[B]Who hates America?[/B]

Agreed

Since bush stole the WH, I have hated America.

some of these questions were discussed in UK, and i just wanted the American peoples view...
so i will tell you the link in the near future

Your poll is absurd.

OK, like all righties, you're a racist and an ethnicist.

But, people hate America because it is the bully of the world right now and if you think there is any reason for the war in Iraq other than
1.) little bush wanted to suck up to his daddy;
2.) this country wanted to rid itself of excess population in the form of poor black boys from Flint, MI, as illustrated by Michael Moore;
3.) OIL!! OIL!!! OIL!!!!
you are so naive that you should not walk up unaccompanied during the day, to say nothing of the evening!

People hate America because it is shallow.

People hate America because the yokels in the red state have, what my ex-husband would so poetically call, " a hair across their a$$es" over Darwin.

People hate America because it is politically backward.

People hate America because it endorses suffering around the world in the form of industrialization.

People hate America because America wouldn't sign the Kyoto Accord.

People hate America because it violates treaties and won't sign others.

Meditate on your sins!

Since Rafick voted in his own poll, he should know how stupid everyone here thinks it is.

hey! iam not forcing you people to read this or take part !!!!!!

What happned to the FREEDOM of speech? ?

Oh, plainoldme took it. He just posted that he speaks for everyone here on another thread.

Article 19 Human Rights Charter, United Nations:
Article 19 Human Rights Charter, United Nations:

Article 19 Human Rights Charter, United Nations:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." :wink:

Rafick -- You remind me of the late George Romney, former governor of Michigan and best friend of GHW bush. You know, the man with the terry cloth brain. Yes, you have your right to an opinion. You have the right to express it. The problem is that the opinion you hold is not your own. You're a wholly owned subsidiary of the racist Republican party.

Invalid Criticism of America

Some criticisms that are not valid, are immature, or just plain ignorant

Here are some criticisms that are not really valid, that are immature, or just plain ignorant. This essay isn't really about this type of immature hate, which vanishes with maturity or thought and rarely becomes action.
1. Language
2. Success & Jealousy
3. Power & Jealousy
4. Misc.

Why do people hate America?
Controversial: A summary of the reasons for hatred of American

Ex-colonial countries like the United Kingdom, France, etc, have all committed atrocities. They all have people and nations who still reserve some hatred for them due to past events, wars and politics. And rightly so.
I fear that this list may be seen as a list of why people should dislike North America. This is not the case. These are the reasons that people feel account for their hatred of America, and are not always logical or solid. Looking into them you will find opposing points of view on whether America deserves some of the criticism it received. I wish to give a non-American point of view on anti-American sentiment without appearing "anti-American" myself.

Misc. Different reasons
Naive: America does not know that it is hated
History of war:
Nagasaki & Hiroshima
Biological Weapons
The Land Mine Treaty
The Arms Trade
Oil, Bush, Kyoto
Short term strategies & long term suffering
Heavy handed commercial aggression
Patriotism & Self Righteousness
World War 2: America is self glorifying?
Obesity
UN criticism of the United States' Children's Rights
Rape and violent crime statistics - the highest in the modern world?
Foreign Aid: USA is stingiest of the 22 most developed countries
Support of obnoxious regimes
International discord and contempt of the UN
The Middle East:
Osama bin Laden
Israel

Westerners
On a personal and individual level, Americans and Europeans get on, individuals and parties are not hindered by politics. Frequently, in most sane people, all this is just politics and not something to take on a personal level with Americans. And rightly so, the solution is not in bickering or loss of friendship!

Terrorism
If a person outside of American culture is a hateful person, they may actively hate and verbally attack America. If the person takes this to include a hatred of American's themselves, they are foolish and inconsiderate and have become a fool. If a person like this is brought up by people with vested interests in attacking America (and there are many), a person can be driven to take his opinions to a violent level. It is of utmost importance that we do not blame "Islam" or "Afghanistan" as a concept for the actions of such people, in the same way you would not blame all North American's because some American companies openly fund the IRA. Generic hatred is not solved or soothed by adding more layers of hatred.

Racism
I have a massive disgust for those in the Western world who have recently assaulted someone because they happen to be a Muslim. It is equal to violent racism. And on that note, it is the same inhumanity that allows the reasons above to amount to a individual hatred of Americans.

How do people see America?
Westerners see America as just another nation, the most commercially successful one, with a poor pollution record and other bad things. Also America is seen as a Police figure, although the UN's decisions are much more respected, it is frequently the US that has the required military power. America is a required nation, a stabilizer on the world.

Hatred becomes action - the cause & Conclusion
Hatred becomes action not due to apathy or indifference, but when a person wishes to act. When people are willing to kill themselves for a cause it is not due to a whim or immature persecution complex, there must be much stronger factors involved. People willing to go this far... and to maintain that mentality for periods of time to organize an attack and carry it out have got more of a grudge than a mere shallow hatred of success or jealousy.

