Bad news, America: World doesn’t like We the People
By David Wood
Newhouse News Service
WASHINGTON — The United States long has been a source of irritation for the rest of the world, but the news is worse this year.
While Europeans and Asians and Arabs increasingly have disliked U.S. policies or specific U.S. leaders in recent years, Americans were liked and admired.
Polls show an ominous turn. Majorities around the world think Americans are greedy, violent and rude, and fewer than half in countries such as Poland, Spain, Canada, China and Russia think Americans are honest.
“We found a rising antipathy toward Americans,” said Bruce Stokes of the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which interviewed 93,000 people in 50 countries over four years.
Few analysts expect more than marginal improvements, short of another Sept. 11.
* Pew study online | Anti-Americanism at highest level in modern history
The analysts who predict attitudes would shift if “another Sept. 11” occur are ignoring the findings of this poll.
The dislike is accelerating among youth, Stokes said. For example, 20 percent of Britons younger than 30 have an unfavorable opinion of Americans, double the percentage of 2002.
The problem, Stokes said, “is Americans, not just [President] Bush.”
In increasing numbers, people around the globe resent U.S. power and wealth and reject specific actions such as the occupation of Iraq and the campaign against democratically elected Palestinian leaders, in-depth international polling shows.
America’s image problem is pervasive, deep and perhaps permanent, analysts say, an inevitable outcome of being the world’s only superpower.
This implies that U.S. superpower status is a new development when it is not. What has changed is how the U.S. has exerted that power and criticisms of that shift have been pouring in since Bush decided to invade Iraq. Wood is merely indulging in the self-serving rhetoric that they hate us for our freedom despite the findings staring him in the face. It is more likely that if another Sept. 11 were to occur the level of sympathy would be much lower than it was in 2001 whilst fear and dread of how the U.S. would react would be much higher.
Criticisms of U.S. “values” started with the bombing campaign on Afghanistan. The U.S. reacted to an attack on its civilians by dumping tons of ordinance on Afghanistan’s civilian population. If the U.S. had restored a semblance of the order it upset when it decided to arm the Taliban and oust Russia from the region it might have elicited some level of forgiveness for those atrocities. Instead, the U.S. is only concerned with making the area safe-enough for its interests and demands that allies do what it takes to keep the lid on, whilst boasting that the corrupt, warlord infested entity euphemistically referred to as the “new government” is an example of positive regime change. The careless bombing campaigns continue today. The so-called “successful operation” that U.S. forces conducted last Sunday night, allegedly killing 20 Taliban members, “killed 16 civilians and wounded 15 more, among them women and children, the local governor and villagers said Monday.” The Globe and Mail reports that 25 or more civilians may have been killed.
According to Wood, the president of the U.S. Institute of Peace Richard Solomon said, “It’s an attractive aspect of our culture that we worry about what other people think. The French couldn’t care less if they make people unhappy.”
Solomon may gain job security by tripping the light fantastic to this old tune, but more than a few Americans would now decline a dance to this tired slur, and the rest never were suitable partners. In fact, quite the opposite disposition was brandished whenever U.S. actions in Afghanistan were criticised and most vehemently displayed on the road to Iraq. The world was put on notice that U.S. interests take priority over all other concerns and there is no evidence that attitude has morphed into something akin to Solomon’s statement.
It could be said that attitude has shifted to one even more audacious as the continued occupation of Iraq forces Americans to drop the pretense and confront the implausible chasm between what the U.S. says and what it does. The world doesn’t have to play catch-up. It’s been on the receiving end of U.S. policy since its founding. Global frustration with the average American’s refusal to confront U.S. history and actions will only grow more intense if changes aren’t made.
Last night, the House of Representatives “debated” HR4681, the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006. The extent to which U.S. politicians are willing to enter disinformation into the record is appalling and irresponsible. And the Pew study shows that Americans are the only people on the planet who believe their distortions and outright lies.
Other Policies Cause Friction (p.8 – .pdf)
There are other major policy differences between Americans and people around the world. For Muslims, it has become almost an article of faith that the United States sides unfairly with Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians; 99% of Jordanians, 96% of Palestinians and 94% of Moroccans agree. So too do most Europeans.
This opinion is even widely shared in Israel itself — in May 2003, nearly half of Israelis said U.S. policy favors Israel too much. At that time, majorities or pluralities in 20 of 21 populations surveyed said U.S. policy was unfair, with Americans the lone exceptions.
It’s one thing for the United States to rewrite history and act in its own self-interests, it’s quite another to expect the world to dumb down and shoulder the consequences of its actions. Obviously, it has no intention of doing so.