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Let Them Hate as Long as They Fear
(Paul Krugman, New York Times, March 7, 2003)
Why does our president condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this administration is fostering, including among its most senior officials? Has 'oderint dum metuant' really become our motto?" So reads the resignation letter of John Brady Kiesling, a career diplomat who recently left the Foreign Service in protest against Bush administration policy. . . . "Oderint dum metuant" translates, roughly, as "let them hate as long as they fear." It was a favorite saying of the emperor [Little Boots] Caligula, and may seem over the top as a description of current U.S. policy. But this week's crisis in U.S.-Mexican relations � a crisis that has been almost ignored north of the border � suggests that it is a perfect description of George [Little Bush] Bush's attitude toward the world. . . . Mr. Bush then said that if Mexico or other countries oppose the United States, "there will be a certain sense of discipline." . . . These remarks went virtually unreported by the ever-protective U.S. media, but they created a political firestorm in Mexico. The White House has been frantically backpedaling, claiming that when Mr. Bush talked of "discipline" he wasn't making a threat. But in the context of the rest of the interview, it's clear that he was. . . . Mr. Bush was disingenuous when he described the backlash against the French as "not stirred up by anybody except the people." On the same day that the report of his interview appeared, The Financial Times carried the headline, "Hastert Orchestrates Tirade Against the French." That's Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House of Representatives. In fact, anti-French feeling has been carefully fomented by Republican officials, Rupert Murdoch's media empire and other administration allies. . . . But my most intense reaction to this story isn't anger over the administration's stupidity and irresponsibility, or even dismay over the casual destruction of hard-won friendships. No, when I read an interview in which the U.S. president sounds for all the world like a B-movie villain � "You have relatives in Texas, yes?" � what I feel, above all, is shame.

posted by LoZo 12:06 PM