October 12 , 2006

America vs. the World

I work overseas fairly regularly, and I have had to endure a lot of conversations with foreigners that quickly turned into venting sessions.  The United States gets ripped as the world’s biggest problem. I always tried to keep my composure while they emptied themselves of their anger, not wanting a shouting match or feeling like I could not in that moment reverse years of anti-American conditioning by foreign media coverage. And I would sometimes ask myself, “If America is the problem, who or what is the solution? Militant Islam? The U.N.? Or a Europe that increasingly calls evil good and good evil?”

Seeing the U.S. excoriated by the citizens and media of our “official” European allies, and also feeling the spirit of capitulation to radical Islam and to Iran that has crept into even nations like Great Britain, gave me the idea for a book that I never fully articulated mentally. Now, a similar book has been written by one of the conservative movements greatest.  

Mark Steyn’s new book is America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know It. About the book, Human Events writes, “Steyn argues forcefully that much of the Western world as we know it will not survive the twenty-first century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes -- including many if not most European countries. He shows how this process is already well advanced… European and Islamic anti-Americanism, he explains, threatens to leave us isolated in the world.”

One gets the impression from America’s critics that their estrangement with the U.S. is mostly about President Bush, who they detest. They still like Hollywood. They still worship Bill Clinton as a great statesman (yes, it’s true).  But I’ve tried to make those I spoke with understand that Bush is not an isolated or short term phenomenon. Even if the next president is a democrat, the long term trend has America and Europe…in fact America and most of the world, moving in different directions, and father apart when it comes to what is important, what is right and what is good.

While some worry about a new era of American isolationism, I worry about American isolation.