On the morning after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, my friend Matt, a New Yorker who has lived in London for a long time, woke to discover a sympathy card slipped under his door. It was from his neighbours, whom he hardly knows.
On the afternoon of the tragedy itself, I was stopped by a saleswoman in a shop. Hearing an American accent, she asked where my family lives. When I said Washington, she quietly asked if I had managed to talk to them yet. I hadn't. No one in Europe could talk to anyone in Washington or New York - or even San Francisco or Tampa - on September 11th, which was part of what made that afternoon so strange for Americans abroad.
Cut off from the US by overloaded phone lines, we were nevertheless surrounded by friends. Here, on a continent that has had more experience of terrorism, and has a wartime memory of death arriving unexpectedly from the sky, the first, uncalculated reactions were expressions of genuine solidarity.
Ordinary people voiced it, as did politicians. The British Conservative Party suspended its leadership elections as a mark of respect. Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair, said the UK would stand "shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in their hour of tragedy". German Chancellor Mr Gerhard Schroder spoke of a "war against the entire civilised world", while ambassadors to
NATO, meeting in Brussels, unanimously agreed the event triggered its treaty - an attack on one member state is an attack on all.
That was the first reaction. A second, which began a day or two later, has been more muted, totally unofficial and somewhat disturbing. Already, more than a few criticisms have crept into the discussion of the week's events. The US, a few are saying, brought this on itself through its support for Israel. Or through its economic sanctions on Iraq. Or simply by being too rich in an impoverished world.
While hastily assuring his interviewer that his organisation did not support terrorism, a member of the British Green Party told the BBC it was possible to understand the "logic" behind the attacks. On Question Time, one of BBC TV's main talk shows, a hostile audience, partly composed of British Muslims, confronted a former US ambassador to London, asking him whether the attacks "represent a failure of US foreign policy, with millions and millions of people around the world despising the United States".
A friend reports that in the magazine office where she works, the general consensus is that it's time for Britain to re-examine its "special relationship" with the US.
Listen more carefully, and even some of the language being used by politicians is not quite as supportive as it seemed at first. Mr Lionel Jospin, the French Prime Minister, called upon the US to be "reasonable" in its response. Mr Rudolf Scharping, the German Defence Minister, has also said "we do not face a war". These countries have big Muslim populations, complex relationships with the Arab world that they don't want destroyed. If their ambivalence towards the US grows, how much time before the appeal to "caution" turns into a call to stop?
I don't believe these sentiments necessarily detract from the genuine shock and sorrow most Europeans feel. But the anti-Americanism that has gradually come to characterise Europe's political and intellectual elite for the past decade has not disappeared overnight. It is a combination of traditional jealousy of US power and cultural influence, dislike of its domestic policies - the death penalty, for example - plus real criticism of US foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East.
POLITICS has made the combination more lethal than usual. Almost all of Europe, at the moment, is run by centre-left politicians who were willing to keep their critiques of Bill Clinton muted, but have no qualms about openly opposing even identical policies when pursued by a Republican president.
Now, unfortunately, these sentiments matter. The US is going to launch a war against international terrorism. It may last for months or years, and may require military and intelligence support from America's friends around the world, especially in Europe.
This is the time for America's leaders to start building widespread, active support for whatever action we take, in as public a manner as possible. It's not enough simply to build coalitions with diplomacy, nor enough to call on NATO leaders for support, as Bush has done. The President should go over the heads of the statesmen and speak to the foreign public.
It is no longer enough to speak of "my fellow Americans". He should talk, instead, of "my fellow members of our global civilisation".
For strange though it may seem to Americans, Mr Bush is the leader of that global civilisation as well as President of the US. His every word is being repeated and analysed in Europe's capitals with as much attention as in Washington and New York.
If he appeals to the citizenry of the international community, his constituents - all of them - will hear him. --(The Washington Post)
