Short attacks US 'bullying'

Short: America risks 'stoking up hatred'

Former cabinet minister Clare Short has launched an outspoken attack on US "bullying" which she says could become a "recruiting sergeant" for terrorist groups.

In an article for the BBC, the former international development secretary says the US response to 11 September may have created more support for the likes of Osama Bin Laden.

Ms Short, who quit the government over the Iraq war, wrote the article as part of a BBC-led global television debate called What The World Thinks of America.

She says "too few Americans seem to understand that American power cannot make America safe.

I fear Bin Laden has won many more recruits as the US response to September 11th has alienated more and more people

Clare Short

"If America continues to throw its weight around and to bully or punish anyone who gets in its way, it will stoke up more and more resentment and hatred across the world," she said.

"And this atmosphere acts as a recruiting sergeant for terrorism - the very enemy against which the post September 11th focus of American attention is directed."

Ms Short says the "terrible reality" is that "the world is more fragile, divided, bitter and unhappy post September 11th in exactly the way that Osama Bin Laden would want".

"The enormous tide of sympathy and support that flowed to America post September 11th - from all corners of the world - has now been dissipated," she writes.

"I fear Bin Laden has won many more recruits as the US response to September 11th has alienated more and more people."

'Disrespect'

Ms Short says it is vital the world now unites around the United Nations and learns "the lessons of the divisions over Iraq".

"If not, we will see more division and bitterness and I fear more terrorism in the years ahead of us."

And she warns that many in the US see the UN as "a conspiracy to create a world government and destroy America's freedom".

Joined by more recruits?

The Bush administration has shown disrespect to the UN through the Iraq crisis, she writes.

But she says Bill Clinton's presidency also "refused to pay its dues to the UN" through shunning the Kyoto Agreement on the environment and refusing to sign up to the International Criminal Court.

"It isn't that the US does not operate in the UN system. It finds it useful when it is ready to do America's bidding but is soon very exasperated if countries have differing views," she writes.

"The US wants to use the UN to tell everyone else what they must do and is increasingly willing to use its power to bully and punish those who get in its way.

"The sadness of all this is that it is in the interest of the US and American people, as well as all the rest of us, to build a commitment to international justice and the rule of law.

"And we cannot build such a world without a strong commitment to work together through the UN and work to increase its effectiveness and decisiveness."

What The World Thinks of America will be broadcast in the UK on BBC Two on Tuesday, 17 June, 2003 at 2100 BST.