Freedom only for the members of the government, only for the members of the Party — though they are quite numerous — is no freedom at all. Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters. The essence of political freedom depends not on the fanatics of ‘justice’, but rather on all the invigorating, beneficial, and detergent effects of dissenters. If ‘freedom’ becomes ‘privilege’, the workings of political freedom are broken.

In 2012, speaking of Clear Channel Communications, which provides a variety of programs, including the Rush Limbaugh show, to the Armed Forces Network, Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said,

I would hope the people that run it see just how offensive this is and drop it on their own volition.  I think that is probably an issue that should be left to the folks that run that network. … In other words, I’d love to see them drop it, but I don’t think I’d legislate it.

Gee, thanks Carl!  No doubt tears of gratitude should be running down our cheeks.  If you’ve ever wondered what kind of “progress” people are talking about in the context of “progressive” politicians like Levin, now you know.  When it comes to realizing that there’s no such thing as freedom of speech unless it applies to people who don’t think just like him, Levin doesn’t have a clue .  It was obvious enough almost 100 years ago, and to a Marxist, no less, but apparently Levin is a slow learner.

And what of Limbaugh?  The Left, in one of their signature fits of contrived virtuous indignation, is trying to silence him for a remark about a woman that pales to utter insignificance in comparison to the misogynistic bile their own paladins have poured on conservative women.  Why does it matter?  Because, whether you like his politics or not, Limbaugh has probably done more for genuine freedom of speech than anyone else in this country since H. L. Mencken resigned as editor of the American Mercury.  Before Limbaugh came along, individuals could say pretty much whatever they wanted.  However, the mainstream media had a virtual monopoly on what a Marxist like Luxemburg might call the “social means of communication.”  In other words, they controlled the “voices” that could actually be heard by a significant audience, and they saw to it that the ideological message that voice promoted had a relentless slant to the left.  Limbaugh was the first to succeed in making a genuine crack in that monopoly.  His lead was followed by numerous other conservative talk show hosts, and, eventually, Foxnews.

The country is better off for it.  Thanks to Limbaugh and others like him, freedom of speech really means something in this country.  Compare our situation with that of any major country in Europe, and you’ll begin to understand why there’s reason to be grateful.  Consider Germany, for example.  I happen to follow the media there rather closely.  They have big media on the “right,” like the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and big media on the “left,” like Der Spiegel, but they have nothing like Limbaugh or Foxnews.  As a result, the message as far as anything that really matters is concerned is surprisingly uniform.

For example, anti-Americanism in the media there expands and subsides, much as it does in other European countries.  During the most recent extreme, from about the last few years of the Clinton Administration through the first few years of the Bush Administration, anti-American hate reached truly astounding levels.  Occasionally, it was hard to find any German news on Der Spiegel’s website because the available space was all taken up with ranting diatribes against the evil Americans.   It didn’t matter whether you read Der Spiegel, or boulevard mags like Stern, or wannabees like Focus, or the FAZ on the moderate right, or the Deutsche National Zeitung on the brown-shirted fringe, or even if you only watched the news on TV.  The relentless, mindless anti-American bile was everywhere.

To their credit, a good number of Germans tried to push back.  Unfortunately, the only “voice” they had was a few little blogs.  So it is with most major ideological issues.  There are nuances and differences in tone between the “left” and the “right,” but the overall message is surprisingly uniform, particularly in the broadcast media.  Limbaugh put an end to that in this country.  When there is a slant to the news, it is immediately called out and recognized as such by loud and strong voices, regardless of whether it happens to be to the left or the right.  Hack politicians like Levin have always found that kind of genuine freedom uncomfortable.

One could cite many examples of the allergic reaction of the old media in Europe to the possibility that anyone who doesn’t “think right” might be heard by a significant audience.  The recent vicious “legal” persecution of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands comes to mind.  In the UK, the old media used their political water boys to resist erosion of their control of the message by Fox News, and Iranian Press TV was banned for “breaching the broadcasting code.”  They cheered loudly when the government went to the extreme of banning 16 people with some semblance of a public voice, including US radio talk show host Michael Savage, from entering the country.  If nothing else, Savage would have been a useful anodyne against the BBC’s relentless slanting of the news against Israel.  The UK once allowed pacifists a voice in her public media even as her troops were being evacuated from Dunkirk and she fought on alone against Hitler.  Obviously, times have changed.

In a word, be happy if Rush Limbaugh really irritates you.  If you can still hear him it means there’s still some semblance of freedom of speech in this country.

The phenomenon is hardly a novelty. As I noted in a recent post about George Orwell, he often referred to instances of it in his essays, stretching over a period from the early 20′s to the late 40′s, and unabated even during some of the darkest days of World War II when, by all accounts, we were supposedly allies. It actually goes back much further than that. In fact, I recently found some amusing examples in a copy of the British Quarterly Review, the great organ of the Tories in the first half of the nineteenth century, dating back to April, 1822. There, in a review of several books about our country that had recently made their appearance entitled, “Views, Visits, and Tours in North America,” we find ourselves described as a vulgar and inconsiderable tribe engaged mainly in the mutual gouging out of eyes and taking of potshots at each other. For example, one of the authors recounts several anecdotes about the “rough tumblers” he ran into in Pennsylvania:

…he was told of another who had been so milled in a rough and tumble, that a compassionate bystander said to him, ‘you have come badly off this time, I guess.’ ‘Have I,” replied the fellow with a triumphant grin, ‘what do you think of this?’ holding up an eye which he had just taken out of his pocket.’

Potential emigrants are advised to avoid the “pestilential vapors that hover over the thick savannas of the American wilds.” By way of example, one of the books describes a party of disappointed pilgrims, on their way back from the new state of Illinois:

These poor people informed him that they had purchased a large tract of land in the state of Illinois, and settled upon it the preceding summer, since which period they had lost eight of their number by dysentery, fever and ague; and the remainder had determined to quite the pruchase, and return with the loss of all their time and nearly all their money.

I trust that at least a few of the brave souls who risked their fortunes in Illinois had better luck. The author of another of the books recounts a similar tale of woe:

In addition to the misery of travelling in an old carriage, ‘with springs of hickory-wood, and horses fitter for the currier than for harness,’ he meets with rattle-snakes, and alligators, and dead carcasses, and putrid smells; butcher’s meat not fit for any creature but a dog; cows that give only a quart of milk a day, and, worst of all, with dreadful agues and fevers which carry off a great part of the population.

In summing up the tale of all these torments and miseries, the reviewer reflects sadly on the folly of those who would leave their happy home,

…to replunge into that state of savage life from which we happily escaped so many centuries ago; – to forego all the comforts and all the blessings of civilization; to be set down for life in the midst of a lonely and pestilential wilderness, surrounded with disease and death; – to be devoured by fleas and bugs, and mosquitoes within doors, and to live in the constant dread of snakes, scorpions, and scolopendras without…

etc., etc. I rather suspect that some of the British coal miners in the Manchester of that day had a rather less charitable view of “all the comforts and all the blessings of civilization” to be found in the England of the time. But as for us poor Americans, alas, we had not even the solace of a respectable religion in these miserable surroundings. One of the authors describes a “representative congregation” of our countrymen as,

…an ignorant, vulgar and fanatical horde, who, under the name of Shakers, have established themselves at a town named Union, not far from Cincinnati. This sect originated with a woman of the name of Ann Lee, of Manchester, who having, with her associates, committed various offences against public decorum, was glad to take refuge in America. The essentials of the creed are nearly allied to blasphemy; and the admission to the holy state of matrimony is so opposite to any thing like decency, that none but the filthiest pen could prostitute itself in detailing it.

In fine, then, the reviewer can foretell no great future for our country;

…in vain should we look for the arts, the elegances, the refinements, and general intelligence of this country (England) among so heterogeneous a population as that of the United States, where, with the exception of a few cities and towns on the shores of the Atlantic, the inhabitants of which are mostly engaged in trade, a great part of the population is perpetually on the wing, confined to no fixed home, and changing their occupations with their places of abode. Among a people thus circumstanced, the refinements of intellectual and polished society are not to be found or expected; and whether they ever will exist under the present form of government is a point on which our opinion is not called for; …but we have very little hesitation in repeating a conviction we have long felt, that as population becomes more dense in the Western States the present republican form of government will be found inadequate, and that Old and New America will necessarily become at least two, if not more, distinct and rival nations; the result of which would, in all probablility, be advantageous to both or all of them.

