[Gunter Grass's take:]
The words of the current American president — “Those who are not with us are against us” — weigh on current events with the resonance of barbaric times.... Disturbed and powerless, but also filled with anger, we are witnessing the moral decline of the world’s only superpower, burdened by the knowledge that only one consequence of this organised madness is certain: Motivation for more terrorism is being provided, for more violence and counter-violence. Is this really the United States of America, the country we fondly remember? The generous benefactor of the Marshall Plan? The forbearing instructor in the lessons of democracy? The candid self-critic? The country that once made use of the teachings of the European Enlightenment to throw off its colonial masters and to provide itself with an exemplary constitution? Is this the country that made freedom of speech an incontrovertible human right? ...
<http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_12-4-2003_pg3_5>
Carl
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