Transatlantic Media

The European media devoted heavy coverage to the relatively lenient prison sentence (five and half years) for terrorist offenses given to Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama Bin Laden’s former driver, by a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay August 7. But while the European media has been virtually unanimous in denouncing Guantanamo and everything to do with it, interpretations of the sentence varied widely.

The British leftish daily the Guardian and the German conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung both reported the argument that the verdict could help legitimize the military tribunal. From Washington, the Guardian’s Elena Schor reported that

“… supporters of the tribunal process asserted that Hamdan’s acquittal [on some charges] by the jury of six military officers immunized the Bush administration from criticism that Guantanamo defendants are deprived of basic legal rights.”

Similarly, Frankfurter Allgemeine Washington correspondent Katja Gelinsky cited both John McCain, who said that the verdict “shows that the jurors have carefully weighed the evidence for and against,” and prosecutor Lawrence Morris, who said it confirmed “the fairness and justice of the tribunal.”

The tone in the Guardian and the Frankfurter Allgemeine was similar to that of an August 8 article in The New York Times. While acknowledging that the trial had raised critical questions about the military tribunals, The New York Times reported that “military prosecutors here said the sentence proved that the Bush administration’s system for trying detainees was legitimate and fair.”

A different line was taken by the Times of London’s Washington correspondent Tim Reid, who concluded that Hamdan “will never be released” – because the Pentagon may hold enemy combatants indefinitely. This was not regarded as a foregone conclusion by the Guardian or the Frankfurter Allgemeine. The Guardian reported that

“The judge in his case, U.S. navy captain Keith Allred, told reporters at the prison camp that it is unclear what future Hamdan faces in six months but that he would likely be eligible for an administrative review of his status.”

Reid also characterized the verdict as “the latest blow to the Bush Administration’s efforts to justify its highly controversial military tribunal system at Guantanamo Bay.” Rather than legitimizing the court, as suggested by the Guardian, the Frankfurter Allgemeine, and the New York Times, Reid reported that the verdict would

“bolster the case made by civil rights groups, and much of the international community, that holding Guantanamo Bay detainees indefinitely is unjustifiable, particularly after they have been tried.”

In a commentary August 8, Reid went as far as to claim that “the five and a half year sentence was nothing short of a disaster for the Bush administration,” and that “the White House has made clear for months that whatever happened to Hamdan, he would still be held indefinitely.”

One of the more irritating habits of some journalists is to describe a recent event as “little noticed.” By this they mean that they alone appreciate its significance and can exclusively reveal it to the world. Frequently, however, the event has in fact been reported elsewhere but these reports have gone “unnoticed” by the egocentric writer.A similar phenomenon has been occurring in a cascade of reports in the U.S. media about the so-called “forgotten war” in Afghanistan, the latest from macho military TV and print correspondent Oliver North in the Washington Times August 10.(“Report from a forgotten war.”) The word “forgotten” suggests that North’s report from the ground in Afghanistan is boldly reintroducing Americans to a war that has vanished from their minds.

But who has actually “forgotten” the war in Afghanistan? Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama was there in a blaze of publicity last month, and his Republican rival John McCain has visited four times, most recently in March. A Nexis search reveals a deluge of reports alluding to this “forgotten war” in recent years. Does a constant diet of stories about a “forgotten” war cause people to forget it?

The Paris-based International Herald Tribune, owned by the New York Times, appears to be vaguely aware of the problem. It published a lengthy analysis of the war August 4, followed by another long piece on August 7 on the “forgotten war.” By August 8, the headline on the second story had been changed to “nearly forgotten.”

But the main point is that even if the war has been forgotten by many Americans, it has not been forgotten by the other countries fighting in Afghanistan, where it is a major and controversial political issue. There have been heated exchanges on troop contributions in the German, Dutch, Danish and Canadian parliaments. The war is constantly in the news in Britain and Canada, whose forces are engaged in heavy combat, and also in Australia. David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Opposition in Britain and very possibly the next prime minister, has said, “Afghanistan is our absolute Number 1 foreign-policy issue.” (”Going to the country”, Sunday Times Magazine, July 20, 2008).

