There’s a man at the beach with a letter from President Reagan. He is there every day, rain or shine, sitting next to a Sherman tank, selling self-published books about American soldiers in 1944.This breathtakingly beautiful South Devon beach, used as a practice ground for the D-Day Normandy landings, is on few Americans’ tourist itineraries, but the Sherman tank (how small it looks today) is encircled by wreaths, always fresh, usually local. Small American and British flags fly in remembrance.
The tank, the man and the book commemorate a joint military disaster that was hidden for 40 years, disavowed by Britain and America alike. President Reagan’s letter acknowledges this sad fact. The tank was salvaged from the sea bed and sited at a memorial to hundreds of young Americans who drowned when their lightly armed landing craft, training for the Normandy landings on a disastrously clear moonlit night, were attacked and sunk by raiding German patrol boats.
Nearly 60 years later, the locals and tourists remember these and other Americans stationed in the area with admiration and gratitude for the selfless help they gave to Britain in that country’s desperate hour of need, when it stood alone against a real axis of evil, Germany, Italy and Japan.
The heroism of American troops in World War II, and the inspired generosity of the post-war Marshall Plan that reconstructed Europe with American dollars created a legacy of respect for America that (despite European protests during Vietnam) has lasted more or less intact to this day.
Britain is still far and away America’s closest ally. It’s the only other country that had forces engaged at every level of the operation on the ground in Afghanistan. The British SAS led many of the Special Forces operations; the Royal Marines hunted the hills for Al Qaeda; the Royal Engineers rebuilt Bagram air base; and the British army headed the peacekeeping forces in Kabul.
But now, if you read English newspapers, from the downmarket tabloids to the intellectual dailies, you can detect a new hostility to America. While Tony Blair remains largely supportive of President Bush at the diplomatic level, the public mood has shifted quite dramatically.
Part of the reason is national pique: we’re not getting the recognition we deserve. Britain’s role as America’s key ally is, to quote an article in The International Herald Tribune (America’s European newspaper), “routinely downplayed or ignored by both the US administration and an American media that is all too often engaged. . .in exaggerating American exploits.” Reports in Britain describe how the SAS were hot on the heels of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda at Tora Bora but were pulled out by American generals to allow US Special Forces to take over. By the time the Americans organized themselves and their air cover, the terrorists, and probably Bin Laden, had left.
A more substantive cause is increasing irritation and alarm at American policies which seem to many to be based on the concept of might rather than right. One of the biggest tabloids, the Daily Mirror, recently ran a massive headline calling America “The Rogue State.” The article estimates the number of Afghan civilians killed by American troops and bombs (the “collateral damage” that Rumsfeld calls “inevitable”) at over 5,000, twice the death toll of Americans on September 11. This carnage is caused by what the Mirror calls a policy of “shoot first and find out later.” This leading newspaper of the British working classes points out that: “the American rogue state has torn up the Kyoto treaty which would decrease. . .the probability of environmental disaster. It has threatened to use nuclear weapons in pre-emptive strikes. It has tried to sabotage. . .the International Criminal Court. . .It has undermined the authority of the United Nations by allowing Israel to block a UN investigation into the Israeli assault on the Jenin refugee camp. It has ordered Palestine to. . .elect an American stooge. It ignored the World Food Summit in Italy. . .while increasing American food subsidies (to American farmers) by eighty percent. . .to secure American domination of the world food grain market.”
Reports elsewhere highlight the amazing “Hague Invasion Act” hatched by “geriatric Senatorial bigot” Jesse Helms and recently passed by Congress. This authorizes the bombing and invasion of Holland — a NATO ally! — to free any Americans held by the International Criminal Court. From this side of the Atlantic it seems as if the American patriotism we used to admire has turned into a defensive paranoia and scary unilaterilism we now distrust. The Bush administration demands a totally free hand in its international dealings: it wants a grant of unaccountable power. No ally, however close, will ever agree to that.
On the beach near my birthplace, English flowers still grace the Sherman tank; the memorial to joint enterprise still stands proud. But Britain’s deep respect for America is turning sour, a remarkable feat of Bush’s foreign policy.
How much longer will Britain support the US? While 30,000 British troops are promised for the invasion of Iraq, an increasing number of dissenting Britons now see America under Bush as the primary threat to world peace. Will this be W’s lasting legacy — to break apart the strongest friendship America has ever had?
This article appears in Jul 17-23, 2002.
