not in the midst of a tirade of moral indignation directed at the Bush administration in his first piece, but instead simply attempting to define what he sees as an increasing divide between the US and Europe.

Guessgen also continues to defend his argument that the "US government is systematically attempting to circumvent international human rights." As evidence, he refers to CIA renditions and the incarceration of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. What Mr. Guessgen fails to acknowledge is that there is an intense and ongoing debate in the United States, and within the government itself, on that very issue. He fails to consider, even for a moment, that international agreements drafted well before the Second World War, including the Geneva Conventions, may no longer appropriately address the problems associated with the capture and detention of terrorists and other combatants who have no affiliation with a national army and themselves feel no obligation to international regulations or laws of warfare. Mr. Guessgen would be well advised to consider the opinion of Jeffrey Gedmin, who writes:

"Critics argue that the United States cannot have carte blanche to do whatever it wants in Guantanamo. The Bush administration says, Read the Geneva Convention—it does not apply to Al Qaeda prisoners. Both are right. Why does it take so long to get to the inevitable: the development of international law to meet the needs of the current era. We have done this before. That's how we got the Geneva Conventions. Now we need laws that apply to combatants who do not wear a uniform, who hide among civilians and who deliberately target unarmed innocents. These are not the criminals our domestic judicial systems or the international law have been equipped to deal with."

But instead, like so many other leftists, Guessgen wields the issue of Guantanamo as a convenient baseball bat with which to beat his political enemies. There is no real attempt made to reconcile the issue on his part, simply moral indignation. There is no real attempt made to acknowledge America's numerous contributions to international law and human rights, simply a vindictive, one-sided accounting of America's sins.

Additionally, Mr. Guessgen exhibits a blind, irrational faith in the United Nations as the singular source of international law and justice without so much as considering its many flaws, weaknesses and failings. Not once does he discuss the failure of the United Nations to hold Saddam Hussein fully accountable on its many weapons resolutions. Not once does he discuss the genocide that took place in Rwanda in the mid 1990s because of the inaction of the United Nations and key member states. Not once does he discuss the genocide taking place today in Sudan and the United Nations unwillingness to intervene. Not once does he discuss the Srebernica massacre in Bosnia that onlooking UN peacekeepers allowed to happen because they were too weak to act until the United States and NATO finally showed up. Not once does he bring up the massive oil-for-food corruption scandal that recently rocked the UN. Sadly, for people like Mr. Guessgen, international law has devolved into little more than a hollow ideal to be paraded around on the moral high ground by holier-than-thou media and political elites unwilling and unable to solve the world's real problems with anything more than high-handed condescension and a slavish dedication to the letter of a law that no one enforces and few take seriously.   

That leads us to another issue: In his first article, Guessgen constantly refers to "George W. Bush's Amerika". In both articles, he also frequently substitutes the "US government" or "state" for the Bush administration. In so doing, he overlooks the fact that the Bush administration represents but one of three branches of the US federal government. Of course this gross oversimplification helps the author make a more dramatic, emotionally pleasing point to his readers, but it also belies his ignorance of the American system and its many checks and balances.

On Iraq, Guessgen rejects any reference to human rights, stating that the justification for war was based on Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction. To be honest, most of the world, including German and French intelligence, believed Saddam had WMD back in 2003. If he didn't, why wouldn't he simply cooperate with UN weapons inspectors and avoid the prospect of war and his own downfall? That question continues to baffle. And that brings us to a highly important technicality. The Iraq War was actually triggered by Saddam Hussein's refusal to fully comply with over a dozen United Nations Security Council resolutions on WMD over the course of twelve years, not by Mr. Hussein's alleged possession of WMD. Mr. Guessgen, himself a self-proclaimed advocate of international law, fails to recognize that the United States went to war to uphold international law as expressed in numerous documents (including UN Resolution 1441) and was repeatedly rebuffed by other member nations including France, Russia, China and Germany who refused to hold Saddam accountable with anything more than a flimsy, ineffective regime of inspections.

The Main Problem: Guessgen's Tone

But the issues discussed above, as important as they are, do not represent the main problem with Guessgen's work. We could all debate endlessly about going to war in Iraq, Guantanamo, torture, the death penalty and other hot-button issues. Intelligent people can and do continue to come to different conclusions on all of these issues. It is certainly also the case that Americans and Europeans will never completely agree on all issues (or even most issues) all of the time. This is nothing new, unusual or troubling.

What is troubling is the morally indignant, self-righteous tone assumed by so many German journalists when writing on the United States. Guessgen's first article is a prime example. The headline says it all: "America is Destroying the West." Mr. Guessgen's attempted rowback in his second article hardly undoes the damage of the first.

This sort of biased, America-bashing journalism, so common in the German media because it sells so well, is cynical sensationalism at its worst. (Just look at these covers and the sidebar of this website if you need any more evidence.) Guessgen goes on to fallaciously blame the Tookie William's execution on "George W. Bush's Amerika". And here we must ask ourselves: What exactly is "George W. Bush's Amerika" other than a convenient "Feindbild" for Stern readers? What exactly is the repeated "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" reference other than a perverted attempt to frame the United States as a land seething with hatred, paranoia and bloodlust? What is the comparison of the United States to the Russian mafia other than ridiculous slander? What is the characterization of the USA as the land of "baseball bat democracy" other than a one-sided denial of obvious fact? What is the pandering suggestion that Germans partake in greater exchange in an attempt to teach the American friends the so-called "European canon of values" other than thinly-veiled moral condescension? What is the proposition that the transatlantic bridge is crumbling and it's all America's fault other than a thoughtless, self-righteous tirade on Mr. Guessgen's part? 

Medienkritik Readers Respond to Guessgen

To conclude, we would like to point out that our readers made many a comment on the Guessgen articles and a number were both passionate and eloquent. We felt that two, in particular, should be included in our response:

David Gillies writes:

"Güßgen says you're pro-America, pro-Israel and pro-capitalist. For shame! With credentials like those you're quite obviously beyond the pale.