Thus the wishful thinking of an old English Tory. I should say we did rather better than he expected. Readers of this blog will recognize European anti-Americanism, both antediluvian and modern, as a sadly predictable manifestation of what Robert Ardrey referred to as the Amity/Enmity Complex, that aspect of human nature that we so love to ignore in spite of the mayhem, slaughter and warfare that have played such a constant and pervasive role in human history and of which it has been the prime mover. One can but speculate on why we Americans have never been so quick to identify the Europeans as an outgroup and return all this spite and hatred in kind. We certainly have had no lack of hatreds and animosities of our own in the meantime. Perhaps we can just be more easily imagined as a single, distinct entity upon which to foist all the stigmata of evil.

Whatever the target, though, it is in our nature to perceive an outgroup for every ingroup, and an evil for every good. As the horrific events of the twentieth century amply demonstrated, that tendency of ours is becoming a greater existential threat to our species with every advance in the technology of destruction. We would do well to stop ignoring it and at least try to find ways to minimize its destructiveness. Our survival may depend on it.

In this case, the headline blames the entire Republican Party for the pic:  “Republicans Portray Obama as Zombie with a Head Wound.”  Those patient enough to glance at the byline discover the news is rather less sensational.  Only the Republicans in the State of Virginia are to blame:  “Republicans in the US State of Virginia issued an invitation portraying Barack Obama as a zombie with a head wound.”  But wait, there’s more!  Those curious enough to actually read the article find that only the Republicans in a single one of the thousands of US counties are to blame:  “In the race for the White House, the Republicans of Loudoun County in the US State of Virginia seem to have overshot the target.”  The article never does quite get to the real truth:  that the zombie portrayal was the bright idea of a single imbecile, who has since resigned after being denounced by the rest of the Republicans in the Loudoun County Committee.

No matter, the editors shake their heads sadly over the regrettable affair, noting that it has,

…inspired great outrage. “Repulsive” and “disgusting” are only a few of the comments about the picture of the President.

They should know.  They’re experienced in such matters.  Here’s a portrayal of another US President that appeared on the cover of Der Spiegel a few years back.

Merkel’s Joy Outrages Critics  (The usual cheap shots from the pathologically pious against the German Chancellor for daring to approve of the raid.)

How a Judge wants to Bring Merkel to her Senses (A terminally self-righteous Hamburg judge wants to sue Merkel for “approving of an illegal act.”)

Bin Laden, the Victor (Psychobabble deploring the fighting of “evil with evil.” Hand-wringing over an action described as, “an assault by 79 elite soldiers, who shot an unarmed old man, surrounded by women and children.)

Poll – Germans are not Happy about bin Laden’s Death  (no kidding?)

American Justice  (Oh my!  It seems there are some questions about whether the operation was justified under international law.)

Schadenfreude over bin Laden’s Death is Unworthy  (A particularly nauseating display of ostentatious self-righteousness by a “theology professor.”)

…and so on, and so on.  All this isn’t a purely German phenomenon, of course.  Other bloggers have noted the pervasive grief in the rest of Europe over bin Laden’s demise.  Seen from a purely psychological perspective, it’s encouraging.  Apparently the Europeans still perceive us as “King of the Hill.”  After all, they would hardly have worked themselves into such a lather if Gautemala had succeeded in bumping off its public enemy number one.  It may be that China’s turn is coming, but they’re not there yet.

Fast forward to the next President.  The winds of insurrection are blowing in the Middle East and North Africa.  In Libya, however, the revolutionary wave has been checked, at least for the time being, by the stubborn refusal of Muammar Qaddafi to play his assigned role and bow out gracefully.    Meanwhile, the U.S. President seems in no hurry to take any “unilateral action,” and seems to have a distinct aversion for any action more forceful than declaring that Qaddafi’s bloody massacres of his own people are “unacceptable.”  Oddly enough, Der Spiegel seems to have changed its tune.  According to the headline of an interview with delegate to the European parliament Martin Schulz, the “opportunism (Taktiererei) of the European states is a scandal.”  Schulz thinks that “a military intervention in Libya may be considered as a last resort.”  Spiegel has a long history of expressing its editorial opinion via such “expert” mouthpieces.  It would seem the Schulz interview is no exception.  For example, according to the bolded opening paragraph of another article under the headline, “Qaddafi’s Counteroffensive puts the West under Pressure,” we read,

Intervene or watch and wait? After ever more violent battles, Libya threatens to sink into civil war, and with it into chaos. There is increasing pressure to intervene, and it is falling above all on western states. Meanwhile, Germany, the EU, and the USA are standing idly by.

