Some great points. I realised that you and others put this very well in comments on their site.

I actually quite enjoy looking at their site because this is a very rare chance to watch a desperate PR and spin campaign as a work in progress. The fact that they are Brits and public figures makes it easier to trace their connections with power and who is backing them.

Can’t wait for the next ‘briefing’. It’s informative in ways they can’t imagine.

Thanks for that. It would be quite amusing if they ran a sister poll in the US of A where the UK was listed in the same way as the US was in this one. Then we could just have a group hug, or something.

What a completely ridiculous poll. If I was guaranteed rescue, I wouldn’t care who did it, would I? I’ve been rescued, after all.

If say, a passing one eyed Peruvian lesbian saxophonist came to my aid, would I just say ‘no, I’m waiting to be freed by the right stuff’. I wouldn’t, and neither I suspect would anyone else.

Personally, I’d prefer to holiday in the Maldives. Why isn’t that listed? And, if I had to work somewhere else, Australia or New Zealand or Jamaica would win over any of the listed options.

Quite a US centric little effort, isn’t it?

Pathetic spin.

I’m not sure how much it redounds to the credit of the American soldier that the majority of British people would prefer to be rescued by him from terrorists. I think that when we see the other countries in the list (Germany, France, Russia, China, India and Iran) this question could be rephrased as : “Would you prefer to be rescued by soldiers who spoke the same language as you or not?” Hardly surprising is it that people would go for the English speakers over the Iranians?

What you should have done was to ask our unfortunate Brit in distress if he would prefer to be rescued by a soldier from Britain, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and then America. I wonder how that would turn out? A majority would go for the Brits? Astonishing. Clear anti-US attitude.

Let’s say we choose soldiers from America, North Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the German SS, Tonton Macoute. Well who would you think would come top the list? Clear pro-US attitude.

The same goes for the holiday question. OK, so 1% of Brits want to go to Iran and 45% fancy the US. The fact that Iran is threatened with attack from the US may be skewing the poll here: this could be a factor but let’s not be political about it. I would presume it has something to do with public perceptions of Isfahan and Qom as likely travel destinations. Really meagre crumbs of comfort for you here I’m afraid.

This poll confirms for me the breathtaking, stupidity of the website. It is as see-through as a bride’s nightie I’m afraid. You will preach to the converted but for the rest of us your efforts will be consigned to the PR dustbin of history along with Karen Hughes Middle East “I’m a Mom” speeches, Christopher Hitchen’s attempted Channel 4 hagiography on George Bush and the attempts to transplant the dark arts of Richard Perle et al into British public discourse. All of which were pathetic failures because British people are not stupid and until you get your analysis right on what Anti-Americanism is and why it is there you’ll get nowhere with this kind of stuff.

Oh, by the way, what percentage of Americans think Barack Obama is Muslim according to polls results? Now, there’s a survey worth discussing.

Perhaps usasceptic (pronounced – uhasakeptik) rather than america-sceptic? Simply ’cause I’ve been watching folk from the Bahamas’ who are continental america, at the Olympics. I have no idea what their politics are, right enough. Still and all, I’d assume that if we started saying German-sceptic when we meant euro-sceptic…

Oh, forget it. The minds of the British are a wonder to behold.

A thought: perhaps being ‘america-sceptic’, as a counterpart to ‘eurosceptic’ would be a better way to put it?

May I quote this:

I think the reason that “the US is talked of as a human rights abuser far more frequently than North Korea, Burma or Sudan” is because we don’t expect such abuses from a country that set a bar the likes of North Korea, Burma, and Sudan have consistently neglected to aspire to, let alone reach, and therefore we hear about these exceptional cases more often than we do about North Korea, Burma and Sudan. It is sadly natural that we hear more of the exception than the norm, but this does not excuse the exception (although I agree that some people should get a perspective).

and add an addenda?

None of these bastards have been able to internationalise their human rights abuses. Only Team USA has been able to do that. Which puts them somewhat out in front in the gold medal table.

Sally, I could not have put it better myself.

I was going to write a long comment on why “Anti-Americanism” is a flawed category and how you’re deliberately confusing the issues etc etc…but I really can’t be bothered.

Basically, Peter, your site is a joke for all the reasons that have been pointed out on this thread. It is not a serious political site. It is a right-wing smear job masquerading as a serious political site

As for the ” Soldier” video on YouTube, I found it absolutely hilarious. Clearly made with some bloke in a park in England and the Fox News Guide to History!

I’d find the whole thing hilarious if it wasn’t being taken so seriously by some people – including, it seems our future PM!

