Wes Vernon
Monday, Apr. 26, 2004

What's more, such western “allies” as France, Germany, and Belgium say it is not fair that we are successful - that we don’t emulate their inefficient, socialist economies.

The war in Iraq is the focal point for worldwide America-bashing. But lest anyone suppose that pure, unselfish humanitarianism is at work here, the author of the new book, “Hating America” believes (for example) that the U.S. action in Iraq derailed a cozy deal to turn Saddam Hussein’s Iraq into “France’s Saudi Arabia.”

Gibson says the foreign policy differences with the U.S. are real, but they serve as a cover for other nations to vent their frustration with the United States because it is prosperous, successful, and powerful.

Extending the olive branch of peace in public is more respectable than bluntly stating the real No. 1 reason for anti-Americanism: Envy - or saying out loud, “We hate you because you’re successful, and we’re not. And we can’t stand it.”

In an interview with NewsMax.com, the host of Fox News' "The Big Story" says the American economic model of “low taxes, low government involvement, and high productivity” is “an abuse of the workers and an abuse of letting the corporate titans run amok.”

“We see it as prosperity and opportunity. They see it as oppression.” Gibson adds, noting (for example) that it is illegal to work overtime in France.

Also, it is much better from a public relations standpoint, to bash George W. Bush (while ignoring the mass murderer Saddam Hussein) than to whine in public over the fact that America’s reach around the world is not only economic, but cultural, as well.

“The governor of California is as recognizable in Amman, Jordan as he is in Los Angeles,” according to Gibson.

As for America’s military reach, Gibson says the fear in many quarters in Western Europe and certainly at U.N. headquarters is that “we will use our power without their permission,” and that will “will make them even smaller and more irrelevant.” Thus their “very bitter reaction.”

“Right before the war [in Iraq], 33% of the French public hoped Saddam would win the war,” he says.

It turns out that while France was playing the “humanitarian” dove-of-peace role, their leaders were stabbing America in the back because they were on the take from Saddam.

Gibson believes the evidence that Saddam Hussein was sending oil to the French.

French President Jacques Chirac “took the position that he was going to save the Arab world from this invasion [of Iraq],” the TV newsman says. “He was out promising the Arab world that there would not be a United States invasion [and] that he was personally going to stop it. He was being hailed as a hero in the Arab world for standing up to the United States.”

In fact, the author of “Hating America” says, Chirac “was the guy who sold Saddam the nuclear power plant the Israelis blew up. They had huge, vast oil dealings.”

Further, he charges, France had “an active campaign to rehabilitate Saddam — to be able to lift the sanctions, buy and sell the oil on the world market, and turn Iraq into France’s Saudi Arabia.”

What frustrates Gibson is that the guilt-trip often works because Americans have always had this desire to be loved by everyone. Is this phenomenon best analyzed by a psychiatrist?

During his book-signing tour, Gibson has been heckled by Americans who think it’s wrong for him to say, “Don’t worry about this. If you’re not liked, that’s not the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing that can happen is running airplanes into buildings.”

The major exception to Western Europe’s sport of America bashing is Britain, thanks largely to Prime Minister Tony Blair. And even that situation may not hold in future years.

Editor's note: