NYTimes.com Article: Ashcroft Soaks Up a World of Complaints

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Ashcroft Soaks Up a World of Complaints

January 25, 2003
By ALAN COWELL






DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 24 - Attorney General John
Ashcroft came here today to explain to the world's rich,
powerful and just plain pushy the Bush administration's
tactics in its campaign against terror. In the process, he
faced a barrage of questions, not all of them from the
usual suspects.

Paul Sagan, an American technology executive from
Cambridge, Mass., for instance, told Mr. Ashcroft after
lunch in an luxury hotel: "I'm concerned about the way
Americans are perceived. Why do you think we are perceived
as being not on the right side by a lot of the world? Often
we are seen on the wrong side."

Earlier, at a meeting of the World Economic Forum - an
annual gathering of some 2,000 business, political,
religious and other leaders - Kumi Naidoo, head of an
umbrella organization of civil rights groups, took Mr.
Ashcroft to task over the way America has conducted its
antiterror campaign since Sept. 11.

"We are seeing large levels of alienation across this
planet from the war on terrorism," he said in one of
several sharp exchanges with Mr. Ashcroft. "What we are
saying is that certain fundamental tenets of democracy are
being violated."

Kenneth Roth, who is the head of Human Rights Watch U.S.A,
said America's "unwillingness to be bound by international
standards has bred distrust and is harming the U.S.'s
standing in the world and the war against terrorism."

At a separate session yesterday, Anne-Marie Slaughter, a
professor at Princeton, said the central issue being
debated in the world now was American power and the
opposition to it.

Recalling that the World Economic Forum met last year in
New York City in part out of sympathy following the Sept.
11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, Professor
Slaughter added, "The agenda has shifted."

The response by American participants to the criticism
today seemed to be that the Bush administration can live
with dueling perceptions of the United States as both
protector and persecutor.

"There may be many people who don't like the pre-eminence
of America," said David Dreier, a Republican congressman
from California, another participant. "But they do like
Americans to be there" in times of crisis.

"The U.S. is essentially a provider of most of the building
blocks of international peace and security," said Richard
Haass, a State Department official. Or, as Senator Joseph
R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, added: "Nobody likes
the big guy on the block. We are every country's problem
and every country's solution."

As the United States prepares for possible war with Iraq,
the challenge facing Mr. Ashcroft and other American
officials is to counter the argument from critics in Europe
and the Arab and Muslim world that the twin wars on terror
and Iraq will create so much resentment that it will breed
a new generation of anti-American terrorists.

While Mr. Ashcroft said that the American aim was to
prevent acts of terror before they took place rather than
prosecute the perpetrators afterward, Mahathir bin Mohamad,
the prime minister of Malaysia, turned to the attorney
general across a stage and, in front of hundreds of
participants, said, "To say you must do preventive actions
irrespective of the causes is wrong."

The terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center "did it
because they were incensed with something and we have to
find out why they were incensed," Mr. Mahathir said. "We
should try not to amplify the situation, anger them more
and lead more people to join this group of people."

Mr. Ashcroft replied, "I am not prepared to say we have to
give up values to appease the terrorist."

Critics from the United States, Europe and the Muslim world
specifically challenged many of the Bush administration's
antiterrorism measures, including its detention of
prisoners at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, its refusal to
identify by name people detained in the United States and
its decision to register foreigners from selected, mostly
Muslim, nations.

It is, however, the looming possibility of war with Iraq
that underpins a sense among some critics that Washington's
overwhelming dominance as the world's only superpower has
somehow lessened its standing in the world. "We expect more
wise guy than big guy," said Amr Moussa, the secretary
general of the Arab League.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/25/international/europe/25DAVO.html?ex=1044507107&ei=1&en=b2350a3449bda6b9



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