All this sounds harmless enough by US standards.  For the German media, though, it’s positively jingoist.  In the past, their MO has always been to wait until we actually do take action, then print a stream of articles about civilian casualties, bombings of hospitals and old folks homes, allusions to Vietnam and “quagmires,” the selfish motives of the U.S and its evil corporations which, in this case as in Iraq, would undoubtedly be oil, etc., etc.  But Obama isn’t playing along.  By all appearances, it’s starting to get under their skin.  A byline of the above article refers to the U.S. as the “Helpless World Power #1.”   The U.S. military is portrayed as “skeptical” about intervention, and “playing for time” to avoid it.  Pentagon spokesman is using the excuse of Libyan air defenses “more effective than those of the Iraqis in 2003,” to explain this “stalling.”  In a word, Der Spiegel is positively egging us on to send in the cavalry.

Somehow, I have a sneaking suspicion that the German media, along with the rest of that of “old Europe,” would turn on us with a vengeance as soon as the first boot of the first U.S. GI touched Libyan soil.  I have a better idea.  Let’s just stay out of it.  Give peace a chance!  If the Europeans are so worried about the fate of the Libyan people, I’m all in favor of letting them have a go at saving them, but without our assistance.  There are occasions when I feel positively comforted by the fact that Barack Obama, and not John McCain, is our President.  This is one of them.

Lately, the trend has again been upwards, but with an interesting twist.  The US has acquired a co-bad guy:  China.  The citizens of the Middle Kingdom should be proud.  German hate is a testimony to China’s newly acquired power and status.  She recently co-starred with the US in a Spiegel rant about our “sins” at the Copenhagen climate conference.  It seems that, based on a careful parsing of the latest Wikileaks material, the US and China formed a “pact” to de-rail the conference, no doubt as part of their greater conspiracy to destroy the earth’s climate and eradicate mankind.  According to the byline of a Spiegel article charmingly titled, “USA and China were Brothers-in-Arms Against Europe,”

It was a political catastrophe – it’s now clear how last year’s Copenhagen climate summit became such a spectacular failure. The recently revealed US State Department documents betray the fact that the USA and China were working hand in hand. The two biggest climate sinners derailed all the plans of the Europeans.

The article is full of dark hints about the “revelations” in the Wikileaks documents.  For example,

It was a visit that China’s rulers could be pleased about. Towards the end of May 2009, John Kerry, the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had met with Vice-Premier Li Keqiang in Peking. Kerry told him that Washington “could understand China’s reluctance to accept binding goals at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen. And then, according to a dispatch of the US embassy in Peking, the American sketched a new basis for a meaningful cooperation between the US and China against climate change.

and,

The US diplomatic papers now document how close the contacts between the two biggest climate sinners in the world, the USA and China, were in the months before (the conference). They give weight to those voices that have long speculated about an alleged coalition between the old and new superpower.

As anyone who takes an interest in climate negotiations will have noticed, all of this and, for that matter, the rest of the “revelations” in the article are old hat.  All of it was copiously reported at the time, for example, here, here, and here.  Read through these articles and you’ll notice that, at the time, Kerry was referring to his visit as another potential “Nixon to China visit,” and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who also visited China at the time, hailed the climate change negotiations as a potential “game changer” in US China relations.  Under the circumstances, it’s rather difficult to understand how Der Spiegel’s astute editors could have been “shocked, shocked,” to discover the “closeness” of the discussions between the US and China only after they had waded through the Wikileaks papers. 

The article continues with some pious remarks about the virtue of the Europeans compared to the sinfulness of the Europeans in matters of climate.  Under the byline, “The USA and China can continue to blow smoke,” we read,

Because the US signed the (Kyoto Protocol), but never ratified it, China and America can continue to blow smoke. The Europeans, on the other hand, must reduce their use of energy. That’s why they fought for a new treaty in the days before Copenhagen: at the very least, the USA, China and the other “threshold countries,” India and Brazil, should agree to firm goals for reducing (energy use).

