A couple of news items appeared over the wires during the past week that should have generated outrage from coast to coast. Yet they were barely noticed. And insofar as the “mainstream media” took notice of them, it was only to invoke them as fuel for their anti-terror war, anti-Bush, and ultimately anti-American crusade.

 

In Spain, Judge Santiago Pedraz “indicted” three American soldiers for “a crime against the international community” in relation to the death of Jose Couso, a Spanish reporter in Baghdad, during the initial invasion of that city. It seems the reporter was occupying a building in which Iraqi officials were under attack from American forces, and was caught in the crossfire.

 

According to then Secretary of State Colin Powell, an investigation of the event showed that the soldiers did not use excessive force, and were justified in their actions. Nonetheless, Pedraz demands they “stand trial” in Spain and has issued “warrants” for their arrest.

 

Similarly, American Army Spc. Mario Lozano is on the “wanted posters” in Italy, and faces similar charges for killing an Italian Nicola Calipari, who was in a vehicle that behaved erratically at a checkpoint in Iraq.

 

Although none of the Americans in question are to be extradited to the countries where they are charged, they are limited in their worldwide travels, since they might inadvertently end up in a nation that has a mutual extradition treaty with Italy or Spain, and could be arrested there.

 

Nonetheless, the very nature of these situations is reflective of an undeniable international contempt for America, which is increasingly erupting into open hostility.

 

Reasons for this contempt are many, ranging from the long-standing disdain Europeans have for the comparatively raw and unrefined American history and culture, to the accompanying jealousy over America’s ability, despite its apparent social insufficiencies, to vastly eclipse the rest of the world in technology, economics, and prosperity.

 

Yet among the factors that undeniably contribute to the current worldwide hatred of this nation, its own liberal culture, and the poisonous propaganda disseminated by the American left, add considerable fuel to the fires of hatred burning against this country throughout the world.

 

Since the beginning of civilization, nations continually competed for standing on the world scene. And in the midst of such intense rivalry, any nation that willingly expresses scorn for itself will be gladly joined by other nations who believe they can exalt their own standing in comparison.

 

For decades, the American “left” has been working tirelessly to put the worst possible face on everything worthy in this nation’s founding and heritage. Not surprisingly, the rest of the world exuberantly joins in the derision.

 

In the immediate aftermath of 9-11, worldwide “sympathy” for America was strident and extensive. Yet in retrospect it was far more reflective of the liberal/socialist mindset that predominates throughout most of Europe, in which “victimhood” is perversely celebrated as some sort of virtue. Clearly, America had been blindsided, and was reeling in horror and grief. In such a mode, it was apparently compatible with the rest of the “civilized” world.

 

However, being Americans, the people of this country would not long remain in shock, but would quickly regroup and move decisively against any and all who were complicit in the attacks. At the very moment in which American resolve again became evident, the nation’s standing concurrently began to ebb among the rest of the world.

 

More significantly however, the unceasing diatribe from the left during that period, and ever since, has had a definite negative effect, both here at home and abroad. Once the initial outrage over the attacks began to wane, liberals reasserted their “worldview” in which this country, more than Islamist hatred or any other malignancy among humanity, was to blame for the horrendous death and destruction of the terrorist attacks.

 

Such a response from liberals was to be expected, since it remains absolutely consistent with their past mischaracterization of the country. And this is itself purely a reflection of the ongoing liberal perspective of everything worthy in Western Civilization.

 

During the entirety of the conflicts in Southeast Asia, untold millions of innocent people were brutally slaughtered in a series of genocides that breached national borders and inflicted unimaginable misery and suffering on that region. Yet to most liberals, the injustice of the episode was entirely defined and encapsulated in the “My Lai” massacre, in which Vietnamese civilians, possibly numbering in the hundreds, were killed by a wayward American Lieutenant.

 

Similarly, the brutishness and wanton slaughter throughout Iraq and the Middle East are apparently not denoted by Hussein’s mass graves and the indescribable torture and barbarism of militant Islam, but by Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

 

This is because the media and the American left only focus on such situations, and deliberately magnify any injustices supposedly committed there, such as the supposed desecration of Korans by American soldiers. Yet when it turned out that no desecrations took place, the story faded from the headlines with little or no retraction.

 

Similarly, economic stratification in this country is not viewed as having resulted from the incredible prosperity that inevitably springs from a culture of openness, freedom, and respect for private property, but as proof of the pillages of the “haves” from the “have nots.”

As a result, a societal environment in which more wealth than the world has ever seen is within reach to all who wish to access it, rather than being showcased as a model of plenty, is instead fraudulently employed as proof of greed and theft.

 

Nor has America’s heritage been immune from leftist attacks. Their sordid attempt to discredit the four-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Jamestown Colony stands as only the latest example. Rather than celebrating this year’s commemoration of the 1607 landing in Virginia as a momentous event in the founding of our nation, liberals seek to dishonor it as an “invasion,” of the native land.

 

Of course, being liberals, they make no efforts at restitution to those whom they claim were wronged. Nor do they offer to set an example by vacating North America. Instead, they merely wag sanctimonious fingers of accusation at their fellow countrymen and commend themselves for their moral superiority in doing so.

 

But, in spite of their obvious hypocrisy, over time their venomous efforts have taken a toll. Real Americans, who love and appreciate their country and everything that has made it great, must rise up in defiant opposition to the left. The window of opportunity to do so closes a little more with each passing day.

 

If “heartland” Americans do not hold the country in high esteem, trumpeting its greatness and successes while maintaining its flaws and failures in their proper perspective, they certainly cannot expect the morally weak and spiritually depraved throughout the rest of the world to do so.