Sigh…
BBC - The view of the US’s role in the world has deteriorated both internationally and domestically, a BBC poll suggests.
The World Service survey, conducted in 25 nations including the US, found that three in four respondents disapproved of how Washington has dealt with Iraq.
The majority of the 26,381 respondents also disapproved of the way five other foreign policy areas have been handled. . . .
The number of those who said the US was a positive influence in the world fell in 18 nations polled in previous years.
In those countries, 29% of people said the US had a positive influence, down from 36% last year and 40% two years ago.
Across the 25 countries polled, 49% of respondents said the US played a mainly negative role in the world.
In Kenya, Nigeria, the Philippines and the US most of those polled said they thought the America had a positive role.
But among Americans, the number of those who viewed their country’s role positively fell to 57% - six percentage points down from last year and 14 percentage points down from two years ago.
Oh well. The war on terror isn’t a popularity contest.
Plus, all this anti-Americanism is media driven anyway. The domestic media, and especially the international media, hate President Bush. Therefore, nothing he does on the international stage is going to be cast in a positive light. Which sounds simplistic, but it’s true. After the pounding the world’s citizens have gotten from the media about Bush being an arrogant war aggressor (among other things) should we really expect them to feel any differently? Especially given that most of them (including Americans) don’t get information about our President and his policies from anywhere but the biased media?
President Bush has used America’s military might to cast down tyrants and liberate two oppressed nations where millions of people live, accomplishments that represent a more positive impact on the world than anything the UN has done in the last two decades, yet he may go down in history as one of the most widely hated U.S. Presidents ever.
Which just goes to show that no good deed goes unpunished.