2004 Year-Ender . . . by Gwynne Dyer . . .

[OneBlueSky]

Canadian journalist and war historian . . . interesting perspective . . .

http://www.gwynnedyer.net/articles/Gwynne%20Dyer%20article_%20%202004%20Year-Ender.txt

(snip)

Two popular perceptions of what is happening dominate the world at
the moment. One, held mainly by Americans, sees a world beleaguered by such
a huge terrorist threat that all the old rules have to be abandoned. The
United States, they believe, is carrying the main burden of this "war
against terror" while other countries shirk their share of the load.
(Despite all the talk of a fundamental clash of values in the recent US
election, both parties basically held the same view on this issue.)

Most people in other countries, and most of their governments, too,
see terrorism as a much smaller threat. Certain measures need to be taken
to contain it, but it is nowhere near big enough to justify scrapping all
the rules of international behaviour we have painfully built up over the
past half-century.

A lot of the governments also believe (in private) that the Bush
administration is deliberately pumping up the fear of terrorism in order to
justify a unilateral strategy that really aims at establishing American
hegemony worldwide. The popular American belief that the United States has
the right to go anywhere and attack anybody if it feels itself threatened
-- "we do not need a permission slip from the UN," as Vice-President Dick
Cheney frequently puts it -- predates 9/11, but it has been greatly
strengthened by the rhetoric of the "war on terror."

Most of the other great powers on the planet are coming to see the
United States as a rogue superpower. (Britain is formally an exception
under Prime Minister Tony Blair, but even in London the concern is palpable
at lower levels of government.) Yet everybody is deeply reluctant to
confront the United States directly, since that would just hasten the
collapse of the multilateral order they still hope to save. The result has
been a lengthy pause in which most other major powers refuse to approve or
assist the American adventure in Iraq, but avoid any open defiance of
American power.

- more . . .

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