Good Christians will be reminded of Luke 18; 11-12,

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

As for my Chinese readers of a certain age, they will, no doubt, recognize a remarkable similarity between the Spiegel rants against their country and the slanders and innuendo in the dazibao (propaganda posters) that were so prominently visible during the heyday of the Great Cultural Revolution.  To them I can only say, if you really want to be a superpower, get used to it.

It turns out, by the way, that the German’s are even more hypocritical than the Pharisee.  At least he actually did give alms to the poor.  When it comes to concrete results in reducing greenhouse emissions, however, they are the ones blowing smoke.  In the years between 2000 and 2007, they reduced their emissions per capita by 5%.  The ”sinful” USA reduced its emissions by 5.5%.  Throw in the effect of reforestation (and it certainly should be thrown in, because it results in a real reduction in greenhouse gases) and the US reduction increases to 11%, bettering the German performance by better than a factor of two.  It would seem that the editors of Spiegel consider the striking of pious poses and signing of “worthless scraps of paper” of more importance in determining who is a “climate sinner” than actual performance.

And what really did happen at Copenhagen?  What became of the “close relationship” between the US and China that “remained hidden” from the blinkered eyes of German journalists until they were happily enlightened by Wikileaks?  Evidently they count on both the short memory of their readers, and their inability to use Google.  In fact, the US and China began quarreling about climate change before Copenhagen, their disagreements became worse at the conference, became even more strident as the conference continued, and, according to other European observers who apparently don’t share the sharp eye of Spiegel’s editors for uncovering secret conspiracies, eventually wrecked chances of reaching an agreement.

No matter as far as German editors are concerned.  When it comes to bashing their latest hate objects, the truth is of no concern.  If articles like this about Chinese women torturing animals, this, according to which China admits to being “climate sinner number 1,” and this, according to which China is “attacking” the West economically while its “paralyzed, weakened” victims look on are any indication, their latest hate object would be China.  Move over, USA, the new Yellow Peril has arrived.

Eventually a few German blogs began pushing back, and increasing numbers of Americans began to notice. The editors realized they couldn’t keep it up without losing “respectability,” even among other journalists. As a result, blatant anti-Americanism in Der Spiegel had become a shadow of its former self by the final years of the Bush Administration. Occasionally it still leaks out around the edges, though. Of course, racists love their stereotypes, and one of Der Spiegel’s all time favorites is that Americans are “prudish.” Trust me, we could all be screwing in the streets, and they would still describe us as “prudish.” Sure enough, the meme turned up again in an article about Masters and Johnson a few days ago. The byline reads, “The prudish Americans were once enlightened by sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson. A biography exposes the shocking life of the couple.”

Of course, the editors of Der Spiegel are nothing if not “professional.” They have a finely tuned sense of nuance, and realize that the level of scorn that Germans expect to find in “objective news” about anything foreign just wouldn’t do in pieces written for non-German audiences. A nice example of the sort of “nuance” I’m talking about turned up in a recent article about the victory of Christine O’Donnell in the Republican Senate primary in Delaware. Here’s the English version, and here’s the German.  The biggest “nuance” in the German version was (you guessed it), the care taken to feed German confirmation bias about “American prudishness.” It’s all about this crazy woman who has a hangup with masturbation.  According to the byline, “She once called masturbation a sin, and the fight against AIDS a waste of tax money.”  The first paragraph continues the meme, throwing in the “Americans are religious nuts” stereotype for good measure;

“According to the Bible, lust is the same thing as adultery. One can’t masturbate without experiencing lust.” Christine O’Donnell fixes her gaze on the camera. She patiently explains the world to the MTV moderator. “There is god-given sexual desire,” she says. However, sex outside of marriage is fundamentally wrong. It violates the sixth commandment.

As Spiegel’s sage German readers shake their heads about the poor, perverted American religious fanatics, they’re fed another helping of the same:

In 1997, Christine O’Donnell said that the government was spending too much money for fighting AIDS. That America was wasting a bundle on pornographic condoms. That cancer was an “Act of God,” but, on the other hand, AIDS was a punishment for individual behavior. That one could eradicate venereal disease within a generation if all Americans kept in mind their Christian values.

