Operation Clark County

An email from me, sent to the UK Guardian, responding to their Operation Clark County:

What an unfortunate decision on the part of your paper to launch this letter writing campaign! I have no doubt that your hearts are in the right place, but surely you must realize how patronizing this entire endeavor is. Just looking at the sampling of "prominent" letter writers, the condescension and exagerration oozes off the page.

John LeCarre: "While Bush was waging his father's war at your expense, he was also ruining your country."

Now, I'm a liberal and will be casting my vote for John Kerry. But an American with eyes in their head can see when an accusation outruns the available facts. Bush hasn't been good for this country, but no sincere American patriot is likely to agree that he's "ruined" us, nor that the normal exercise of our democratic process would lead to our "ruination" - even if it leads to another four years of Bush.

Antonia Fraser offers another slap in the face of an American patriot with her charge "if you back Kerry, you will be voting against a savage militaristic foreign policy of pre-emptive killing which has stained the great name of the US so hideously in recent times." Certainly, Bush's policies since he's taken office have embarrassed many of us Americans tremendously. But at the risk of pointing fingers here... our largest such "stain" is an occupation of Iraq done in alliance with... well, your country. Many Americans are willing to say that the war in Iraq was a mistake, and in many ways a disaster. But again, it is possible to overstate the case. Ms. Fraser offers an excellent template for doing so.

It's certainly gracious of Richard Dawkins to concede that our President's flawed character "doesn't justify an assassination attempt." But with roughly half of Americans inclined to vote for him and a substantially larger number ambivalent about his character, calling the President of our Republic a "sly, mendacious and vindictive" "idiot" isn't likely to win many friends in Ohio.

What really hurts me, as an American liberal, is my knowledge of how counter-productive this entire endeavor is. Liberal and Conservative, we are above all Americans, and as nasty as our partisan intramural politics might get, it does not change that fundamental fact. I imagine the likelihood of these letters swaying an undecided American voter is quite slim, though if one were to do so, I fear it would have an unintended effect of provoking the famous American stubborn streak (which, I'm told, we've inherited from our British ancestors).

The people of Britain are no shrinking violets in world affairs. Despite our feared "unilateralism", President Bush would never have possessed the political capital or credibility to launch his invasion of Iraq without the support of your Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

I humbly suggest that if you are concerned with making your impact felt, you turn your efforts closer to home. Like us, you live in a democratic society and have tremendous power as citizens. Those of us on "this side of the lake" have our own efforts to attend to. When we go to cast our ballots on November 2nd we will be forced to consider a wide range of factors - from how we shall face our domestic political challenges, to how our nation shall conduct itself on the world stage.

Most American citizens are aware that we have inherited an obligation towards the world larger than that of most foreign nationals. It is a consequence of history that American force is presently arrayed across the globe - more often than not, at the invitation of nations which have sought the protection we can bestow. American forces are on the front lines of, or prepared to intervene in, dozens of global flashpoints - Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Taiwan, the Korean peninsula, Japan, Germany, Eastern Europe. It's a tremendous responsibility and none of us have asked to inherit it. It may even well be true that we often do a poor job of living up to this responsibility (though some of us take pride that our empire is at least far less rapacious and far more humanely idealistic than other recent global empires we might name), but our responsibility remains. Throughout our history, the proper conduct of foreign affairs has been a source of vigorous debate, and this is one of those years where this issue is especially prominent. But we, as Americans, trust that our democratic process will yield the best result we can hope for - one based upon the outcome of a fair election conducted after vigorous debate.

The United States of America are our Republic, and this Republic is our responsibility. Though your opinion is welcome, your efforts to lobby individual voters will strike most Americans as incredibly rude. It certainly strike me as inappropriate. I hope you and your readers will consider channeling your admirable zeal into your own political system, where it is far more likely to have a beneficial effect. This misguided effort is unlikely to do anyone much good.