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‘Mistrust of the U.S. has ballooned’DISCUSSIONS | June 156, 2006Monica Flores Correa, Argentina 1990 Nieman fellow; former U.S. correspondent of Pagina 12, Argentina; now living in Brooklyn and teaching Spanish and literature Due to the Bush administration's foreign policy, mainly the war in Iraq, the habitual mistrust against the U.S. has ballooned to extraordinary proportions, not seen since, I assume, the Viet Nam war. It is sad to say that if another 9/11 would happen, there is a strong possibility that the international reaction - and I am not talking only about Latin American feelings- would be "it serves them right". I foresee indifference and a total absence of sympathy. Although American people are not hated by "the rest", they are perceived as isolated, manipulated and – pay attention, journalists! – misinformed. In South America this sentiment of mistrust is currently exploited by Chavez, Morales, Kitchners and the likes in order to go back to the old "populist recipe" which never worked and, most certainly, never will (e.g., nationalizations of energy resources, barriers to foreign investments). So Bush's policies have had an impact in more than one negative way and in more than one region, in some of them simply by default. Finally, a note about myself: although I live in the U.S., I stopped watching American news on TV after the beginning of this war. Now I watch the BBC, the French channel and the Italian news. I don't want to offend my American colleagues because I know that they are honest professionals. But I have been amazed by their determination of not questioning the "official story" of the war, Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, etc., and their incapacity to understand other people's cultural and national identities.
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