Actually, I'm fairly serious here. That those attitudes should be seen a pejorative is, to my mind, extraordinary. It's axiomatic among so many on the Left (and their witless hangers-on) that it is wrong to lend one's support to the sole oasis of democracy and human rights in a desert of barbarism, or that America is apodictically malevolent or that the ills of the Third World stem from the market and not from the mixture of warmed-over Marxism and feudal hegemony with which it is afflicted. Such a confident non-examination of one's Weltanschaung (sorry) could only come from the mind of a bigot.

There's also, as I note here, the Left's typical double standards at play, especially when it comes to its accommodation with the forces of Islamofascism. To characterise the US as being in the Hobbesian state of 'all against all'—nothing could be further from the truth—and ignore the fact that life in the Third World is indeed 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short' is such a fantastical inversion of the facts as to invite gape-mouthed incredulity."

Helian writes:

"Funny what happens when you shine the light of day on hate peddling rats like Guessgen, isn’t it? What a rowback! The same guy who had just bashed America with all the usual half-baked, self-righteous moral certainties that characterize today’s German mass media is suddenly contrite, conciliatory, reaching out his hand to his dear American “friends.” It should come as no surprise that someone so palpably out of touch would try to trot out the old “objective criticism” alibi as his main defense, never mind that it has been thoroughly and repeatedly demolished for the last decade. What a travesty that this little collaborator and stooge in the German media's creation of “Feindbild Amerika” dares to speak of friendship.

Of course, as Doug pointed out, hatemonger Guessgen starts with the usual smear: "Mir eröffnen die Reaktionen die Möglichkeit, mich mit dezidiert konservativen - vielleicht sogar neo-konservativen - Argumenten auseinanderzusetzen." Oh my God! Even Neo-conservatives! We’re dealing with the devil incarnate here. As EABinGA noted, SPIEGEL tried the same...

...lame gambit on an earlier occasion, attempting to fob off the pathetic and transparent lie that Medienkritik was connected with the evil “Freepers.” Yours truly opposed the war from the start, opposes the death penalty, and recently came out strongly on this blog against the Bush Administration’s rationalization of torture. Never mind, if I oppose Mr. Guessgen, that self-appointed windbag who claims to be the human incarnation of “liberal principles” and “Western values,” I must, necessarily be a “conservative.”

The rest of Guessgen’s long-winded rationalization of hate peddling is just more of the hackneyed MO we’ve all become familiar with by now: the usual rush for the moral high ground, the usual self-righteous preening, and the usual threadbare pretense that the debate is about “values,” combined with the usual refusal to address his opponents actual arguments. His comments on the death penalty are typical. The crux of Ray D.’s argument touching on the death penalty is, of course, Guessgen’s double standard, not a defense of the death penalty itself. For example, he writes, “If he (Guessgen) were genuinely concerned with human rights abuses and international law, he would be better served writing about his own government's business dealings with Sudan. He would be better served chronicling the Chinese government's mass executions or investigating Gerhard Schroeder's questionable service to Gazprom. He might even take a moment to question the German media's relative indifference to the thousands of killings and kidnappings perpetrated by Russian troops in Chechnya over the past several years while Germany and Russia were doing multi-billion dollar business deals for everything from trains to planes to automobiles to gas pipelines.” Guessgen pretends not to notice. Instead, with all the usual phony pathos, he tries the diversion of equating Ray D.’s entire rebuttal to a mere defense of the death penalty, which it decidedly is not.

It is interesting that, in the process, Guessgen lets slip a little piece of information that is seldom mentioned in the German MSM’s sermonizing about the death penalty, to wit, that, at least until recently, there was more popular support for the death penalty in Europe than in the US. Outstanding leftist American blogger Josh Marshall recently noted that, “So what does it all mean? I think it means that the end of capital punishment in Europe has much less to do with public opinion than we think. And it has more to do with the structure of European politics, particularly—I would speculate—the stronger role of parties, and thus elites, in the European form of parliamentary democracy.” One wonders whether such rule by elites is one of the “liberal principles” Mr. Guessgen is defending.

Of course, as noted above, the difference in tone between the two articles is as night and day. In the first article we have the usual hysterical, sensationalist bashing of America by the typical German media hate peddler who thinks he is only preaching to the usual sheep. “Amerika zerstört den Westen,” “Mörder werden gnadenlos hingerichtet,” “Methoden wie die russische Mafia,” are typical of many similar examples of the hyperbolic, bald-faced lies Guessgen feeds his readers. But when this typical German media rat is caught blinking in the spotlight, his tone suddenly becomes positively sedate. We get the usual, hackneyed, “objective criticism” cant, such as, “Statt braven Partnerschaft-Gesäusels ist es besser, klar auf die Gefährdung des transatlantischen Bündnisses hinzuweisen, die Gefahr der Zerstörung dieser Allianz.” In other words, we are to believe that the only alternative to “braven Partnerschaft-Gesäusels” is hysterical America bashing.

Allow me to suggest, Mr. Guessgen, that positive criticism of a friend does not take the form of self-righteous preaching, moralistic posturing, an obvious double standard that applies only to your “friend,” the systematic propagation of lying propaganda in the form of half truths that dwell only on the negative, the denial to your “friend” of any means of refuting or debating your “criticism” except in a few brave little blogs, or a striking unwillingness to criticize in your own country the faults that you are so quick to condemn in others. Such preaching most definitely does not contribute to the support of the “liberal principles” or “Western values,” that you have taken it upon yourself to define for the rest of us. On the contrary, it plays into the hands of and is gleefully exploited by the avowed enemies of those values in the US and elsewhere, and provides moral backing to the terrorists who would attack us.