The U.S. media frequently fail to mention that a large part of the Western effort in Afghanistan is a NATO operation and significant numbers of allied soldiers are dying there. North’s piece is a typical example. He reports the war as if only Americans were fighting and wrongly describes it as “Operation Enduring Freedom.” But that is only the U.S.-led counter-terrorism effort. The NATO force in Afghanistan is known as ISAF (International Security Assistance Force). The United States has about 34,000 troops in Afghanistan (15,000 in ISAF and 19,000 in Enduring Freedom.) The other NATO allies have about 30,000 in ISAF. North’s report, like those of others in the U.S. media, suggests that what is being forgotten is not the war but America’s allies.

In a delightful series of articles from across the United States, Frankfurter Allgemeine’s Washington correspondent Matthias Rüb has been taking the pulse of the United States three months before the election. Rüb shows that not all reporting from rural America has to be marred by popular stereotypes and old clichés.

Starting from Washington D.C., Rüb spurned the main highway (I-95) and drove south on the smaller Route 29 to get a better sense of rural America. En route to Florida, Rüb filed reports on the rich history of Monticello, the Virginia home of Thomas Jefferson, on the rapid high-tech business expansion in Charlotte, North Carolina, and on the great human sacrifices on display at the Fort Stewart military base in Georgia where 414 flowers are planted to honor the 414 Georgians who have fallen in Iraq.

Rüb’s articles do a fine job of displaying America’s diversity, often neglected by Europeans who see the United States as a homogenous country. Take the stark contrast between Charlotte, where Rüb described the “amazing development” of the last two decades, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he found one of the highest rates of financial foreclosures. In Fort Lauderdale, so-called Repo-Men, or repossession agents, are flourishing:

“Perhaps it’s no coincidence [given the high foreclosure rate] that a company is headquartered here, which according to its own data is not only the uncontested world market leader, but which has also tripled its operations in the past three years. The company is National Liquidators, which specializes in seizing and auctioning all kinds of water vessels from jet skis and sailboats to fishing boats, yachts, and small cruise ships. (…) In Florida alone, an average of five boats are seized every day.”

From Florida, Rüb travelled to Biloxi, Mississippi, and Kraemer, Louisiana where he filed a report August 6. You can follow Rüb’s tour on the website of the Frankfurter Allgemeine.

Rüb’s itinerary so far:
Undated: ‘Monticello (Virginia): On U.S. 29 through Virginia’
August 2: ‘Charlotte (North Carolina): Where the Crisis is still Distant’
August 3: ‘Fort Stewart (Georgia): Inexhaustible Stock of Flags’
August 4: ‘Fort Lauderdale (Florida): The Business of “Repo Men”‘
August 5: ‘Biloxi (Mississippi): Gambling is the Savior’
August 6: ‘Kraemer (Louisiana): Banana Republic in the River Delta’

Transatlantic media coverage immediately after of the collapse of the World Trade Organization’s Doha Round of trade talks in Geneva July 29 provided a wide range of different perspectives on the same story.  Commentators blamed the failure variously on the United States, India, or China, or a combination of some or all of them, with occasional tangential swipes at the European Union and Brazil.

United States Media Coverage

Washington Post: ‘Trade Talks Crumble in Feud Over Farm Aid’, July 30, 2008

The Washington Post reported that whereas American and European officials were prepared to make big concessions, the talks fell apart after India and China insisted on keeping the right to protect their farmers and accused the United States and other rich nations of exaggerating the generosity of their offers. India’s chief negotiator, it said, “may have played the biggest role in undoing the talks.” The Post said the talks “at times took on a highly charged, personal tone that immediately cast the negotiations as a power struggle between the developed and developing worlds.

“Within 24 hours of landing in Geneva nine days ago, Brazil’s foreign minister, Celso Amorim, infuriated First World negotiators, comparing their efforts to hype their proposed trade concessions to Nazi propaganda.  His comments drew sharp reprimands, particularly from Washington’s top negotiator, U.S. Trade Ambassador Susan C. Schwab, the daughter of Jewish Holocaust survivors.”

The article conceded that Brazil ultimately was more flexible than India and China, but still lumped it in with the hold outs.

