STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [Via... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] . . ----- Original Message ----- From: Walter Lippmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: CubaNews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, June 11, 2001 4:52 PM Subject: [CubaNews] A Skeptical Europe Awaits Bush Cuba's foreign policy goals of strengthening its independence while opposing US efforts to control the entire world are shown to be what Cuba needs best by reports such as this one. ______________ June 11, 2001 A Skeptical Europe Awaits Bush on 5-Day Trip By SUZANNE DALEY PARIS, June 10 - Across Europe, there is little love of America's new president and a growing perception that the United States, under his leadership, is looking out only for itself these days - polluting the skies, breaking treaties and flirting with new arms races. The German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung has dubbed him "Bully Bush." As a character on the French satirical puppet show, "Les Guignols de l'Info," he does not know who President Jacques Chirac is. In Britain, The Economist, which endorsed George W. Bush for president, has been less than enthusiastic. The current cover, playing on the event of the president's venturing abroad, has the title "Mr. Bush goes to Europe" emblazoned over a picture of America's moon landing. So when Mr. Bush arrives Tuesday in Spain to begin a five-day trip to five countries, he will from the very start have a lot of ground to make up and will no doubt run up against more doubt, more skepticism and more anger than the United States has attracted from its closest European friends in years. "We are definitely in a period of growing strains in the trans-Atlantic alliance," said Charles Grant, a political expert with the London-based Center for European Reform. "Both continents are changing in ways that neither understands or appreciates." Some experts point out that few new American presidents have been quickly embraced by Europe, which traditionally dislikes change in the White House. Nor is Mr. Bush responsible for all things that annoy Europeans. France's farming activist, José Bové, was knocking down McDonald's restaurants to protest "American hegemony" long before Mr. Bush had even declared himself a candidate for office. But in just a few months, Mr. Bush's administration has managed to rattle its European allies profoundly, plowing ahead with decisions that just flat out make them nervous. And more and more, experts note, Europe and the United States seem to be parting company on a range of social issues that often makes it harder for them to understand each other, in what they describe as a growing gap in values. For one thing, in contrast to Mr. Bush's conservative agenda, Europe is dominated by left-of-center governments that hold fast to the notion that a compassionate state is needed to make sure that inequalities produced by a free market system do not get out of hand. While the United States might be aghast at European tax rates and sneer at what they consider gumption-killing welfare benefits, Europeans look across at America and see a harsh society, with far too many have-nots. They are particularly appalled by the use of capital punishment, and Mr. Bush is expected to face protests by death penalty opponents when he lands in Europe, a day after the scheduled execution of Timothy J. McVeigh. They are acutely aware that Mr. Bush was governor of Texas, the state that executes more prisoners than any other in America. Even events like the arrest of the Bush twins on charges involving underage drinking leave many Europeans perplexed. While America's media coverage of the event has focused on issues like the first family's right to privacy and Mr. Bush's struggle with alcohol, many Europeans are asking why 19-year-olds are not allowed to drink when they can vote, marry, have an abortion, buy property and otherwise function as full-fledged citizens. Europeans are also puzzled by America's stand on the use of land mines, on abortion, on genetically altered foods, on the refusal to endorse an international court and, of course, the environment. They were horrified and caught completely unaware when Mr. Bush announced that he was tossing out the Kyoto protocol, which would have committed industrial nations to reduce their emission of greenhouse gases. They have serious doubts about the administration's pursuit of a missile defense system and the scrapping of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty. In addition, Mr. Bush's decision to freeze negotiations with North Korea was enough to prompt the European Union to go it alone in trying to prop up peace talks between the two Koreas. Some experts say that behind this growing uneasiness lies the fact that both continents are evolving in ways that naturally incite friction. "As the only superpower, America is awfully tempted to get its way by bullying and occasionally trying to zap people into line," Mr. Grant said. "At the same time, Europe is becoming a coherent entity and wanting to be heard." Just how serious the tensions are is still an open question. Mr. Grant and others warn that both sides need to be mindful of not letting things get out of hand. For their part, Bush administration officials are playing down tensions. Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations last week, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, rejected any notion of a serious rift. "The debate over a values gap or a strategic split ignores the fact that at a very fundamental level our economic interest and our security interests - far from driving us apart - are major factors in keeping the U.S. and Europe working together." And even some European experts who see relations at a low believe that it is a temporary problem. "We are in a period of adjustment," said Dominique Moisi, of the French Institute for International Relations. "You have a more confident Europe meeting with a new administration that is learning its way. Both sides have a lot of prejudices. This administration is a bit more arrogant, unilateral and abrasive vis-à-vis Europe, and we need to tell them we exist." Still, such differences make it hard for the Europeans to accept America's leadership without question. "There are a whole series of things that America has done lately that say: we decide what is good for the world," said Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the leader of the 1968 French student uprising who is now a member of the German Green Party. "We don't even need to talk to anybody. But Europe has its own interests, its own ideals, and more and more there is a need to negotiate. We have some very different ways of looking at things." Mr. Bush's style is also an issue. Many suggest that his tough talk sits poorly with Europeans who are busy trying to perfect the art of getting along with one other. His declarations that the United States will act unilaterally on issues like developing a missile defense has stirred a growing sense of indignation here. In the European Parliament, some members have even developed a series of preprinted postcards the public can mail to the White House objecting to a range of American domestic and international policies. Hubert Védrine, the French foreign minister, noted in an address during a visit to Washington last week that Mr. Bush was awaited in Europe "with a lot of curiosity and interest." He also expressed some relief that "each day that passes points to a slow re-engagement of this administration in international life." Mr. Bush will carry few specific proposals as he makes his rounds, visiting Spain to touch base with one of Europe's few conservative leaders, stopping in Belgium to meet NATO officials, joining European Union leaders at their summit meeting in Sweden, moving on to Warsaw with a speech on his vision of the American relationship with Europe and winding up in Slovenia, where he will sit down with Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin. Mr. Bush's visit is expected to prompt a series of protests all long the way, even in Spain, where his host will be the conservative prime minister, José María Aznar. In Madrid, some 10,000 protesters got started today marching through the streets with banners protesting Bush policies on everything from abortion to Cuba to the Middle East and energy. Another "Bush go home" march is expected to converge on the American Embassy on Tuesday during the presidential visit. Media coverage in Spain has not been favorable to the president, even in newspapers supportive of the Aznar government. On May 19, an editorial in the daily El Mundo took him to task for energy stands. "The only hope we have for the energy plan designed by George W. Bush is that it contains so many blunders that Congress will throw it out," it said. Two days later the paper ran an opinion piece under the headline, "Biological weapons: Bush keeps ignoring his European allies." In Spain, as elsewhere, one of the biggest anti-American issues has been the death penalty, and Mr. Bush's arrival happens to come only a week after the end of a case that has kept the Spanish enthralled for months. After spending years on death row in Florida, Joaquín José Martínez, a Spanish citizen, was acquitted of murder last week during his re-trial. Once his parents had managed to raise nearly half a million dollars to pay top-notch lawyers, the prosecution's evidence was found to be full of holes, prompting an array of headlines like, "Paying not to die." "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle," began an opinion piece in the conservative daily ABC, "than for a rich man to be executed in the United States." Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
