More blind-anti-americanism?

[welsh]

Ok, so it's fashionable to hate america.

But please, just because we have a dipshit in the White House, don't hold it against us.

I mean, most of didn't vote for him.

Bush policy brings the world on his back

Tue Sep 21, 9:58 PM ET Add U.S. National - AFP to My Yahoo!

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The world view of the US superpower has seldom been as low as since President George W. Bush (news - web sites) launched the invasion of Iraq (news - web sites) without explicit UN approval.

Arrogant, aggressive, too unilateralist are just some of the terms used to describe the US administration.

Opinion polls taken around the world confirmed the dim view of the US leader and his policies, which is most notable among traditional allies in Europe and the Arab world.

Anti-Americanism has affected previous administrations during the Vietnam war and the deployment of nuclear missiles in Europe in the 1980s, according to Melvyn Leffler, a professor of American history at the University of Virginia, in an article for Foreign Policy magazine.

"But the breadth and depth of the current anti-Americanism are unprecedented," he said.

According to a study published this month by the German Marshall Fund and Compania di San Paolo of Italy, 76 percent of Europeans oppose Bush's foreign policy. This is a spectacular 20 percentage point rise in two years.

The fall in US popularity in the Muslim world has been marked by an accompanying increase in the popularity of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), who tops the US most wanted list after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Sixty-five percent of Pakistanis, 45 percent of Moroccans and 31 percent of Turks have a favourable view of the on-the-run Al-Qaeda leader, according to a Pew research poll released in March.

If the rest of the world was voting in the November 2 presidential election, the Democrats' John Kerry (news - web sites) would walk the competition against Bush.

The Massachusetts senator easily beat Bush in 32 out of 35 countries asked by the Globescan institute for a survey released this month.

Kerry wins in countries that opposed the Iraq war -- 64 percent to five percent in France, 74-10 in Germany, 61-16 in Canada -- and those in Bush's "coalition of the willing" -- 47 percent to 16 percent in Britain and 43-23 in Japan.

Bush wins in Poland, the Philippines and Nigeria.

Wooz? Care to comment?

The president's personal style is the main cause of his popularity problems abroad, according to Thomas Carothers, a foreign policy specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

"The very things that make him a popular and effective politician here at home are very irritating to many other people in the world," said Carothers.

"His kind of sarcastic behaviour, his kind of popular touch which is very nationalistic, sell very poorly in the rest of the world.

"It seems very foreign to most other people. There is a sort international quality of statesmen that he is the complete oppostite of."

The importance of the causes that Bush espouses are also universally recognised. The German Marshall Fund study found that 95 percent of Europeans and 96 percent of Americans believe that international terrorism is an important threat.

It is the answer to that threat which is in dispute.

Only 41 percent of Europeans believe that a war is justified, against 82 percent of Americans, most of whom also believe that the UN approval is not necessary.

But again, experts such as Judy Colp Rubin at the Foreign Policy Research Institute say this is not a new phenomenon.

"The kind of attacks encountered today would have been all too familiar in tone to Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, who had to spend as much time and energy as current leaders proving to Europeans that their country was not inherently bad," she wrote in an essay on anti-Americanism.

 

[Wooz]

Bush wins in Poland

Extremely interesting.
I'd like to know the sample population for this survey. In fact, every person I know and have discussed the matter with me, old or young, conservative or liberal, dislike the current US president.

There have been huge anti-war protests last year in Warsaw, as well as appropriate welcome comitees every time Dubyah set his foot on Polish soil.

On a sidenote, the 41%-85% toll is oddly high, don't you think?

 

[Jebus]

Bush wins in Poland

Extremely interesting.
I'd like to know the sample population for this survey. In fact, every person I know and have discussed the matter with me, old or young, conservative or liberal, dislike the current US president.

That probably has much to do with the circles one moves around in. I know, I know, you probably know all sorts of different people, but still, for some strange reason people who are liberal-minded rarely meet the other kind. I, too, have yet to meet somebody who voted for the Neo-Nazi's (well, except for my father that is); and still 1/4th of the Flemish did vote so. So, it might very well be possible that there is a vast amount of Bush-supporters out there, and you simply haven't met them.

That said, one must not forget that Poland is seen as a quite conservative country, especially when it comes to christianity. And, as Bush is quite the show-off-christian, a lot of that Polish support might very well come from that.

That, and the fact that the Polish government is known for its massive amounts of political indoctrination.

"The very things that make him a popular and effective politician here at home are very irritating to many other people in the world," said Carothers.

"His kind of sarcastic behaviour, his kind of popular touch which is very nationalistic, sell very poorly in the rest of the world.

"It seems very foreign to most other people. There is a sort international quality of statesmen that he is the complete oppostite of."

That seems like quite the stupid argument.

I seriously doubt wether Bush's personal appeal has (much) to do with the fact that the world denounces the American foreign policy. Granted, Bush as a person is severely disliked abroad too, but that isn't the reason people are protesting against the USA's policies. If Bozo the Clown was running the current administration, people would probably act the same.

"The kind of attacks encountered today would have been all too familiar in tone to Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, who had to spend as much time and energy as current leaders proving to Europeans that their country was not inherently bad," she wrote in an essay on anti-Americanism.

That, too, is quite the stupid argument. Or, at least, it is stupid because it makes it sound like the world has denounced America's foreign policies since the day it was formed. Which, as we all know, is harldy the case. As a matter of fact, Europe had a love affair with everything American from WWI right up to the Vietnam war...