Moving right along, Spiegel keeps spanking the monkey:

Masturbation opponent O’Donnell could come up short in the election for Congress.

and

After winning the primary, she celebrated with as much gusto as she did in her 1996 anti-masturbation campaign.

Got that?  You didn’t miss that masturbation thing, did you?  Oddly enough, the English version only mentions the unmentionable sin once, and that merely as an afterthought;

The Tea Party movement has won a succession of Republican primaries, with its conservative, anti-establishment candidates. O’Donnell is known for her pro-gun, anti-abortion stance, as well as her belief that masturbation is a sin.

Apparently Spiegel wants to spare the sensitivities of its American readers, who will surely know that masturbation makes you blind and sterile.  Other than that, the English version is the soul of non-partisan objectivity.  For example, in the above, the Tea Party movement is “conservative.”  Later on we learn that it is a “grass roots” movement whose “popularity is widely attributed to dissatisfaction with US President Barack Obama and frustration with the lackluster US economy.”  The English version concludes with a selection of similarly bland comments about O’Donnell and the Tea Party movement that have appeared in the German media recently. 

The German version adds a little more “context” and “detail.”  In the opening section we learn that O’Donnell is not merely ”conservative,” but an ”arch-conservative,” and the Tea Party movement is an “arch-conservative group.”  Predictably, the editors throw in the “extremist” meme, familiar to readers of lefty blogs in the U.S.

In year one after the world economic crisis, there are poisonous political discussions in America about a political drift to the liberal left. The political camps are becoming polarized. Many would say: They are becoming radicalized.

If you happen to be planning a trip to Germany, you’re more than likely to learn firsthand that the home-brewed picture of Amerika that German’s are fed by their media is somewhat different from the “English version.”  Either wear Lederhosen and try to blend in, or brace yourself for the attentions of any number of earnest Teutons, who will eagerly do you the favor of explaining your own country to you.  As for the editors of Der Spiegel, don’t take it personally.  They’re just as “non-partisan” when they’re reporting about events in Germany.  No matter that the German economy is booming, unemployment is less than it was before the economic crisis began, and employers are having an increasingly difficult time finding skilled help.  They still bitch about Chancellor Angela Merkel as if she were, well, as if she were Barack Obama.  After all, she, too, is an “arch conservative.”

UPDATE:  Zombie at Pajamas Media (hattip Insty) has turned up some very interesting Christine O’Donnell/Jimmy Carter quotes.  Don’t look for them on Der Spiegel, though.  They don’t fit the narrative.

Multiculturalism is the acceptance or promotion of multiple ethnic cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g. schools, businesses, neighborhoods, cities or nations. In this context, multiculturalists advocate extending equitable status to distinct ethnic and religious groups without promoting any specific ethnic, religious, and/or cultural community values as central.

The editors of “Der Spiegel” have now apparently abandoned the multicultural paradigm, and have reverted to defining some cultures as “good” and others as “barbarous.” And who, you might ask, are the barbarians? Silly question! We are, of course. According to an article by Spiegel hatemonger-in-chief Marc Pitzke about the upcoming execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner for murder,

Double murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner is to be executed tonight in the state of Utah. He chose the method himself: death by firing squad. That is barbaric, but, in this case, completely legal – in spite of international protests.

One would thing the Germans, of all people, would have learned the dangers of cultural chauvinism. Be that as it may, it would seem that the term “barbarian” has now returned to their lexicon. According to the definition now current in the United States, “barbarous” means,

1. Primitive in culture and customs; uncivilized.
2. Lacking refinement or culture; coarse.

It would be edifying to learn what other cultures besides that of the United States are currently considered coarse and uncivilized.  Be that as it may, it is encouraging that the Germans have so far recovered from the unfortunate events of 65 years ago that they once again feel confident in asserting their cultural superiority.

Hitchens’ whining piece complaining about our “hostility” because our President dares to criticize a British company for unleashing the greatest environmental disaster in our history is a case in point. The author wears his paranoia on his sleeve. For example,

Americans may say they love our accents (I have been accused of sounding like Princess Di’) but the more thoughtful ones resent and rather dislike us as a nation and a people, as friends of mine have found out by being on the edge of conversations where Americans assumed no Englishmen were listening.