In Guessgen’s first article we find this outrageous piece of cheek: “Kritik muss geäußert werden, aber gleichzeitig müssen die Europäer, allen voran Deutschland, weiter auf Zusammenarbeit dringen. Es ist ohnehin einer der vornehmsten Loyalitätsbeweise, auch einem zeitweise feindselig gestimmten Freund die Treue zu halten.” Incredible! For the last decade we have witnessed the systematic attempts of the German mass media to construct a “Feindbild Amerika.” Guessgen and his like have eagerly peddled hate to a seemingly insatiable German public, obsessed with the evils of America. During all this time few Americans have even noticed what was going on across the Atlantic, and yet we are to believe that it is the Americans who are “feindselig.”

Guessgen piously suggests more exchange programs to enlighten the poor, benighted Americans. A word of advice, Mr. Guessgen. Spare us your hoards of earnest sheep filled with missionary zeal to enlighten us with their “liberal values.” Thanks to your unsparing efforts over the last decade, the German people are profoundly ignorant concerning the US and its people. Compounding their ignorance, many of them believe with absolute certainty all the disinformation you’ve been feeding them. I strongly recommend that any of them wishing to preach to me first learn English and familiarize themselves with the American points of view on both the left and right regarding such critical subjects as the Iraq war, Kyoto and the environment, the death penalty, the torture controversy, and the American form of government. On all of these subjects and many more the “information” provided by the German language media has consisted almost entirely of simplistic, half-baked, moralistic sermonizing. Virtually no attempt has been made to give America a voice, or to give the German people any concept of the nature of the intellectual debate on these topics in the US. Do you really want to “reach out your hands to us,” Mr. Guessgen? I suggest you start by doing your job. Instead of propagandizing the German people, inform them for a change."

Well put. David Gillies puts his finger directly on the double-standard and Helian is harsh but on the money. Mr. Guessgen need look no further than the sidebar of this website to see what sort of hate and innuendo his employer (Stern) is spewing towards America and Americans. If he is really and truly interested in a fair and honest debate, he should stop writing for a magazine that profits by selling this sort of trash to its anti-American readership and start thinking for himself.

Comments

[Solomon2]

I titled this post Nuke Iran? but after reading this I realize I could have titled it "What Lies in the Secret Hearts of Germans?"

[Doug]

I was just about to ask what happened to this article. Outstanding work.

[Phil Nunemacher]

One item that has been left out of concerning the UN. While the corruption of the Food for Oil scandal is noted everyone is forgetting about a recent report that over one-third of the money the UN received for tsunami relief (over 350 million dollars US) has been spent on UN administrative expenses. This is equal to the entire US contribution!

As an American taxpayer, I am getting tired of this waste! I'm all for cutting or even eliminating any US taxpayer funding of the UN. I'd even go so far as to say the UN has outlived its usefullness and the US and other major financial supporters should withdraw. Let them try to function without funds for awhile and they'll make that failure, the League of Nations, look like a raving success.

[Scout]

Phil, you're preaching to the converted. I saw the UN close-up in action in Kosovo, and if I told you what went on there, you wouldn't believe it. Suffice it to say that I always thought the military was good at wasting money, but compared to the UN, they are only rank amateurs.

Unfortunately, Güßgen is not alone among German so-called journalists. Or has anyone, anywhere seen any fair and balanced news about the US in Germany recently? I do a lot of checking, and I haven't.

[Assistant Village Idiot]

I thank you again that you put me in touch with articles I would only find with great difficulty otherwise.

I continue to believe that the psychological phenomenon Projection is at play here. There seems to be a complete inability in the bulk of the German media to understand why the US might go to war except in terms of why Germans themselves might. This constrained view leads in turn to the idea that there can be nothing altruistic about US foreign policy -- it must needs be all about advantage, revenge, and resources. THIS, in turn leads to paranoid interpretaion: the given reasons for American actions can't possibly be true, therefore, some darker reason is true and protestations of morality are doubly hypocritical and contemptible.

I am naively hopeful that the Poles, Estonians, Slovenes, and Magyars can teach what the Anglosphere has been unable to.

[tn]

To be frank, in the past I have been a little turned off by some of the more extreme opinions published on this blog, as they seemed more often than not to be coming merely from the exact opposite side of the pendulum. There appeared to be no middle ground or grey zone, something that I -- a German who has been living in the US for a long time -- have always been interested in. In the end -- so at least it seemed to me -- both "sides" used more or less the same tactics of black and white painting in order to get their points through.

That said, I am thoroughly impressed by Ray D.'s reaction to the Güßgen-article. It is a fine and profound piece of deconstruction not only of the questionable and holier-than-thou "musings" of a typical German "mainstream" media journalist, but on a larger scale a deep analysis of what has unfortunately become a mainstream opinion among the entire country.

I can only hope that more Germans read blogs like this one (and I think that a toning down of polemics in favor of, or in combination with good arguments as in that article by Ray D. ultimately helps), in order to understand that what they are presented with on a daily basis by the likes of DER STERN und DER SPIEGEL is ultimately a perpetuum mobile of self-fulfilling preconceptions.

Keep up the good work!

[PacRim Jim]

The journalistic discourse in Europe is that of the middle-school playground. Why expect a clique of spittle-flecked ideologues to be logical? Socialism is based on ivory-tower theory rather than historical success. "The system works in theory and eventually will in practice, when it's implemented just right and enough lives are sacrificed to Marx."

[kcom]

Point 1:

I guess the one positive thing that can be said about the situation with Mr. Güßgen (and, by extension, with the German media, hopefully) is that to some degree he must still care what others beyond his circle think, otherwise the tone of his second article would not have changed. There's hope in that. He's obviously feeling some of the embarrassment a normal human being feels when he's talking behind someone's back and is caught by that very same person while doing so. If he truly believed everything he said, it wouldn't have made any difference to him. But since he toned down his discourse, it means he realizes he was being unfair or at the very least uncivil. It's not much, but it is an opening.

Wouldn't it be nice if he could come to the USA and live awhile with an average family in Illinois, and then Texas, and then Oregon, and then Tennessee. And then, if he absolutely has to, New York City. Maybe after that he'd be qualified to go on the way he does about what America is and how it works. But then, maybe what he had to say wouldn't be the same any more.