The New York Times: ‘After 7 Years, Talks on Trade Collapse’

The New York Times report was among the few to observe that the failure of the negotiations “delivers a blow to the credibility of the World Trade Organization.” It also noted a strategic power shift among the countries at the table, pointing out that India and China have become aware of their economic power and are finally asserting themselves.

European Media Coverage

The Guardian: ‘Tariffs: WTO talks collapse after India and China clash with America over farm products’

The Guardian blamed the collapse of the talks on disagreements between India, China and the United States. It quoted remarks by U.S. Trade Ambassador Susan Schwab that sounded pushy and condescending:

“[Schwab thought] it was ‘unconscionable’ that developing countries were insisting on shielding their farmers…’in the face of the food price crisis, its ironic that the debate came down to how much and how fast could nations raise their barriers to imports of food.’ She [Schwab] suggested that if India and China had got their way ‘we could have come out with an outcome that rolled the global trading system back three years, or five years, or 30 years: 30 years of progress.”

The report said Schwab “has come under fierce political pressure from Capitol Hill to secure fresh markets for America’s rust belt manufacturers.”

It added, however, that EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson “had also come under intense political pressure over promised reforms to Europe’s lavish common agricultural policy.”

The Guardian recalled that French President Nicolas Sarkozy had demanded an urgent meeting with Mandelson in the middle of the negotiations, a summons that Mandelson politely declined, and that Sarkozy had tried to rally other countries, including Italy and Greece, to reject the deal as it stood. Thus while the headline fingered the United States, the report seemed to suggest that Europe would also have had trouble accepting the outcome.

The Scotsman: ‘US Clashes With New Giants’

Like the Guardian, the Scottish daily The Scotsman laid most of the blame on the United States for clashing with India. The Scotsman, however, was one of the few to point out that Brazil and India had been allies in the past during these trade rounds and that their split at this meeting was remarkable.

The Times of London: ‘Why the Doha Round of Talks Finally Died’

The Times laid the blame unequivocally on India. Almost all of its report focused on Kamal Nath, the Indian Trade Minister, who ‘was gritting his teeth, doing his best to justify a wrecking operation that has earned him brickbats from all round. He has brought to an end a seven-year struggle for a global trade agreement that would open boarders and reduce subsidies and he knows it.’

The report said India disagreed not only with the United States but also with ‘a host of developing nations in Latin America, including Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina,’ as well as other countries such as Thailand.

“The trade row finally destroyed the fiction beloved by development charities and poverty lobbyists that we live in a world divided between North and South, or rich and poor. Instead, we live on a globe of powerful and conflicting interest groups - Asian peasants versus Latin American farm laborers, for example.”

FT.Com-Financial Times: ‘Negotiators sift the debris for signs of hope’

The FT stressed the importance of an agreement for many of the countries involved, including Brazil. Nevertheless, while noting that WTO chief Pascal Lamy did not view the failure as final, the FT argued that Western countries were unlikely to offer similar concessions again soon. It blamed the collapse squarely on disagreements between India and the United States, with some meddling by China.

Der Standard: Greetings from the New World Order
In Austria, a commentary in Austria’s biggest daily publication Der Standard struck a similar note to the New York Times, calling attention to the global power shift that has occurred since the start of the Doha round in 2001.  According to commentator Michael Moravec:

‘The reason the negotiations of a world-wide trade agreement failed spectacularly is easily explained: When the discussions began seven years ago in Doha, when the goals and basic conditions were specified, the world looked very different: China, India, and Brazil still belonged to the community of developing countries and the US and the European Union set the tone.  If an agreement was reached between Europe and the United States, the remainder would be a child’s game in comparison, one thought at the time.  Now, the negotiations failed because of India and China.’

During Barack Obama’s visit to Europe, several European media outlets took issue with the coverage of his trip by the U.S. media. But while American pundits were debating whether the U.S. media were too biased in favor of Obama, a number of European journalists found their American counterparts excessively cool toward him.

