The World According to Washington: An Asian View

Singh, Patwant

ISBN 10: 1567513395 ISBN 13: 9781567513394

Publisher: Common Courage Press, 2005

In this challenging, widely documented book, the distinguished Indian writer Patwant Singh examines US interventions in Asia from the Korean War to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and its aftermath. He demonstrates graphically how US administrations have preferred juntas rather than elected governments; how the US economy is overwhelmingly geared to war; how the violence of America’s actions abroad has been accompanied by erosion of civil liberties at home; how, in short, in the last 50 years the ideals of America’s founding fathers have been turned upside-down.

Patwant Singh is one of India’s leading writers on international affairs. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, the United Kingdom’s Independent and elsewhere.

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From the Publisher:

There is a poem by Robert Burns with these lines: Oh would some power the gift give us To see ourselves as others see us! It would from many a blunder free us, An' foolish notion.

I don't know if the Indian writer Patwant Singh had these words on the wall of his study as he was writing, but they could well serve as the epigraph to his book. It is no secret that our nation is at a low point in the esteem with which it is held by people in other parts of the world. This recognition has come as a surprise, even a shock, to most Americans, who have always believed that the United States is a beacon to the world, the "city on the hill". Our president. Not at all lacking in self-esteem, either for himself or for the nation he leads, holds on to this belief, declaring, with some bravado, that people everywhere envy our liberty, our democracy. Singh reminds us of the long history of Western rule over Asia, going back four hundred years, "transgressions which continue to haunt the world." It is not easy for Americans to accept the fact that this country has followed in the footsteps of the older imperial nations -- Portugal, Spain, France, Holland, Belgium, England. Indeed, our country�s first war for empire consisted of expelling Spain from Cuba and the Philippines, and then taking over those countries indirectly in Cuba through corporate control and military bases, directly in the Philippines, with a cruel war that resulted in the deaths of 600,000 Filipinos.

About the Author:

PATWANT SINGH is one of India's leading writers on international and cultural affairs and the environment. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, Canada's Globe and Mail, the UK's Independent, and elsewhere. He is author of The Sikhs (John Murray, 1999 and Knopf, 2000).

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