I have many American friends on the left, who would all be regarded as Anti America according this bullshit site. Remember, much of what the world loves about America is hated by the American Right wing. Hollywood, is a great example. The Dixie Chicks were anti American according to the Right wing in America.

This is about shutting down debate not encouraging it. It is exactly like the way the Pro Israel brigade call anybody who criticises Israel, anti Semitic.

Surely they are merely disappointed in the USA, rather than being ‘anti’ it.

I think a problem with the notion of ‘anti-Americanism’ is that it confuses the nation with its leaders – some ignorant Europeans are guilty of this, but also some ‘Americans’ are when they think critics of the policies of USA leaders indicate a criticism of the nation.

I am not being anti-American when I suggest that the answer to the question, “Does Bush have any right to lecture China on human rights?” is “yes, he does, but he shouldn’t be surprised when ‘China’ suggests he looks at that bit of wood in his own eye”.

By the way, I broadly agree with that civil liberties article, except that it appears to attempt to excuse the actions of the Bush regime by listing a number of good things that ‘the USA’ has done.

It could do with some changes:

‘water-boarding’, considered by many to be torture,

This is a bit like saying, “the Earth, considered by many to be round”.

Just as the Earth is round, waterboarding is torture.

While incidents such as Abu Ghraib are abhorrent, and rendition and torture in the war on terror raise serious questions

Rendition and torture are abhorrent (and illegal) too, and the serious questions are, “Why is ‘the USA’ betraying its own principles and its laws and international law and why aren’t the people acting in this way being brought to book?”

the United States has within its very system the means of ending abuses that do occur.

This begs the question, why doesn’t it? And why do they occur in the first place?

The answer is that there are some influential people over there, just as there are people over here, such as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who don’t quite understand / respect things like liberty and the rule of law. And the Abu Ghraib thing is also about normal people doing horrible things when authorities tell them do so.

I think the reason that “the US is talked of as a human rights abuser far more frequently than North Korea, Burma or Sudan” is because we don’t expect such abuses from a country that set a bar the likes of North Korea, Burma, and Sudan have consistently neglected to aspire to, let alone reach, and therefore we hear about these exceptional cases more often than we do about North Korea, Burma and Sudan. It is sadly natural that we hear more of the exception than the norm, but this does not excuse the exception (although I agree that some people should get a perspective).

Mmm, well it’s more that this is the premise for your project. Why is ‘anti-Americanism’ a problem? Why does that term even exist? If you merely wanted to debate misconceptions about American forreign policy, which is what most of this is based around, then you could do so without starting a new website and in places where the debate takes place.

What I’m saying is that the premise of the site is based around the idea that ‘anti-Americanism’ is akin to other forms of racism, and hence you want to run a project that will explicitly challenge such prejudice.

My response was two-fold: First, how does it differ from the times when CH etc dismiss ‘racism’ itself and ‘Islamophobia’ as shutting down debate, but are happy to throw around phrases such as ‘anti-Americanism’ as if its a disease afflicting some people.

Look, I appreciate your efforts to debate here and all, I’m just saying that while I don’t think the stance you’ve taken is that idiotic, it just mirrors other (worse) forms of prejudice that the likes of Tim Montgomerie are happy to dismiss in other circumstances.
Its the hypocrisy which gets to me.

Nor am I not working from an imagined version of the site: you consider all sorts of different positions varying from legitimate critics of the US to genocidal jihadis, and you lump them altogether under the banner “anti-Americanism”, illustrated by a picture of a flag-burning maniac.

Anyway, what’s the inherent problem with anti-Americanism or, say anti-French attitudes?

That’s the point I was trying to make when distinguishing between illegitimate forms of anti-Americanism and legitimate positions we aim to show are mistaken. There is nothing inherently wrong with thinking a particular country is particularly unpleasant place to live or has been bad for the world. It’s more a question of values and what the data says. There’s nothing inherently (as opposed to empirically) wrong with thinking, for example, that America is more stingy and ungenerous than other countries when it comes to giving to the rest of the world. Such claims are entirely legitimate matters for debate, but we don’t think the facts bear them out, and seek to show this.

Yes, I accept some people are only anti-American because of American foreign policy, but I don’t accept your distinction between them and ‘nutjobs’. Plenty of people with objections to American society are perfectly sane (if, I think, often mistaken and ill-informed) and plenty of people with objections to American foreign policy and America’s role in the world are more than a little kooky. Again, though, the point is not that it’s illegitimate to criticise America’s foreign policy and role in the world – we say explicitly that some forms of anti-Americanism are legitimate positions that we think are wrong – but that it’s something to debate. We want to provide the other side of the argument and the evidence to back it up.