I don't speak German and I've never been in Germany so it has been truly shocking to me to read how woefully underinformed so many supposedly educated Germans appear to be about America and how it works. And how full of stereotypes they are. As a simple example, by all accounts, they take cowboy and Indian movies way too seriously. By all means, Germany, send your people over on exchanges. In my personal experience the most likely outcome is not that they'll change us but that we'll change them and they won't want to go back. I have plenty of German acquaintances here who came for a trip or a short-term job 10 or 20 or 30 years ago and never went home. And there seem to be more every day: Yahoo News. Sample quote: "I love the adventurous spirit and won't go back. You can start a business on a shoe string and work hard to succeed."

Point 2:

"The system works in theory and eventually will in practice, when it's implemented just right and enough lives are sacrificed to Marx."

I guess I'm stupid. I've never even thought it worked in theory. I don't see how anything based on patently ridiculous assumptions can ever work.

[LC Mamapajamas]

@kcom: "The system works in theory and eventually will in practice, when it's implemented just right and enough lives are sacrificed to Marx."

I guess I'm stupid. I've never even thought it worked in theory. I don't see how anything based on patently ridiculous assumptions can ever work.

LOL! I completely agree with you :). I must be stupid, too. There is so much about Marxist theory that flies in the face of human nature (we are competitive animals, not an ant farm) and common sense. For the above comment you quoted from the other post to happen, you would have to have one UberMarxist who would then kill everyone else on earth to gain the Marxist Paradise. As long as there are two people alive, they will disagree on some point.

The human race can learn to tolerate any number of differences of fact, but only rarely can tolerate a difference of opinion!

[LC Mamapajamas]

Sadly, for people like Mr. Guessgen, international law has devolved into little more than a hollow ideal to be paraded around on the moral high ground by holier-than-thou media and political elites unwilling and unable to solve the world's real problems with anything more than high-handed condescension and a slavish dedication to the letter of a law that no one enforces and few take seriously.

I have a theory about politically correct, multiculturalist lefties. I have a suspicion that they take Star Trek entirely too seriously, merging it with Marxist ideals. They are trying to recreate the world in the image of the United Federation of Planets, completely failing to understand that Star Trek is science fiction where pc, multi-culti governments work out well because that's the way the screenwriters wrote them. The UN is NOT the UFP, and is in fact totally inept and corrupted. They can't see that-- or refuse to look at it-- because the ineptitude and corruption isn't a part of the dream created by Hollywood screenwriters and Marx. Therefore, it can't be. (Do the Three Monkeys... hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil!)

A world government would be nice, but at this point in time, we are NOT ready for it... and may not be at any time in the near future. We are just too competitive... and at this point in time, competition is the human characteristic that works the best to produce the best. A world organization, to be used ONLY as a forum for discussion, is a possibility, but not if given the kind of powers the UN has (but choses to abuse).

And anyway, who says that pc government on a global scale is what some watching alien society would be looking for in a "civilized" world? I mean aside from the Hollywood screenwriters, of course. I've read a few science fiction novels in which the human race was selected by these vast galactic empires to serve as police and military precisely because we were the meanest, toughest, most intolerant SOB's in the galaxy! :D And, frankly, THOSE stories made a hell of a lot more sense than anything I've ever seen on Star Trek! :)

Don't get me wrong... I actually LIKE Star Trek... but I recognize it as strictly a science fiction universe no better or worse than the Star Wars universe, etc.

[Rofe]

Scout,

This wasn't a positive article about America, but Stern's lead editorial in the pre-Christmas edition took on the recent malevolent commentary coming from Iran's president. I was pleasantly surprised by the straightforward rationale of the editorial and I thought it made a brilliant recommendation for Germany to confront Ahmadinejad.

Stern recommended that Angela Merkel invite him to Germany for an official state visit. The visit would include an escorted trip to Dachau. My contribution would be for Poland to latch onto the initiative, invite Ahmadinejad for a follow-on state visit and escort him through Auschwitz.

Like tn, I frequently shake my head about extreme comments here that seem to be little more than mirror images of what's being criticized in the German media. Ray D., however, has written some particularly good posts - reasoned, balanced and all the more effective as a result. I think there is common ground to find out there and progress to be made, much of which contingent upon ratcheting down extremism while exposing media bias.

Cheers,

[Sock Puppet of Doom]

The problem with all the "good reasoning" and sweetness and light the left expects is that it is ignored by the bad guys.

Does anyone think Iran gives a rats behind about reasoning? They want to finish the job that Austrian started.

Go ahead and reason with the Islamic world. They are going to wait untill they have out bred you. They are well on their way in Germany. In 15 years it won't matter.

[Rofe]

Actually, Sock Puppet, I was talking about Germans. Are they the bad guys in your book ?

Cheers,

[Helian]

"Actually, Sock Puppet, I was talking about Germans. Are they the bad guys in your book?"

Are all countries made up exclusively of either bad guys or good guys in your book, Rofe?

[Rofe]

Nope, Helian, I'm more of a shades of gray kind guy.

[Rofe]

Whoops, "kind of guy".

[Scout]

@Rofe: When I said "anywhere" I was referring to German MSM and of course not this or other reasonably objective blogs. I guess I should have been more specific.
Regarding the Stern article, one lonely voice in the crowd does not constitute balanced coverage of the news. And IMHO, inviting the Iranian president to Dachau would have no effect on the price of fish.

[Rofe]

Scout,

Actually, I didn't mean to argue that this editorial constituted balanced coverage - neither at Stern nor in the German media as a whole. It did strike me as a welcome departure, however, and as such something that might be interesting to Medienkritik. I simply wanted to acknowledge the editorial.

As for the price of fish, I think Stern's suggestion has more substance to it than most exclamations of outrage over Ahmadinejad's comments. I also think the editorial itself did a nice job putting German's historical sins into current perspective.