Perhaps it’s just that the “thoughtful” among my fellow countrymen have been hiding their opinions from me as well all these years, but I can honestly say that I can’t recall a single conversation in which the English were singled out for resentment and dislike, unless Hitchens is referring to George III. On the contrary, other than the occasional Irish Catholic with romantic notions about the IRA, Americans who pay any attention to the English at all tend to be Anglophiles.

Other than that, the article is filled with the usual bitching and moaning about America that we have long been accustomed to. There is one novelty that I haven’t seen elsewhere, perhaps because it is too far-fetched even for most Europeans. Quoting Hitchens,

It was American pressure that forced us out of the first rank of naval powers in the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, which led to our defeat at Singapore 20 years later.

I had to laugh out loud when I read that bit. It assumes the reader is completely ignorant of the relevant history. In the first place, the treaty didn’t force Britain “out of the first rank of naval powers.” It established a ratio of 5-5-3 in fighting ships among the treaty powers England, the United States, and Japan, respectively. The British and U.S. navies were the most powerful in the world at the time. How, then, did the treaty force Britain “out of the first rank of naval powers?” In fact, the Naval Treaty of 1922 was one of the greatest triumphs of common sense over fear and hysteria in the annals of international relations. It ended a nascent arms race and was of great benefit to all the signatories, and not least to the British. At the time the Conference was called, the pound sterling was at its lowest point, British citizens were paying crippling taxes, and England was facing another period of naval expansion they could ill afford, forced on them by the building programs of the United States and Japan.

They owed the United States a massive debt, and every penny they paid would have directly benefited our building program. On paper, at least, we had already passed Britain in naval strength, and our superiority was only likely to increase. Recall that when countries such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and even Denmark had challenged British sea power in the past, it had led to war with an England which felt her life menaced by rival naval powers. In fact, war with the United States was seriously contemplated at the time by many Englishmen as the only alternative to a ruined England and a disintegrated Empire.

In the upshot, the British delegates were delighted by the agreement, as well they should have been. A crippling arms race was avoided, and taxes were lowered. The treaty was of such obvious advantage to England that the prevailing sentiment in the US media was that we had been hoodwinked. They had good reason to feel that way. In 1920 the United States already had an advantage over England in tonnage of capital ships of 1,117, 850 to 808,200. Our advantage in battle guns was 340 to 284. As provided by the treaty, tonnages were reduced to 525,850, 558,950, and 301,320 for the United States, Great Britain and Japan, respectively, giving a slight advantage to the British. The very real and serious potential causes for war among the signatories were removed for many years into the future.

As for the treaty causing the British defeat at Singapore 20 years later, that claim has to take the cake for the most ludicrous of all the ludicrous charges directed against us from Europe in recent years. How, exactly, would crippling her economy by charging ahead with the building of a fleet of obsolete battleships have helped the British 20 years later? As anyone who knows anything about her situation in the years immediately preceding World War II is aware, the economic burden of rearmament in the face of the German threat was painful enough for her to bear as it was. The cost of maintaining a massive navy in an arms race with Japan and the United States for the preceding 20 years would have made it well nigh impossible. When war did come, Japanese airpower made short work of the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, the two battleships that actually were on hand to defend Singapore. In the fighting that followed, a superior British force was defeated by a Japanese army perilously short of supplies in one of the greatest stains on the proud tradition of British arms ever recorded. We Americans don’t blame the Bladensburg Races on anything but the cowardice of our troops and the ineptitude of our commanders. I suggest that the British consider the possibility that they may bear some responsibility for their own abject defeats as well.

Well, we did have a difficult adolescence, and perhaps one can’t blame our dear old mother country for occasionally being a bit testy with us. The next time Hitchens directs his poison pen our way, however, he would probably do well to pick a more convincing grievance than the Naval Treaty of 1922.

The basic propaganda line relating to DU weapons is that a) Great increases in cancer and other health problems are experienced in areas where they are used, and b) Most of these health problems are due to radioactivity from DU.  The professionally pious have devoted a great deal of webspace to the subject, typically short on facts but with lots of pictures of terribly deformed infants and, as usual, featuring themselves as noble saviors of humanity. Those with strong stomachs can find examples here, here and here. It’s all completely bogus, but the truth has never been more than a minor inconvenience for ideological poseurs.