It is therefore incorrect, and deeply offensive, to suggest that there are different types of anti-Americanism and that groups such as these are anti-American of a different category. They have nothing in common with people who burn the Stars and Stripes or try to commit terrorist attacks in the USA. It is a sad commentary on political discourse today that people who have rational views are dismissed as “anti-American”.

Peter, tell me, what’s the difference in the prejudice projected towards people from a particular country compared to prejudice directed towards people of a particular religion? (apart from th obvious that one is a country and the other a religion).

The editors of CH constantly say that ‘Islamophobia’ and ‘racism’ is used to shut down debate…. but seem to have no problems appropriating those terms for their own pet projects when needed.

Anyway, what’s the inherent problem with anti-Americanism or, say anti-French attitudes? People are not obliged to stay with the nationality of one country, right?

Lastly, do you acknoweldge that there are a lot of people who might have a problem with just American foreign policy? How will you separate them from the nutjobs? For example – you have a go at people on the left on your site without providing specific examples to back this up.

To take the example of anti-Semitism, which I pick precisely because almost no one would wish to be associated with it: it is a motivation for some anti-Americanism, as the piece points out. But no one would suggest that every anti-Semite is anti-American. Similarly for liberal idealists – it can lead in some cases to an overarching opposition to America and her role in the world, but no one would suggest all liberal idealists are anti-American. The point is not that liberal idealism (or anti-Semitism) is inherently or inevitably anti-American, but that it accounts for some anti-Americanism. I take your point seriously, though, and will look at making what I have just said more explicit. It may be that without a more detailed introduction, the title of the piece currently does too much – as you say – to imply that controversial but far from illegitimate or out-of-the-mainstream positions are themselves varieties of anti-Americanism.

Sunny Hundal – unless you’re willing to say that no hatred of a particular country’s people can be racist, that hatred of the French or Turks or Japanese is not racist, then hatred of Americans can surely be racist, too. It’s a fair point that at some level racism can only really exist towards broader racial groups, but hardly absurd to use the term in some other way.

Peter,

Many thanks for your response. I had actually seen the FAQ page you linked to before I wrote my post, and I’m afraid it doesn’t really resolve the issues I have with your site. On the FAQ page you admit that anyone can have a reasonable, policy-based criticism of a US administration without being tarred as an anti-American, yet your site then lists a raft of reasonable, policy-based criticisms of this and other administrations as varieties of anti-Americanism. Even worse, they’re sat alongside Jihadis and anti-Semites. I really don’t see how these two pages are compatible with each other.

I’m willing to accept that there might not have been a political motivation for the way that page was created, but what makes it appear so insidious is the degree of suspicion it places over people who hold those views you list as potential variants of anti-Americanism. If someone were to believe this site to be a scholarly information resource (as you apparently wish it to be), they might then automatically suspect those who happen to be ‘liberal idealists’, ‘social justice activists’ or environmentalists as being either latently or explicitly anti-American. That has terribly corrosive consequences for political discourse and is responsible in no small part for some of the negative reactions you’ve seen on this comment page.

(Just as an aside, when I criticise the US over its failures in foreign affairs or failing its poor or failing to take strong enough or swift enough action on the environment, the arguments I cite/link to are overwhelmingly from American writers.)

As I said in the post, I broadly agree with the endeavour if it’s done correctly, but if you really do want your site to become an informational resource against anti-Americanism, this rather important page needs some work. At present, it seems like you’ve presented a lot of sweeping, nuance-free generalisations and dressed them up as definitive variants of a political disease.

Can I make a general request that people actually argue with the site’s content rather than their own imagined version of it? I really don’t understand the point of posts saying “You obviously believe the exact opposite of what your site says – how can you justify that?!”.

Peter Cuthbertson
Director, America In The World

Anf scottish people are brittish, you confuse england with britain. He does not support the english soccer team who would support that overpaid bunch of looooooers.

And (sorry to repeat myself) but this from Peter Cuthbertson:

There is a range of views that are anti-American, some illegitimate, irrational and hateful and some not. We don’t aim to treat them as one.

really is absolutely risible and dishonest. Take a look at the front page. “Have you had enough of anti-Americanism?” it screams, beneath a picture of a man burning a US flag. How on earth is that a fair depiction of a “legitimate” political position? How on earth does it invite the “engagement” Peter insists they’re looking for?

This is a nasty smear-operation, a cynical attempt to close down debate, and nothing more.