Will any of this stop Iran's nuclear program ? No. But putting Ahmadinejad on notice in no uncertain terms should be encouraged at whatever level.

Cheers,

[ErikEisel]

Congratulations, Ray, on a great posting. The original news of Guessgen's engagement with you in December was exciting, since it represented the first thorough engagement by MSM with Medienkritik. In cases like this, it's important that we see where MSM stands and where Medienkritik stands. Guessgen does this work for you. You're "pro-American, pro-Israel, and pro-capitalist." He espouses a "European core of values."

Your posting rightly identifies the problem with Guessgen's line of attack, in that Guessgen's vision of a European set of values exists nowhere in print, and mostly in his imagination. The Europeans famously tried to agree on a European set of values during the summer, but no one voted for the 315 page EU constitution. (By the way, wasn't this the most unreported story of 2005.)

So, without an EU constitution to fall back on, Guessgen attacks the U.S. Constitution. It would help Guessgen more if he recalled the German constitution, and stopped making appeals to a "set of values," which has only been ratified by the U.N., Stern, and the NYT.

Please continue this discussion with Guessgen. It is fascinating.

[Phil Nunemacher]

@kcom. "By all means, Germany, send your people over on exchanges. In my personal experience the most likely outcome is not that they'll change us but that we'll change them and they won't want to go back. I have plenty of German acquaintances here who came for a trip or a short-term job 10 or 20 or 30 years ago and never went home."

It's not surprising really. Germans have been emigrating to North America since the early 18th Century. My own paternal ancestors arrived in the 1750's and my maternal ancestors in the 1840's.

I have a theory that this massive emigration, along with massive war casualties since the 17th Century, has had a serious effect on the culture of the "fatherland". Perhaps this helps to explain the current state of affairs that modern day Germany finds itself in today.

[grlzjustwant2havefun]

Re: Death Penalty

Florian Guessgen might want to read a research paper by Cass Sunstein, no conservative he.

Read the pertinent part on the web because of Tookie's brouhaha.

Mr. Sunstein stated that societies have a MORAL obligation to the death penalty to protect their citizens since for every murderer put to death, it saves 18 citizens.

--"With this argument Ray D. actually weakens my critique of the government of George W. Bush.--

No, Mr. Guessen, facts do. And I think Britain's citizens, if they were allowed to vote might also bring back the death penalty.

--

What I would also like to know is how is arming Iran guarding Western principles?

Now if you're interested in gun ownership, may I suggest you read Investor's Business Daily's Saturday 12/30 editorial using statistics from 1996-ish to 2003?

Canada, Australia, Britain - anglosphere countries all instituted gun bans. US now has 35-ish states w/some form of concealed carry.

Care to guess which country's crime rate is down and which are up by quite a bit??????

[grlzjustwant2havefun]

--The Europeans famously tried to agree on a European set of values during the summer, but no one voted for the 315 page EU constitution. (By the way, wasn't this the most unreported story of 2005.)--

Is 1 of Mr. Guessen's Euro values "democracy?"

If so, what was his stance on not letting the great unwashed vote on whether or not to join the EUSSR?

[americanbychoice]

I have become so tired and nonplussed about the dribble of the leftist "media" injecting their personal opinions and touting them as news.
I don't want to read them any more.

If I wanted to listen to an Assshole, I would just go ahead and fart.
Much more satisfying. :)

[beimami]

Ray's post and many of the comments here are as usual eloquent, literate and well thought through; however, believe it or not, I think that Mr. Guessgen is being treated much more fairly than he deserves here.

I reject in principle the idea that Mr. Guessgen has any legitimate right whatsoever to criticize any policies of the U.S. government. The U.S. is a sovereign democratic state with a democratically elected government. As such, the domestic and foreign policies of the U.S. reflect the will of the people of the U.S. When Mr. Guessgen criticizes these actions in such hysterical and polemic terms, he implicitly rejects democracy. There is, as Ray so eloquently states, already a debate within the U.S. regarding all matters that Mr. Guessgen addresses. As such, Mr. Guessgen's criticism is nothing but hate mongering. Mr. Guessgen should turn his energies to the actions of his own government.

[Don]

Mr. Guessgen has a perfect right to criticize all he wants to. He doesn't have any right to be taken seriously by a thinking person. His argument appears to be that he and the German chattering classes don't agree with the actions of the US government therefore the US is 'destroying' the West.

I would make the counter argument that Germany has failed to shoulder it's proper share of the global security burden but wants to criticize and preside at 'war crime tribunals' on US soldiers. Hardly the actions of a friend and ally. Therefore Germany is helping to 'destroy' the West if any country is!

[grlzjustwant2havefun]

Niko, I picked that up from a couple of other sites.

Be my guest, explains what the brusselsprouts are trying to do in a nutshell.

After all, the "right" people (them) are now in place and it surely will work this time!

[Jake]

In a perverse way, Mr. Guessgen is probably right. But his timing is a bit off. The United States has already "destroyed the west" - by speeding past our European friends economically, militarily and in our general support of globalization. The result has been the rise of China, Russia, India and Brazil into the "globally connected" club. And unfortunately for the preening, second teir European elite, "old Europe" is now of little consequece on the world stage. (As John McCain said of France, "...she's kind of like an aging actress who has all the skills to star in the show, but doesn't quite have the face for it".)

So for the millions of newly empowered Russians, Chinese, Indians and Brazilians, I am certainly glad that the US has destroyed "the west". For now we can now move on to connecting the Middle East, Central Asia and ultimately Africa to the world of wealth. Europe can be what it wants, but please Mr. Guessgen, don't expect the perennial "teenager" (the US) to stand by and slam the door on those seeking a better life. The world is changing at breakneck speed, and we Americans want to be onboard the train, rather than standing on the platform as the carriages speed away.

[Doug]

@kcom -
I don't see how anything based on patently ridiculous assumptions can ever work.

I see you're not married.