The World Health Organization, public health arm of the UN, an organization that has not been notably chummy with the US of late, debunked the DU hysteria in a report that appeared in 2001 (click on the link to see the document). Quoting from the report,

For the general population it is unlikely that the exposure to depleted uranium will significantly exceed the normal background uranium levels.

Measurements of depleted uranium at sites where depleted uranium munitions were used indicate only localized (within a few tens of metres of the impact site) contamination at the ground surface.

General screening or monitoring for possible depleted uranium-related health effects in populations living in conflict areas where depleted uranium has been used is not necessary. Individuals who believe they have been exposed to excessive amounts of depleted uranium should consult their medical practitioner for examination, appropriate treatment of any symptoms and follow-up.

The potential external dose received in the vicinity of a target following attack by DU munitions has been theoretically estimated to be in the order of 4 μSv/year (UNEP/UNCHS, 1999) based on gamma ray exposure. Such doses are small when compared to recommended guidelines for human exposure to ionizing radiation (20 mSv/annum for a worker for penetrating whole body radiation or 500 mSv/year for skin (BSS, 1996).

Of course, the poseurs dismiss such stuff with a wave of the hand, claiming that, for reasons known only to them, the authors of the report suppressed damning evidence, or didn’t consider certain miraculous processes whereby the DU can be transported into the bodies of its victims without showing up in urine samples.  If one points out, for example, that natural background radiation in places such as Iran and India is much higher than any increase due to DU in the places where all the birth defects and illness is supposedly taking place, without ill effects to the local populations, they merely reply that the DU is carried on insoluble particles, that are infinitely more dangerous than natural uranium.  If it is pointed out that, in that case, it would actually be much more difficult for DU to cause birth defects because the rate at which the body carries insoluble compounds to the vicinity of the reproductive organs is an order of magnitude less than for soluble uranium compounds, or that it is much more difficult for insoluble compounds to get into the food chain, they quickly change tack.  Suddenly, the DU becomes soluble, and the circle is squared. 

A moment’s rational consideration of the facts demolishes the DU hype.  For example, it is claimed that 320 tons of DU were used in the Gulf War in 1991 and 1700 tons in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.  Those numbers pale in comparison to the approximately 9000 Tons of natural uranium and 22400 tons of thorium currently released each year from the burning of coal.  Much of this material is pumped directly into the atmosphere in the form of particulates that easily enter the lungs.  It is far more likely to contaminate nearby population centers in this form than the byproducts of DU munitions.  Coal consumption in China alone is over 2 million metric tons per year, resulting in the yearly release of about 3000 tons of uranium and 7450 tons of thorium.  There have certainly been health problems downwind of these plants, but they’ve been due to plain old-fashioned air pollution.  There have been no massive increases in birth defects or radiation-related cancer, flying in the face of claims about DU’s supposedly demonic power to sicken and kill.  Uranium absorbed in the body will show up in the urine, whether it is ingested in soluble or insoluble form.  Yet, despite massive screening of military veterans, ongoing studies find no persistent elevation of U concentrations beyond that found in the general population other than in soldiers actually hit by DU fragments or involved in friendly fire accidents.

Studies of uranium miners confirm the absurdity of the inflated DU claims.  Exposure to increased levels of uranium dust has not been associated with increases incidence of cancer, even in older miners.  Increased levels of lung cancer in such workers certainly have been detected, but it is associated with the breathing of high concentrations of radon in confined spaces.  The contribution of DU to radon gas concentrations in the atmosphere in Iraq is utterly insignificant compared to natural seepage from the earth and release by coal plant pollution.  Meanwhile, massive use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war, the sabotage and burning of hundreds of oil wells after the first Gulf War, and the release of a host of carcinogenic chemicals in the process of oil production are somehow never considered as possible contributors to illness and birth defects, unless, of course, they happen to fit another narrative.

In a word, the DU propaganda is nonsense, but that doesn’t keep it from being effective.  Other than that, because of DU’s potential value as a fuel in future breeder reactors that will be available to us without the environmental and health hazards of mining new uranium, we are almost literally shooting silver bullets.  Under the circumstances, one wonders what possible justification there can be for the claim that the advantages of continued use of DU munitions outweigh the drawbacks.  Why are we working so hard to confirm the familiar claim that “military intelligence” is an oxymoron?