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Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Dog bites man
Hmm, it appears we are not as popular as we once were.
Gosh who'd a thunk it?Based on their own travels to the Persian Gulf, Egypt and Britain, a nine-member advisory committee headed by former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff found widespread hostility toward the United States and its policies, especially the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
"For what can be heard around the world, in the wake of the invasion of Iraq, the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, and the controversy over the handling of detainees at Bagram and Guantanamo Bay, is that America is less a beacon of hope than a dangerous force to be countered," the report said.
"This assertion, repeated in newspaper columns, on radio and television broadcasts, and via the Internet, diminishes our ability to champion freedom, democracy and individual dignity," said the report by the Advisory Committee on Public Diplomacy.
But the article goes on:
You know, all the liberal stuff.What people around the world love about American culture, the report said, is a sense of freedom found in its writers, musicians, painters, choreographers and filmmakers.
...
And yet, it said, while committee members found "deep and abiding anger toward U.S. policies and actions," the criticism was not leveled across the board.
While U.S. policies in the Middle East were condemned, the American system of higher education, science and technology were praised.
3 Comments:
Choreographers? There are American choreographers? Who knew...
As perplexing it is to find that there are American choreographers, it's even more so to find that the teeming millions in other countries are apparently sitting around thinking about them.
By 
Joseph Thvedt, at
10:13 AM
Oh, and your liberal science -- is that the anecdotes of 9 Americans on a junket? How about asking thousands of people around the world, instead?
2005 favorable opinion of the US vs next-most-recent data:
India: much higher than 2002
Jordan: much higher than 2004
Lebanon: much higher than 2003
Pakistan: slightly higher than 2004
Indonesia: much higher than 2003
France: higher(!) than 2004
Actually, I'm just giving you crap, and concede the point. We don't do well compared with 1999/2000. We're mostly (but not universally) lower since then.
One amusing side-note: we're improving our image in both Jordan and France. In Jordan, 95% of those polled thought Americans aren't religious enough; in France, 61% thought we were too religious.
By Joseph Thvedt, at
10:44 AM