@LCMPJ -
You're not the only one to draw the Star Trek conclusion (I've been reluctant to say it out loud, myself - people might start expecting me to speak Klingon), although I'd say the impression owes more to Roddenberry's expression of socialist ideals than from socialists actually drawing inspiration from it. IMO, being presented with a fictional picture of the ideals in action may bolster, not necessarily motivate, socialist leanings. Everything else is dead on, though, and the analogies are perfect. Unified world governance in, oh - say 200-300 years. Unless the internet stays as unfettered as I fear there's no chance it will - then halve my estimate.

@Phil N. -
Sounds like an interesting theory. Anything you'd care to flesh out a bit?

[FranzisM]

Interesting to see Florian Guesgen being criticised for his dedication to the letter of the law, as if the problem was not that his ideals are hollow but that he believes in ideals in the first place. I have only seen his double standards and his emitional conflict in which America serves as a prop, but ideals? Never exclude that there may be some, and if there are they are the last thing to be discarded in the ashheap of his snobbery.

This attitude may be because his ideals are the source of his strength, and that is where an opponent is best attacked, but you do not want to kill him like a computer program, do you? Such a line of attack is all the more astounding as in this posting Jeffrey Gedmin also argues in favor of ideals, presumably because he is aware that a lack thereof maybe displayed as a thought experiment by some of his compatriots. Who of you wants to be advocatus diaboli reloaded? ;-)

As for the offtopic discussion on the Startrek, this trojan program can make you see Nazis in places where there aren't any. Not for kids. But I wonder what American science fiction should have to do with the European thinker who found out how to ground our ideals in reality. Maybe somebody drank too much Moselwein and confused him with the American comedian brothers?

[Phil Nunemacher]

@Doug

OK, I'll expand on my theory but not here as it really doesn't fit. Give me a day and I'll post it on my own infrequently used blog at
http://muttersandmusing.blogspot.com/

[ErikEisel]

@ beimami : Every MSM journalist who interacts with Davids Medienkritik should be treated fairly. We should welcome any dialogue. It helps us to see where both sides stand. Guessgen's lengthy article shows exactly where he stands on important issues like Iraq, Isreal, death penalty and Anglo-American capitalism.

Every word he writes does us a big favor.

[Cousin Dave]

I'll re-state what I said in the original thread: America can't possibly be destroying the West because it has already been destroyed, years ago. It was destroyed when Europe left the building and locked the door behind it.

Niko, your "EUSSR" moniker may be more apt then you realize. This week, I'm noticing that, in the reporting of the Russian gas brouhaha, the countries that have sweetheart deals for Russian gas are being described as "client states", and nobody is batting an eye at that. If I'm not mistaken, "client state" is the exact language that the Warsaw Pact used. More evidence that a sort-of revival of the Soviet Union is in the works. Fortunately, it will probably turn out to be a poseur, with little capability to back up its purple prose with action. However, one aspect is interesting: it is entirely possible that Putin will achieve something that Lenin, Stalin, and Kruschev at their most powerful never did -- a meausre of direct control over western Europe.

[kcom]

@kcom - "I don't see how anything based on patently ridiculous assumptions can ever work."

I see you're not married.

I must bow to your wisdom, Doug. I am, it is true, not married. Good call. There are apparently some mysteries that I have yet to put my arms around.

kcom

[joe]

Just when did the West become the West?

1949?

[Don]

Franzism,

You write about Florian Guesgen being criticized for his 'ideals' - his devotion to the letter of international law. Being unable to read the original article in German I cannot judge the sincerity of the man personally. Perhaps Herr Guesgen is the exception and his devotion to ideals more than skin deep.

But since the fall of the Berlin Wall I have seen a crack appear in the relationship between Germany and the US. The fact is that we don't need each other any more. Germany doesn't fear the USSR army and doesn't need the security gaurantees of NATO. The US doesn't need German help in facing down the Russian Army.

So the relationship is more voluntary for both sides. The Germans responded by demanding that the US become much more 'German' in outlook and action. The US must become much more collegial in behavior and consult the EU in everything, just as a good European country would do. If we do not that means the US is choosing to do evil, and therefore the US is breaking the 'West'.

No. The 'West' was an artificial creation of the Cold War, and now that the Cold War is finished the interests of the two are diverging. If more Germans troubled themselves to live and work in the US (particularly outside the large coastal cities in the US) this would be better understood in Germany. Insisting that the US apply German standards and methods to the US economy and to American security would be suicidal - for the US.

Increasingly 'idealists' like Herr Guesgen are insisting upon precisely this from the US. Sorry. The US won't commit suicide - even to salve Herr Guesgen's ideals.

[FranzisM]

@Don - The cold war West is long gone, but Ukraine needs the security of NATO and in a wider sense the EU also does. I think of the West not as a culture, but as a family of cultures that may share rather little besides their universal ideals. It is one of the greatest strengths of the West that its enemies expect it to be a culture, and when they see it is not they get stuck in their own haughtiness. Rightly so, in my eyes Americans who want to be more European than the Europeans without becoming one of us are a nuisance. The best way to identify them is to let them talk about the Old West, then they're always coming up with their own stories rather than with these from the capitalist side before the reunification.

[Cousin Dave]

@Niko: "Ok, maybe I watch too many b/w flicks."

That's OK; I like your analogy. When you think about it, the whole thing does have an element of farce, much ado about nothing. The one thing that bothers me about Russia is, and I'll explain it in terms of your analogy: Russia is like an aging gunslinger who was hot stuff in his youth, but is now blind in one eye and has cataracts in the other eye. But he still thinks he's a good shot. So whenever he's around, people look for a piece of furniture to duck behind, just in case.

[joe]

Franz,

I thought we had agreed before that the EUDF was going to provide the security for the EU. This is what the members of the chocolate summit lead by Germany want.

The mission of NATO had been accomplished.

Given the level of spending on defense either for the EUDF or NATO by such nations as Germany, there can be no real threat.

So as a US taxpayer, I am more than prepared to set you free... Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Free at last.

