Friday, June 24, 2005

International Poll: U.S. Not Very Popular

Apparently , most of the world now has a more favorable view of China than they do of the United States. A new international poll shows pretty much what you’d expect. We’re not very popular.

I don’t know how important it is that we be well liked by citizens of other countries. Even without the Iraq war, I would imagine our ratings would be less than stellar. As the only Superpower in the world, we’re going to get in people’s way. No one instinctively supports the top dog.

But I wonder what the results would have been if the poll had asked respondents what countries they’d rather live in? I imagine the United States would significantly edge out China on that one. Still, it’s a shame how quickly the goodwill of 9/11 evaporated. We can only hope that the goodwill hasn’t permanently disappeared but is merely dormant. Hopefully as we move our efforts away from the militaristic and towards the more diplomatic promotion of democracy, the world will remember that, all said, the U.S. is a very good nation.

After all, the poll’s bright spot was that most respondents, even in the Muslim world, supported our goal of increasing democracy. As long as democracy is still popular, there's a lot of reason to hope.

1 Comments:

At 9:31 PM, Blogger Jdeer76 said...

I hope you're right. It really bothers me that we went from even the FRENCH saying they felt like New Yorkers right after 9/11 to this. Even some of the "allies" we had going into Iraq didn't really support the war so much as want to stay in the good graces of the US and hope for some kind of reward for their service.

Now I'm not saying we should bend knee to the UN and only do what Europe says, but to blatantly thumb your nose at the rest of the world as you invade a country is pretty poor behaviour. You are just isolating yourself from the rest of the world. I'm almost glad Iraq has become the mess it is. If it had been a cakewalk and everything had fallen into place nicely which country would have been next? I have to believe GWB would have felt nigh invincible.

 

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