“Obamania? Not in America,” read the headline of a commentary by Dieter Schnaas in the German weekly business magazine WirtschaftsWoche July 25. Schnaas claimed that Obama’s foreign tour had been viewed “in the U.S. media as ‘fake evidence’ of his foreign policy experience.” Similarly, the British daily the Independent reported July 26 that “the world has been bewitched by his [Obama’s] tour. But Americans are less impressed.”

An article in the German center-right daily die Welt July 25 accused the U.S. media and the American people of not paying enough attention to Obama and the election – a strange claim in view of the unprecedented media circus that has surrounded the campaign, and particularly Obama. The article reported that:

“The euphoria which greeted Barack Obama in Berlin has not reverberated to the U.S., and the media coverage of Obama’s speech in Berlin was only moderate.”

Furthermore, according to die Welt, most Americans are vacationing at this time of the year, and are paying little attention to politics or to Obama’s foreign trip:

“This Sunday only 100 days will be left until the Presidential election, but in the U.S. it is still vacation time. Barack Obama’s foreign trip was the latest hurrah in this three week long period, in which Americans forget about politics.”

The die Welt piece cited a report from Paris by Steven Erlanger in The New York Times as evidence of the negative American reaction to Obama’s Berlin speech, intended as a major foreign policy statement. Erlanger wrote that the speech was “vague on crucial issues of trade, defense and foreign policy.” According to European politicians and pundits Erlanger interviewed, Obama would have to move beyond rhetoric and provide more substance if he became president.

Die Welt and other European newspapers interpreted Erlanger’s article as criticism of their favored presidential candidate. A dispatch from the Norwegian news agency NTB, which ran in Norway’s biggest daily Verdens Gang, used the Erlanger article and a report by Fox News to portray the American reception of Obama’s speech as negative and skeptical. Obama’s speech was “met with skepticism in the U.S.,” and American commentators thought Obama was “clever with words, but vague on issues,” according to Verdens Gang. Similarly, an article by the Swedish press agency TT, printed in the daily Sydsvenskan, reported that “Barack Obama’s Berlin speech was hailed by the Germans, but received cool reactions in the U.S.”

Try Reading the Article
It should be noted, however, that the reporters who used Erlanger’s piece as proof of a negative American reaction to Obama’s speech had clearly not read the article properly. Erlanger was reporting from France on the European, not the American, reaction. And it should be no surprise to anyone that the conservative-leaning Fox News would be less than ecstatic over Obama’s performance.

This post was written by Ola Ulmo, Transatlantic Media Network Intern

Marco Vicenzio, Director of the Global Strategy Project in Washington, DC and Fellow of the Foreign Policy Association recently published an article titled ‘Diplomacy in word and deed’ in the July 28 edition of the Boston Globe. He points out that the major objective of Obama’s trip to Europe was to emphasize his ability to appear ‘presidential’ at home and abroad and to demonstrate his ‘preparedness’ in foreign policy. Therefore

‘avoiding rhetorical missteps or policy errors was a key concern, as was providing the diplomatically correct and responsibly rhetoric, sufficient enough to distinguish himself from Senator John McCain, but not deviating or implying any radical departure from mainstream policies.’

Interestingly, according to Vicenzino, by the end of the trip, due to his efforts to remain ‘diplomatic’ and ‘politically correct’ the result was a further diminishment of any substantive differences in foreign policy between the two candidates.

While much of the European media is consumed with insatiable ‘Obamamania,’ Christoph von Marschall, bureau chief of Berlin’s daily Der Tagesspiegel, describes how the foreign media has been almost completely denied access to the candidate. He writes:

‘As a German correspondent in Washington, I am accustomed to the fact that American politicians spare little of their limited time for reporters from abroad. This is understandable: Our readers, viewers and listeners cannot vote in U.S. elections.’

But Von Marschall also suggests another reason for Obama’s evasiveness:

‘Perhaps Obama considers members of the foreign media a risk rather than an opportunity. His campaign learned the hard way how comments to foreigners can resonate at home – recall adviser Austan Goolsbee’s hints to a Canadian diplomat that Obama’s critique of NAFTA was just campaign rhetoric, or former aide Samantha Power’s “monster” remark about Hillary Clinton to the Scotsman.’