Besides what could be a better way for the US to support the EU than to encourage a Europe independent of the US. I think that is what most euros want.

[FranzisM]

@joe - I can't remember having agreed with such a theory. EUDF is not a realistic project that could guarantee a future for Europe, but a paper tiger to bluff the diplomatic community of the EU into the delusion we could actually put the continued existence of NATO at risk without having to bear existential consequences. If it was clear that existentialism is outsourced to NATO, then the EU could look at the transatlantic relationship in a much more realistic manner.

You're right, there still are some NATO troops in Europe which have their mission accomplished. But today most of the times when NATO defends Europe it does so by dealing with threats across the world before they come here. The US strategy is to fight the terrorists abroad to decrease the risk in their own country, but as a result it decreases the risk everywhere else too.

[joe]

Franz,

Now I am really confused about the EUDF.

Here I thought it was a key concept, developed and pushed by members of the chocolate summit to free Europe, the EU, Germany, france and etc from not being allowed to take their place on the world stage as a force to be reckoned with and to project European positions and values.

Nowhere in this was there a discussion if this was realistic, viable, wise or would in fact accomplish the desires of the EU. It has all the appearances of another Kyoto. Sounds good, makes you feel good, Do it

As for out of sector current NATO missions, there are two, KFOR and Afghanistan. If you want to count the naval operations in the Mediterranean, then there are three.

These are peacekeeping missions not peace making missions. It will be interesting to see if NATO, without the US and UK, can if necessary conduct combat operations in a peace making role in Afghanistan.

Only a minority of nations which make up the EU can actually see the existentialism you refer to. It is therefore a possibility the EUDF will actually become a reality replacing NATO. This would mean an end to the US’s commitment to Europe.

I have no objections to NATO continuing as an organization. I do object to the US continuing to be a member of NATO.

One can only hope Old Martin will one day announce the end of NATO as we know it.

[Don]

FranzisM,

"The cold war West is long gone, but Ukraine needs the security of NATO and in a wider sense the EU also does."

You lay your hand on the paradox. Ukraine needs and values NATO, as do Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic.

But the publics of the 'old' EU countries (particularly Germany and France) don't. The threat is not to them. This has led to the US being treated with a rising wave of contempt by most of 'safe' Europe. The contempt has been noticed by us 'stupid' Americans - very much so.

The EU may 'need' NATO (and therefore the US) in some deep existential sense. But the majority of the EU does not value the US participation in NATO enough to treat the US with any respect at all. Nor has 'old' EU participated in any significant way in the US defense on the war which began on 9/11 - other than to try to undermine everything the US is doing.

NATO is no longer an alliance - it is an ex-alliance waiting to dissolve.

Re: Guesgen: I've noticed that the 'idealism' of most European commentators begins and ends with the US. The slightest percieved fault in American conduct is met with universal condemnation. They are are either utterly blithe about open attack upon the US supported by Saudi Arabia and Saddam Hussein, or pay mere lip service to the notion this might be bad, before returning to the main argument. Which is that the US cannot lift a finger to defend itself because it is not 'pure'.

[FranzisM]

@joe - No reason for confusion, the EUDF/Kyoto comparison gets to the bottom of it. It's just like the FMA.

As for NATO, it seems that your understanding seems to be rooted more in the Truman doctrine than in the Reagan philosophy. Is NATO one of several oversea garrisons containing an enemy territory on the grand chessboard, or is it the forum of the free world in opposition to the tyrannies?

I cannot imagine a scenario of an US pullout from NATO that would be unrelated to a parallel pullout from IAEA and the United Nations. It also seems as if the most likely scenario for the end of NATO was not an announcement from a German government spokesperson, but a replay of the Durban Conference that would only leave the choice between appeasement and pullout.

I do not know whether the Islamic confederacy in the United Nations (OIC) will manage it to build an anti-American platform which could pull post-Schröder Germany on its side, but for me the probability of this scenario has already decreased in the recent months and may further decrease if NATO goes successfully through its Reagan reload.

In my opinion there is no reason why e.g. the Marshall Islands should not be a NATO member, but the EU should require Turkey to make a choice between NATO and OIC because a continued double membership in both blocs would be an illogical impossibility. If Old Martin comes out with such an announcement it may be that the end of the NATO you know is the end of NATO.

[FranzisM]

@Don - That Europe does not feel threatened does not mean we would be safe. But instead of burning down the imagination of safety that serves as the source of the emissions of anti-Americanism I favor teasing and tickling it into focusing on itself rather than on distiction from an outside scapgoat. Let Florian Guessgen preach penance to the choir and Susanne Osthoff play the German Cindy Sheehan until she is featured by the Augsburger Puppenkiste, there are better things to do, such as making Europe as safe as most of us think it already was.

[FranzisM]

@joe - But it may also be that it is not. What seems to be more probable at this point.

[Don]

FranzisM,

"That Europe does not feel threatened does not mean we would be safe."

The problem with preserving NATO is that there are two parties to the argreement (counting the EU as a single party). This is too simplistic I know, because within the EU the interests of Poland stand at sharp contrast to those of France, for an example. But for the sake of argument accept my premise for now.

So we have two parties, the EU and the US. NATO as it currently stands is very much in the interest of the EU. I fail to see nearly the same benefit to the US under the current NATO arrangements. Consider the last two wars NATO has been involved in, the Kosovo war and Iraq/Afghanistan. The US did not have a compelling reason nationally for fighting Serbia and helping to solve the problem. The sole US interest in Kosovo was as the head of the NATO alliance. Eventually the NATO arguments won out and drew the US into the Balkans as the Europeans needed. Though certainly there was no unanimity of opinion in Europe for this, so the Clinton administration was heavily criticized in Europe for the way it prosecuted the war, despite intervening against strong public opposition within the US. There was little gratitude within the EU for the US or Clinton for taking on this thankless task.