When bare necessities are short, and the Western world still imposes sanctions and aid is unpredictable and scarce, people will always look to their oppressors as the enemy. When the chances arise, they will lash out at their perceived oppressors because it is the final attempt to free themselves from poverty.

Now, it is very true that they do not understand fully why the West, symbolized by America, appears to be suppressing them. They receive government propaganda and biased media all their lives, it is not their fault that they have been misled. Which I believe many of them have. It is the governments and leaders that are to blame. But more often than not, there is simply no available options to remove and replace a government without causing even more hatred amongst the populace.

American foreign policy and the issues listed in the list of criticisms of America serve to cause many nations to lose sympathy with America, and causes developing countries under fanatical leaders and poor governments to be easily convinced that America is The Great Satan (which has been the term given to America for many decades by the developing world). The reasons above all serve as instruments to convince people that anti-American hatred is correct, intellectually justified.

There is a belief and hope that if enough nations oppose America, the American people will realize what their government has been doing and will overthrow them. This hope is misguided, as anti-American actions are causing the opposite; they have been causing increasing hatred in return of Islamic or otherwise theocratic nations.

So there is a cycle, where neither side understands the other. The potential for chance lays in the ability to remove the propaganda that allows the Criticism-of-America issues above to be turned into hate.

UK POLL results:

"When asked to pick one "main reason why those who attacked us and their supporters hate the United States," the reasons given most often were
1. "our democracy and freedom" (26%) and
2. "our support for Israel" (22%)

Which UK poll?

Oh, never mind: plainoldme will simply dismiss it as a wholly owned subsidiary of the republican party ... never mind that the party doesn't exist in the UK.

ABC television and PBS Frontline
interviewed bin Laden during the time of the Clinton administration. Bin Laden clearly stated
why he opposed America.


"They (Americans) have put themselves at the mercy of a disloyal government,… it is Israel inside
America. Take the sensitive ministries such as the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense
and the CIA, you will find that the Jews have the upper hand in them. They make use of America to
further their plans for the world…"
For over half a century, Muslims in Palestine have been (by the Jews) slaughtered and assaulted"

Notwithstanding any of his alleged crimes, bin Laden has never in his entire life uttered a
word against Democracy! The media invented the lie about attacking Democracy to hide the
real truth; that America is being attacked in retaliation for the American government's
support of Israel's terrorist policies in the Mideast. The unanimity of the media in propagating
this huge lie without contradiction should make every thoughtful person suspect that
Americans are not getting the whole truth from the media.
and robbed of their honor and of their property. Their houses have been blasted, their crops
destroyed…This is my message to the American people: to look for a serious government that looks
out for their interests and does not attack other people's lands, or other people's honor…"3

One must take whatever bin Laden says with a huge grain of salt. It also helps to read his remarks in the original Arabic, which many sites have published. Another example is of Al-Jazeera's recent broadcast of the most recent bin Laden tape. It turned out they had edited it for US viewing.



Why does bin Laden hate America?

Muslims Ask: Why Do They Hate Us?

If you lived in the Middle East, you might easily believe that America is waging a worldwide war against Islam, and that Americans must hate Muslims. Would you be wrong?

In December 1998, I met a waiter in the quiet Egyptian port of Suez. As I sipped tea in his cafe, he pulled up a chair to chat, as Egyptians often do to welcome strangers. Not long into our amiable repartee, he looked me in the eye.

"Now I want to ask you a blunt question," he said. "Why do you Americans hate us?" I raised my eyebrows, so he explained what he meant and, in doing so, provided some insights into why others hate us.

Numerous United Nations resolutions clearly define Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem as illegal. Yet Israel receives 40 percent of all US foreign aid, more than $3.5 billion annually in recent years, roughly $500 per Israeli citizen. (The average Egyptian will earn $656 this year.)

Israel uses all of this aid to build new settlements on Palestinian land and to buy US-made warplanes and helicopter gunships. "Why do Americans support Israel when Israel represses Arabs?" the waiter asked.

He went on: Evidence clearly shows that the US-led economic sanctions on Iraq punish Iraqi civilians while hardly touching Saddam Hussein's regime. A UNICEF study in 1999 backed him up, saying that 500,000 children under five would be alive today if sanctions did not exist. Surely Iraqi children are not enemies of international peace and security, the waiter expostulated, even if their ruler is a brutal dictator.

The United States presses for continued sanctions because Hussein is flouting United Nations resolutions, but stands by Israel when it has flouted UN Resolution 242 (which urges Israel to withdraw from land occupied in the 1967 War) for over 30 years. Arabs and Muslims suffer from these and other US policies.

The only logic this young Egyptian could see was that America was pursuing a worldwide war against Islam, in which the victims were overwhelmingly Muslim. America is a democracy, he concluded, so Americans must hate Muslims to endorse this war.

Try here... if you want to read ahead.

Are you suggesting Rafick is a "rightie"? Are you mad?

I already told the results , if you read previous posts

I read previous posts. You appeared to be coy or protective about your link. I just provided it for those who might prefer to cut to the chase. If you're claiming you posted your link, I missed it, and provided the above link for the edification of those who might be interested. Thanks.