Power, of Harvard University, had to resign as one of Obama’s top advisers following her indiscreet remarks to the Scotsman, a leading Scottish newspaper that is not read widely in the United States.

Marschall’s punch line comes from an Obama campaign adviser, whom he quotes as saying, “Why should we take the time for foreign media, since there is Obamania around the world?”

In response, Régis Le Dommier, the U.S. bureau chief of Paris Match (a French magazine specializing in human interest stories, European royalty and glamorous celebrities) and Laura Hamm, U.S. correspondent for Canal Plus (a French television station) wrote to the Washington Post saying they had interviewed Obama in January but had been denied further access since then. Their main point:

‘Foreign journalists covering the U.S. presidential election should have the same access to the candidates as American journalists have. This historic election campaign is being watched all over the world. It is not just a question of who votes in the election but also of who cares about the result.’

‘Snubbed by Obama’ Washington Post, July 20, 2008
‘Obama and the Foreign Media’ Washington Post, July 25, 2008

A surly New York waiter seeks to promote his forthcoming book, “Waiter Rant,” by accusing the British of failing to leave proper tips in a blog run by the British daily, the Guardian. John Murray fingers a retired couple from Leeds in Yorkshire, whom he describes as “wonderful people” and “polite and well mannered.” He then berates them for leaving a “horrible tip” of $7 on a bill of $73.23, which the couple almost certainly viewed as extremely generous, given the difference between British and American tipping habits. Murray claims that even British waiters in the United States ‘cringe’ when they hear English accents, which invariably presage “bad tips.” In a bid to sugar the pill, Murray adds:

“Trust me, I don’t like being right about this. I love Great Britain. It’s the home of the Magna Carta, William Shakespeare, Winston Churchill, James Bond, Page 3 Girls and [TV chef] Gordon Ramsay. Your “sceptred isle” heroically stood alone against the darkness of fascism, gave us the Beatles, and took Madonna off our hands. I love the UK and hope to visit that ancient and majestic country one day.”

He then concludes:

“But if I get another bad tip from a British person - I’ll nuke the country from space.”

An outpouring of comments on the blog run heavily against the waiter, and the American system that obliges waiters to rely on tips, not salaries, for a living. Murray has probably lost more British readers than he has gained for his book, due to be released August 7. It will be interesting to see how he promotes his opus if it is ever published in French.

A commentary in the left-of-center British daily, the Guardian, July 21 struck a salutary note of caution amid all the frenzy surrounding Barack Obama’s tour of Europe. It warned that, while transatlantic relations are likely to improve under the next U.S. administration, Washington’s demands on Europe will almost certainly increase -regardless of whether Obama or John McCain occupies the White House. In the words of Derek Chollet and James Goldgeier:

“Ever since the end of the cold war almost two decades ago, Europeans have been uneasy with American power. They have either feared that America would be too stingy in using its influence . . . or worried about the consequences of American “hyperpower.” . . . the next US president will give Europeans something they have long wanted, offering reassurance and establishing a great deal of goodwill.

But make no mistake: a president Obama or McCain will expect something in return. If Europeans really mean what they say about putting the transatlantic relationship on a stronger footing, they have to start thinking now about how they can help the next president get what he wants on the three toughest issues he inherits - withdrawing from Iraq, negotiating with Iran and successfully prosecuting the war in Afghanistan. That message should not get lost amid the excitement about America’s presidential campaign trail extending across the Atlantic.”

There is unfortunately not much evidence that Europeans are considering these issues, as the commentary correctly recommends. On the contrary, in recent years Europeans have tended to believe that the best way to achieve transatlantic unity is for Washington to adopt European policies, rather than for Europe to move toward the United States.

‘What the next US President means for Europe’ The Guardian, July 21, 2008

This post was written by Reginald Dale, Transatlantic Media Network Director

Earlier this year a dramatic accident at an illegal street race in a Washington DC suburb killed eight people and sent five others to hospital. The reaction of local law enforcement? A crackdown on illegal street racing. In the Polish city of Lodz, police have taken precisely the opposite approach. They have co-opted illegal races, making them monthly public spectacles. The New York Times reports on the phenomenon it a recent article “Where Racing is Fast and Police Aren’t Furious.”