In 2001 Afghanistan/Iraq began because of the events of 9/11. Again the EU nations dissented - and basically refused to take part. They even obstructed the US national defense wherever they could - at least publically. I understand that the war wasn't in EU interests - much as Kosovo wasn't in US interests to fight. But one ally fought anyway (the US in Kosovo) - the other did not (the EU in Iraq).

This is not how an alliance works. At best the US army in NATO is being used as unpaid mercenaries - and the US gets the same respect that mercenaries get everywhere - none. At least 35% of the US population utterly opposes this, possibly more.

My conclusion is that the next time a security crisis important to the EU countries comes up there is probably only one EU country who can make a persuasive argument for the US to participate. The UK. And that may not be enough, because the UK is a long way from the potential hot spots and may not be interested. If that happens then the US will probably do what the EU did for Iraq - not participate. We probably won't veto in the UN or any of that - we'll just let you pacifists solve your own problems.

The US owes Germany and France precisely nothing after the events post 9/11. Better get working on making that trans-EU force a reality rather than a blind.....

[FranzisM]

@Don - The Kosovo war was very strange. There were no blogs back then, and while Americans saw Milosevic as an European Mini-Putin, Schröder and Fischer fed Germany with propaganda that he was the new Hitler, so we were historically obliged to help America. I didn't know anything about Al Qaeda and Hisballah and their Balkan jihad back then, but NATO was led by the always controversial Javier Solana and Wesley Clark gave a fuck about cognitive dissonance. Today, the Balkan is a quagmire still further away from democracy than Iraq.

Three years after Kosovo the same UN bureaucrats who said that Racak was a massacre and Milosevic belonged to the Hague were standing ready to go to Jenin and called for the trial of Ariel Sharon (may God help him to get well soon!). The Hitlerification of German foreign policy that became visible post-9/11 has its origin in the Kosovo war, but President Bushs conduct of the war these days is quite far away from President Clintons "fire and forget" doctrine. Said cognitive dissonance reached its peak with the liberation of Iraq, since then the European street is cooling down.

I think that the primary benefit of NATO globalisation for the US would be the security of Israel. Europe can either remain a part of the West or it can fall to Islam, but I cannot imagine a scenario in which Israel would be safe after Europe was given up. President Bushs statement that a free and secure Israel is in the national interest of the US requires to center a whole worldview around it, such as President Trumans commitment to Berlin. And yes, there is a way to finance this without milking the US taxpayer only.

[Don]

FranzisM,

As I recall the history of the Balkans war was that the EU basically told the US to stay out, the EU and the UN would handle the problem through negogiation, peacekeepers, etc. Clinton was happy to do this because the Balkans weren't really US business.

Unfortunately it didn't work. There were massacres, though not on the scale of the Holocaust or what was happening in Iraq.

"so we were historically obliged to help America"

'We' meaning Germany, I guess. From my POV, the US was 'helping out' Germany, not the other way around. It was Germany's fight far more than the US's fight - but Germany and the EU were incapable of exercising the military power necessary. So it was necessary for the US (and the UK) to do the bulk of the actual fighting over Kosovo. Germany ought to have been the lead country in that war, not the US, but could not because Germany and the EU choose not to build an effective military force.

My point is that the German response to Iraq changes everything. The US has no reasons to fight on Germany's behalf any more. Not after Germany's actions on the Iraq war - and preceding it in Kosovo.

The security of Israel? Israel HAS no security! The US HAS no security - that was the primary lesson of 9/11! Let's face hard facts like little men - Iran is going to get the atomic bomb. All the efforts of the EU and UN diplomats to stop Iran will come to nothing - because they aren't prepared to do anything but talk about it.

Within 5 years Israel's existence will depend on whatever nut leads Iran. Israel won't go down easily, but it will be retaliation, not security. And don't expect that retaliation to limit itself to Iran. I can easily see the Israeli's hitting Damascus, Cairo, and Mecca as well as Qum and Tehran. Maybe even Bahrain and Dubai.

[FranzisM]

@Don - We recall this piece of history differently because the then European elites lied not only to Europe but also to America. From what I know today, since the Salman Rushdie fatwa claimed Islamic jurisdiction over Europe and terrorists started flowing in, virtually everything that could be done wrong has been done wrong in the Balkans. But who in the Europe of 1989 was able to stand up and reclaim sovereignty against Khomeini, while at the same time honestly come out to the world with our new pacifism? As a result, the Kosovo war was presented in such a deliberately ambiguous manner that allowed each side to believe the initiative had come from the other side, just like the Marshall Plan.

The good thing about the Iraq war rift is that it ended the historical cycle that had begun with the Marshall Plan. Afghanistan could still be explained by Schröder and Fischer in the same way as Kosovo, but with Iraq there suddenly was a war they couldn't agree with because the removal of that tyrant would deal a blow not only to their geopolitics but also to their power over Europe. On the other hand, they could not reject a war or participation therein without coming out with the pacifism that they for so long had concealed from the world to exploit the last remnants of the Marshall Plan diplomacy.

There is something from the cold war that will never be over. The geographical separation of the East and the West of Germany was temporary, but the separation between national politics and geopolitics that the cold war has left in our heads is permanent. To make not only an argument for a just war but also actively fight that just war, a country would have to be able to think these two together at the same time. The end of an era of the dimension of the Marshall Plan requires to give the other side a fresh benefit of the doubt, so regarding the Iraq war the most honest position for the German government would have been to remind the Baathist outgrowth of the Nazi party of its place in history.

I mentioned the security of Israel not because it was the status quo but because it is an important goal to be achieved, and I believe NATO globalisation can achieve that goal. It can help push forward the IAEA to ensure that the establishment of the planned WMD-free zone around Israel does indeed begin with the rogue regimes rather than with Israel itself. And it can attempt to push the Iran case trough the Russian-Chinese blockade so that the UN Security Council can outlaw the Wilayat al-Faqih system that makes Iran a threat.

IMHO, the next step in the case of Iran should be to take their bargaining chip away.