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Powell tells europe to stop bashing american { May 18 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,7369,717800,00.htmlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,7369,717800,00.html
Lay off US Powell tells Europeans
Julian Borger in Washington
Saturday May 18, 2002
The Guardian
The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, yesterday delivered a sharp attack on European political leaders, accusing them of constant "bashing" of US actions in the war on terrorism.
Just days before President George Bush sets off on a crucial tour of several European capitals, Mr Powell claimed that contrary to the dominant European viewpoint, US foreign policy under Mr Bush had been a resounding success.
In an interview with selected European newspapers, including Die Zeit, Libération and the Guardian, in Washington yesterday, Mr Powell - who will travel on with Mr Bush to Russia, France and Italy - repeatedly voiced impatience at Europe's predictions of the dire consequences of American actions, which he argued had not been borne out by events.
He pointed to the imminent enlargement of Nato around the borders of Russia and Moscow's acquiescence in the proposed US National Missile Defence (NMD) system as positive achievements that flowed directly from America's determined stand.
The secretary of state's criticism is all the more pointed bearing in mind that he is usually regarded as the most Europe-friendly figure within the Bush administration. Bluntly, he told his detractors across the Atlantic that European outrage over President Bush's "axis of evil" speech in January, seen by many observers as marking the start of a dramatic decline in US-European relations, had been misplaced.
"The president said 'axis of evil' and it was amazing what happened after that in terms of the criticism that came our way," Mr Powell argued. "The president came up with a clever way of capturing them all and guess what - the North Koreans now want to talk to us. The Iraqis are trying to pretend that they're behaving better."
The president, accompanied by Mr Powell, goes to Europe at a time of considerable transatlantic distrust between the US and its European allies over what Europe believes is increasing American unilateralism, and what the US sees as a lack of European resolve in dealing with terrorism.
The extent of ill-feeling has been illustrated in the US by a number of harshly worded attacks on Europe in the press, including accusations of anti-semitism. Mr Powell said the rise of anti-European sentiments was partly explained by anti-Americanism in Europe.
"To some extent it reflects the fact that we get bashed all the time. I think it may be something of a counter to the speed with which Europe always finds fault - some in Europe," Mr Powell said.
"There are some in Europe who are quick to find fault with any position that the United States might take that we believe is a correct, principled position ... so I think there is something of a reverse spin coming back on the rhetoric."
Further evidence of the growing rift between the US and Europe came last night when the French president, Jacques Chirac, tore into what he called American "unilateralism". In one of his most hard-hitting indictments of the Bush administration, Mr Chirac said its recent decisions to impose steel tariffs and raise farm subsidies would harm the world's poorest nations.
Speaking at the end of a European Union summit with Latin American leaders in Madrid, Mr Chirac said that what the US was giving to developing countries in aid, it was now taking back in the form of tariffs.
Mr Powell added to his critique of Europe by saying that Moscow's acceptance of NMD and Washington's withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty (on June 13), showed that European predictions of global chaos as a result were misplaced. "The ABM treaty is about to lapse. The geo-strategic situation is not collapsing and no arms race is breaking out."
He dismissed much of the European criticism as intellectual "churning" and said the transatlantic relationship was fundamentally strong. He insisted that the experience of the Afghan war demonstrated that Nato still had an important function.
He said 14 Nato members were involved in Afghanistan, and when it was suggested that that role could be a "token" of cooperation, Mr Powell replied "Tell that to the British troops."
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