Quick note on a must read post from Tigerhawk about the The Pew Global Attitudes Project and Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald tries to make the case, off of this study, that President Bush has been the sole reason why the US is frowned upon in various parts of the world. Tigerhawk read the Pew Project and spells out how Greenwald is being intellectually dishonest once again (I know…shocker), all in the name of BDS.
There is a lot of interesting stuff in there, and much of it tends to undermine Greenwald’s claim that there is only one reason — the Bush administration’s abandonment of America’s traditional values and means of conducting itself — for the decline in America’s stature. In fact, world opinion is itself quite nuanced, and in part reflects the fact that much of the world just cares about different issues than the United States.
The central theme of the Pew Center’s report — embodied in its first sentence — is that world opinion increasingly distrusts all assertive great powers.
A 47-nation survey finds global public opinion increasingly wary of the world’s dominant nations and disapproving of their leaders. Anti-Americanism is extensive, as it has been for the past five years. At the same time, the image of China has slipped significantly among the publics of other major nations. Opinion about Russia is mixed, but confidence in its president, Vladimir Putin, has declined sharply. In fact, the Russian leader’s negatives have soared to the point that they mirror the nearly worldwide lack of confidence in George W. Bush.
This conclusory opening paragraph is reflected in the report’s underlying data, and might be read to undermine the claim that the decline in American prestige is entirely George W. Bush’s fault. It may well be that the typical person who lives in an economically or militarily weak or irrelevant country just does not trust great powers.
[…]Yes, the Bush administration was too damned arrogant in its relations with other countries during its first term especially and has all along simply sucked at waging the "information war". And, yes, various of its actions and omissions were destined to damage the reputation of the United States, especially among Muslims. It is not, however, at all obvious that this decline in popularity is of the great geopolitical significance that Glenn Greenwald (and, to be sure, many others on the left and in the permanent "foreign policy establishment") believes that it is. It did not prevent the election of the most overtly pro-American president France has ever produced, for example. More importantly, dislike of the United States has not prevented steep declines in the global public’s regard for the likes of Vladimir Putin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, or Osama bin Laden. American transnational progressives may prefer to claim they are Canadian at their confabs, but are we actually finding it harder to recruit enemies of our enemies? There is much less evidence of that.
Finally, Greenwald’s argument that the errors of the Bush administration are the "one" reason for the decline in standing of the United States strikes me as a huge stretch and in any case not supported by the Pew Study. As the Pew Study makes clear, there are at least two other factors at work — the declining popularity of all great powers and an increasing difference of opinion between the American public and much of the rest of the world about which threats are the most pressing. That difference of opinion may one day narrow — Al Gore is working his tail off to see that it does — but until then not even a Democratic president will be able to cater to the world’s preferences over those of his own electorate.
One interesting point from that Pew Project is the fact that most of the world believes the United States should fix the world’s problems. They hate us but want us to fix all the ills on this planet.
It’s just so intellectually dishonest to to allege that the world hates us because of Bush. They hated us during Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy and on and on and on. There was always a reason to hate us, either we didn’t do enough or did too much. No matter what we do we will be hated by some. But the true leader doesn’t govern by these things. A leader doesn’t protect his country by being chummy with other countries, by looking at polls and changing policies based on them….no, a leader understands that making the tough choices will make you enemies, but they make them anyway. A world with Saddam in power post 9/11 could not be allowed to exist, Bush understood that as well as any other with a bit of common sense, and he made the tough choice. A world with the Taliban in power post 9/11 could not be allowed to exist, no hesitation. A world where "the wall" exists preventing intelligence agencies from sharing information could not exist, a world which prevented us from listening to calls from terrorists could not exist, and so on. He made them all, and made enemies. But that is the sign of a true leader.
It could be argued that the implementation of those choices was done badly…but he made the tough calls unlike his predecessor who waited until the polls came in first.
No, many people across the globe hated us 50 years ago and will hate us 50 years from now. Strength has that effect on the weak.
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To emphasize your point, not only France, but also Canada, Germany, Japan, and Mexico have elected more conservative, US aligned governments in recent years. The same people moaning about our loss of popularity are the ones who predicted exactly the opposite would occur. Schroeder and Chirac were to emerge triumphant over an EU that was in ascendency while Blair was defeated in an election and Bush was to be either defeated in 2004. Things have not worked out as planned for the left on the international scene.
There are two outrageous aspects to this whole ‘the world hates us’ mantra.
1. There’s the fact that our most important ally, Tony Blair, came under vicious assault from the Left-wing media. In other words, the same people who complain that Bush made the world hate us and has ruined our alliances, couldn’t help but attack the best ally we had.
2. The Dems/media act as if they are a disinterested party merely observing the rise of anti-Americanism which they blame on Bush. When they are the ones who are whipping people into a frenzy in the first place. For example, there’s no precedent for giving non-Americans captured fighting our country the full constitutional rights that Americans have. And yet from the beginning of the war Guantanamo Bay has come under assault as some sort of gulag symbolizing all of the “civil liberties” that the evil Bushitler regime has destroyed.
Anti-Americanism and ‘the world hates us’ is nothing more than a propaganda tactic where the people who are largely responsible for it in the first place pretend to care that its harming a country they don’t like to begin with.
I’ve always believed we have the right man, at the right time to be our president now. As stated, this is the reason why: “But the true leader doesn’t govern by these things. A leader doesn’t protect his country by being chummy with other countries, by looking at polls and changing policies based on them….no, a leader understands that making the tough choices will make you enemies, but they make them anyway.” And, I don’t care how nicely the policy was implemented. All that matters is that the policy was implemented.