By all accounts, the Afghan elections went smoothly, with most emerging reports framing the proceedings positively (though the amount of coverage has been disappointing; foreign policy success stories, in our current media culture, are not near so interesting as the prospect of 10,000 bloated corpses floating along the swollen delta, particularly when those corpses can potentially be laid at the feet of a fascist, guitar-pickin’ Biblethumper lording over a racist system).
The only negative, so far as I can tell, is that, as the BBC notes, voting doesn’t seem to be as “brisk” as last time—though an increased number of polling stations and a familiarity with the process could account for that.
Meanwhile, the Schroeder-era looks to be over in Germany—the crutch of virulent anti-Americanism having finally snapped under the weight of its own fatted dependence—though the Christian Democrats did not fare as well as expected, either, meaning Germany could find itself in a state of political gridlock, which doesn’t help Germany-American relations. From the BBC:
Germany’s Christian Democrats, led by Angela Merkel, have narrowly won Sunday’s election, exit polls suggest. After voting ended Ms Merkel – who wants to introduce far-reaching reforms to revive a flagging economy – said her party had a “clear mandate” to govern.
However it is unclear whether her party has won enough support to form a government with the Free Democrats.
Still, any day when the world can witness multiple peaceful democratic elections is a good day; and that we’re starting to see more and more peaceful elections in the Muslim world is a good first step toward defeating the scourge of Islamic totalitarianism.
At least, I hope so.
(h/t Glenn, here and here)
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More from California Yankee, Publius, Norm Geras, and Gateway Pundit.
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update: Diana has more. See also, Schroder refusing to concede
Fuckin’ zionazi neocon bastard. WE’RE ON TO YOUR LIES MISTER!!!!
But I hope you know I say that with love.
Schroeder won’t concede.
Recount?
Das Gruebchen Tschads? [German transl.: dimpled chads]
SMG
Don’t count Schroeder out quite yet. He has the same moral compass as a few politicians in our country. I’m sure all the dead people and cartoon characters in Germany haven’t been heard from yet.
CNN is devoting more coverage to how sensitive the Emmy broadcast will be than it is to Afghan elections.
As for the German election controversy- I say Diebold. That sounds very German to me.
Why isn’t the press predicting Germany will collapse into another militaristic dictatorship?
THE 60-YEAR OCCUPATION HAS FAILED!! YOU CAN’T EXPORT DEMOCRACY TO GERMANY!! WHO GOT US INTO THIS QUAGMIRE?!?!
Oh wait, now I remember. FDR wasn’t a Republican. Never mind.
“Meanwhile, the Schroeder-era looks to be over in Germany”
LOL want to bet? They may try to replicate the American Democratic Party’s chad and Washington State scenerios
http://www.angelfire.com/ky/kentuckydan/CommitteesofCorrespondence/index.blog?entry_id=1086468
I hear Jimmy Carter has refused to certify the election so …
If we are so anti-American, how do you explain this and this?
You make good points I looked at your website and also found the following so I would guess BOTH pro and anti-American sentiments exist there/
Picture of miltary caskets abused in election campaign
The minister of state Rolf Schwanitz abuses a picture of US body bags in his campaign for a seat in the German parliament. The slogan “She would have sent soldiers” accuses CDU candidate Merkel of supporting the Iraq war. On his homepage he proudly declares not to have used a dumb slogan, but a smart and provocative one. Although Schwanitz’s job in the Bundeskanzleramt does not deal with foreign policy, he uses Merkel’s Bush problem to his advantage. Thanks to EuroNeuzeit for highlighting this disgraceful campaign ad. Germany owes so much to US military families. Therefore their pain should be off-limits for political campaigns.
UPDATE 09/17/2005: Schwanitz removed the poster and his comments from his homepage after criticism in the press (SPON, FTD) and the blogosphere (Lautgeben, Liberalix, etc). Liberty.li created a poster with Bundeswehr caskets from Afghanistan or the Balkans in protest.
Posted by editors in Transatlantic Relations at 14:24 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (4)
But then a good portion of the perceptions and anti-Americanism could be due to
Misleading reporting in German public TV
The investigative German TV program “Panorama” began its recent segment on torture and killings in Iraq and Afghanistan by criticizing that a US soldier, who shot a wounded Iraqi in the head, does not have to serve a prison sentence. In contrast to the BBC and CBS, Panorama fails to report the mitigating circumstances the US soldier and US witnesses mentioned in their testimonies. Panorama’s biased and misleading segment can be watched online or read here. Dawson’s Danube and Davids Medienkritik analyze and translate the report and criticize that German public broadcasting engages in anti-American propaganda.
Posted by editors in Transatlantic Relations at 00:47 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)
Dan,
thanks for visiting our blog. You are correct, there are both pro and anti-American sentiments in Germany and we report about both.
Others, however, are not fair and balanced and only see Anti-Americanism in Germany. Therefore I took issue with the following statement in this blog:
“the Schroeder-era looks to be over in Germanyâ€â€the crutch of virulent anti-Americanism having finally snapped”
virulent => virus?
Well our immunsystem is pretty good. Schwanitz was forced to take down the poster.
You want Germans to be fair towards the US rather than anti-American. And I would like Americans to be fair towards Germany rather than anti-European.
@atlanticus well between yours and Medienkritik I may get a balanced viewpoint, it does seem like European media at the directions of some of your political leaders uses biased portrayal of the US to deflect attention from serious problems and it looks to be working quite well for them.
This of course only happens in Germany, but never in the US, right?
Not against Germans and Germany to any extent, now France and French that is another story.
Still I would say our media spends more time attacking Bush than Schroeder and Chirac.
What would be your observations on this?
So what?
Our media spends more time attacking Schroeder than Bush or Chirac.
And how did their coverage of when either man was elected compare?
BUSH BELONGS IN FRONT OF A WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL – NOT IN THE WHITE HOUSE
New wars of agression cannot be ruled out
Source please
Medienkritik
OH here is some nice stuff around election time.
Stern Endorses Kerry (Left: Last week’s Stern depicts an American cowboy boot crushing German workers. Right: A Stern from earlier this year depicts Bush and the ruins of the World Trade Center with the headline “How America Lied to the World.”)
http://medienkritik.typepad.com/blog/2004/10/another_october.html
Nice cover art, cowboy boot stomping on the symbos for the German Workers that is almost as good as the cover later this year of American Business being a mosquitos sucking the life blood out of German business, oddly similiar to art work in the first half of the 20th century with the same motif only using Jews instead of Americans as the Evil Blood Suckers.
Europe where they believe the old ways work best?
You don’t respond to my question for source to support your claim. Instead you just change the subject. You don’t get sympathy when you act like that. I give up. It’s hopeless to discuss with you…, unless you read every here first and provide some real answers, esp. to my very first question.
I did say medienkritik, I assumed you were familiar witht the site since you have it in your blogroll, then I gave another example from the same website, if you doubt the first one was actually from medienkritik, I suppose I could go back through their archives and find the link to it as well.
But I think I will just agree with you’
The discussion is hopeless and probably pointless at this point unless you can give an example of German Media treating Schroeder in the same manner as they and much of the American Media treat Bush.
That would be interesting.