With body-bags still being carried from Ground Zero, Americans simply cannot understand European concerns for the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay, writes Elaine Lafferty
Pity the poor correspondents for European newspapers who labour for their far-away employers from the United States. For weeks now, the phone calls from Paris, London, Rome, and yes, probably Dublin, have been the same: we need another story about what is going on in Guantanamo Bay, say the editors.
How are the al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners being treated? Will the US relent and consider them prisoners of war and thus apply the provisions of the Geneva Convention? How concerned are President Bush and his advisers about the international outcry? And what of that amorphous and mysterious group called the "American people"; how are they responding to the worldwide condemnation of the United States's policies toward the "detainees"?
Not to put too inarticulate a point on it, but the response from most journalists living in the US has got to have been: "Huh?"
It is difficult to remember a story where the attitudes of Europeans and Americans have been more at odds. Indeed the Guantanamo Bay story in the US is nearly non-existent. For about three or four days last month, the US media duly reported that the British in particular were upset over photographs showing the prisoners shaved and shackled.
There was some chat at White House and state department press briefings over the prisoners' status, and President Bush rather off-handedly noted that the Taliban foot soldiers might be treated differently than men accused of actually being al-Qaeda terrorists.
But even those stories were largely not front-page. In contrast to the saturation that the issue received in Europe, Americans simply are not talking about the rights of the prisoners.
They are not discussing on radio talk shows and in opinion columns whether the prisoners were entitled to fair trials, Halal food and the Geneva Convention. They were, however, discussing other topics, including a spirited debate that raged for a few days on whether torture might be a useful tool in interrogations.
Now before you leap up and declare that Americans are isolationist ignorant blood-thirsty maniacs who anyway have been executing people in Texas for years - all of which is pretty true - please pause to consider the climate here.
The United States was attacked for the first time in its history on its mainland soil in a carefully co-ordinated military operation. (The attack on Pearl Harbour during the second World World is not in the same league; the target was military and it was quite far from any large American city.)
That operation was successful. Thousands, not hundreds, of civilians were killed; the estimate in New York is that 30,000 to 40,000 children lost a parent in the attack on the World Trade Centre.
They are still digging bodies and body parts out of the rubble and those stories and pictures grace the media every day. Flag-draped caskets are still being carried from Ground Zero. This is not over, over here. The attack on the US, in all its gruesome and picturesque detail, is being covered here every day.
You will not see that in the European press.
And so tolerance for "rights" - in a society that was growing weary of everybody's rights even before September 11th - is at an all-time low. I spoke to a politically liberal New York lawyer recently, a person for whom the fairness provisions of the US Constitution have always reigned paramount.
We spoke of the rights of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. My lawyer friend was so angry she could barely articulate a political position; "Listen," she said slowly and deliberately. "I don't care."
Some have argued that President Bush is exaggerating the terrorist threats from al-Qaeda to fuel war fever.
It almost doesn't matter. Of course Mr Bush is riding high on nationalism and in fact is using the criticism from abroad as a way to reinforce the idea that America is on its own here and must rely only on itself. (How else do you justify the highest defence budget in 20 years?)
THE national security adviser, Ms Condoleeza Rice, told reporters yesterday that U S intelligence officials think many of the surviving rank-and-file al-Qaeda members from Afghanistan appear to have been left to their own devices, with some going into hiding, others regrouping to fight on and still others scattering across the world.
US intelligence is tracking events in numerous other places where al-Qaeda members may try to go, including Yemen, Chechnya, Sudan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Palestinian territory and the Philippines, she said. She did not rule out military action.
The reality that a terrorist network still has the US in its scope is unarguable.
Of course Mr Bush is preaching war, but he is preaching to the converted. Americans, famous for naivete, friendliness and openness, are angry and intolerant in a fashion that I don't think most Europeans understand right now.
Be patient; revenge is not part of the cultural and societal infrastructure here and it will subside in time.
It is unlikely to do so, however, while the body parts are still being carried away from a smouldering wreckage in downtown Manhattan.
•Elaine Lafferty reports from the US for The Irish Times