Looking back on fifty years as a foreign affairs commentator for Britain’s The Guardian, Simon Tisdall has written an article to knock your socks off.
His outrage has been triggered by some comments made by the American president and his cabinet members, but it has clearly been building for a long time. This article is Tisdall’s last one for The Guardian, and he is going out with a bang.
He reflects not only on his fifty years in journalism but also beyond them to America’s involvement in the second world war. His perspective is very different from that shown in most war movies and eye-opening when he contradicts the popular cultural legend. In particular, he says that it is ridiculous to think that Nato allies are freeloading on the US:
“US troops and missiles are based here primarily to defend the US. Since 1945, Washington has viewed Europe as its first line of defence against Russia. Germany was the US’s preferred cold war battlefield, Britain its airfield. Perish the thought that Americans might actually fight on their own soil (except against each other). US wars are typically waged in faraway places.”
He goes on to document a litany of disastrous US military engagements throughout the world and asks, “Are US policymakers innately incompetent, uninformed or simply unlucky? It scarcely matters as long as Britain and Europe feel locked in a toxic relationship from which there is no escape.“
Tisdall acknowledges that the president and his cabinet may have learned their rudeness and condescension from the British, but points out that what is being lost is America’s constitutional tradition and democratic values. He opines, “Moral authority is being lost, and with it the right to lead.”
As shocked as I was to read such plain language in The Guardian, I was also delighted to read something so well-written, so intense, so unafraid, and so necessary. I hope that you read the whole piece and share the link with your friends.
Snowbird of Paradise 
It’s a great piece!
Absolutely! I was taken aback, in the best possible way.
I read this article this morning and found myself saying, “Wow!” several times aloud. What a brilliant piece of writing!
I did the same!
He’s calling it as it is, imho. “American altruism” has never been. A friend observed to me the other day, that America had such a bad start: indigenous genocide attempts and enslavement. We haven’t recovered from that. We are still grabbers and takers. Our current administration is just an overt exaggeration of what has always been. It sickens and saddens me.
Sadly, it seems the American Dream is over for far too many people.
Exactly. And never was realized for a whole bunch more folks.
I wonder if this is all, in an unexpected way, a means to begin to recognize indigenous genocide and enslavement that, as you say, underlie the myth of altruism.
Yes, it is yet another opportunity to do so. I am listening to an enlightening book, “Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature” by Farrah Jasmine Griffin” It’s read by the author, which is always helpful. But it has so many references to Black authors, that I will need to read the print version as well. It furthers my re-education of what I was raised on in my whitewashed social studies classes.
Thank you for telling me about this book. I will add it to my “to read” list.