In light of the "Newsweek Scandal" (alleged desecration of the Koran at Guantanamo) The Globalist editor Stephan Richter argues that the "real crisis [of American journalism] is about an increasing unwillingness to tell hard truths when it really matters."
He describes how Newsweek printed an excellent, but US critical article by Princeton's Andrew Moravcsik in its international edition after President Bush's second inaugurual address, but not in its domestic edition.
Prof. Moravcsik wrote:
Americans are living in a dream world. Not only do others not share America's self-regard, they no longer aspire to emulate the country's social and economic achievement.
(...) The failure of the American Dream has only been highlighted by the country's foreign-policy failures, not caused by them. The true danger is that Americans do not realize this, lost in the reveries of greatness, speechifying about liberty and freedom.
(...) Tellingly, the anti-Bushism of the president's first term is giving way to a more general anti-Americanism.
Stephan Richter (a German immigrant to the US) considers it appaling that Newsweek did not print this article its US edition "given that the real audience for the essay was not the readership abroad, but Americans at home. It would have been a powerful contribution to journalism's highest function — telling truth to power."
"The American ambassador to Kabul has accused European members of Nato of jeopardising the future of the alliance by refusing to send troops to Afghanistan, or banning their forces from entering areas with heavy fighting." writes the British Tel Comments ()
Tracked: Sep 29, 12:38
"Why Are We So Lousy at Foreign Policy?" asks Prof Ernest J. Wilson in America Abroad:We have a particular blind spot when it comes to nationalism in its various forms. From the Congo to Vietnam, American foreign policy mandarins kept confusing Comments ()
Tracked: Jan 26, 11:30