Anti-Americanism explained

The BBC is having a series on anti-Americanism to be aired over Radio 4 in the UK. Based to the article, it seems to challenge the concept of anti-Americanism as a reaction to American foreign policy, putting it in the same hate box as anti-Semitism or racism. The correspondent, Jim Webb, "argues anti-Americanism is often a cover for hatreds with little justification in fact". He travels to Paris, Caracas, Cairo, and Washington to study this phenomenon. Too bad I don't get Radio 4 in this part of the world-- it would've been good to listen in.

It is apparent in the article that the series has a benign veiw of America, attributing anti-Americanism in Paris as a reaction to America's "kind of democracy that celebrates and encourages ordinariness" (i.e., the elitist and cultured French aristocrat versus the egalitarian but uncouth American cowboy). But whatever the etiology of French anti-American sentiment is, what I'm more concerned about is the sentiment as a reaction to American foreign policy-- is it well placed? Webb discusses it early on in the article. After seeing an anti-American protest in London, he observes:

"A pattern was emerging and has never seriously been altered. A pattern of willingness to condemn America for the tiniest indiscretion - or to magnify those indiscretions - while leaving the murderers, dictators, and thieves who run other nations oddly untouched. "

What Webb fails to comprehend is that this strong reaction to America's "tiniest indiscretion" is actually an acknowledgement that it is expected to have moral ascendancy. The world demands more of America and is very disappointed when it acts like other thuggish countries.

More than any other country in the world and more than any other superpower in history, America has trumpeted itself as the beacon of democracy and human rights. The British never claimed to spread democracy in India-- it was honest that it's all about expanding the British Empire. America, on the other hand, never owned up to its imperial past, pointing to Manifest Destiny as the reason for denying the nascent Filipino government its independence.

America prides itself in its democratic ideals and its wide open arms to all peoples. It claims to defend human rights and civil liberties, and promises to defend the world against oppressive regimes. And, to a large extent, the world believed that. That is why the world bristles at America's "tiniest indiscretions"-- it cannot claim to defend democracy and human rights and democracy while destroying them with its actions. America has proclaimed itself to be the good guy, the defender of the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free". Its actions have shown us otherwise. That is why there is so much anti-Americanism in the world-- it's a reaction against hypocrisy. That is why America is so easily condemned for its "tiniest indiscretions".

There is one thing the world hates more than murderers, dictators, and thieves. It is self-righteous murderers, dictators, and thieves.