What The World Thinks of America (BBC program)

oldandknew wrote:

From everything I read and hear, the USA has very much become the worlds most popular whipping boy. It's shot to #1 with a bullet as the DJs used to say. Yes America can be heavy hand and insensitive at times and is not exactly squeaky clean
The UK was once upon a time the #1 whipping boy, now we are #2 and we were never paragons of virtue by any stretch of the imagination. We carry a few similar millstones to those of America. Arrogant, rude, imperialistic, so goes the critics. Water off a ducks back.
There are many countries, north, south, east & west of here that may well be more idylic and better run but that doesn't mean they are conducive to a safer and better life style. Nor are they as pure as the driven snow. The driven slush more like and of course the greasy palm at the tiller. Then there is the popular parlor game, Pass The Brown Envelope Under The Table.

So for all of that and with respect to others, there are only 2 countries I would ever want to live in. I'll take the errors and the critics and live with it.

I liked this post. I was looking around and saw an article about Britain being pulled into the EU. It wasn't significant enough to share on the EU thread, but it had an interesting bit I had to share here.

The horrible heat wave in Europe is Bush's fault, so says Le Monde and a goodly portion of Europeans.

The excerpt--

Bush is derided and despised as no American president since Nixon. The conservative baron Rupert Murdoch owns the Times of London but you can't tell from the news pages, which contain the same deep skepticism everyone else on either side of the Channel expresses.
The blame-America attitude gets silly at times. For example, you might have wondered what caused the suffocating heat wave that has blanketed Europe recently. I found out the moment we arrived in Rouen. There, on the front page of the newspaper Le Monde, was a cartoon: an oppressive sun, with eyes made of dollar signs, smoking a cigar/factory with dollar signs, sending out thunderbolts of heat that pierced a prostrate Europe. In Paris, I asked a young businessman about the cartoon. "Well, of course," he said as if I were an idiot. "Your President Bush did not sign the Kyoto Accord." In other words, America was at fault because it had not signed a treaty that will not go into effect for years. And France was NOT at fault, even though its auto fleet contains millions of diesel engines and its nuclear power plants are turning French rivers hot enough to boil mussels.
---------
Shocked

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Since the establishment of the United States, Europe had not publicly wished us well, for whatever beliefs individuals may hold. There had been alleged democracies before, but not for millenia; there had been many republics--few which aspired to be democratic republics, unless simply paying lip service, and none which succeeded. It could be argued, largely through cynicism, that neither England nor America have attained representative democracy; they have come closer than any other states in history.

Prior to the French Revolution, Europe was largely monarchical, and where otherwise, was oligarchic. Europe wanted to see the United States fail, or to at least be weak and ineffectual--to vindicate what had previously been simply the way things are done, and now was a set of questioned political ideologies. Many were openly gleeful at the prospect of a major civil war in America, which suggest that many more privately felt so. That the working class in both England and France idolized Lincoln, and supported his efforts to preserve the union, speaks volumes about how they felt with regard to their own situations, under Victoria and Louis Bonapart, the soi-disant Napoleon III.

To then have had two successive generations of Americans land in France, to defeat a German army, to fight in Italy and to occupy German, was just icing on the cake for those who love to hate the U.S. To see what successful union had brought the Americans, largely European themselves, and with overwhelmingly European cultural antecedants, does not help those who already resent us, when they see how a heavily populated, well-educated set of nations such as theirs which will not unite and effectively manage their collective destiny.

This is an old song, and although the lyrics and the orchestration may have changed, the refrain is the same: "Damned Americans . . . "

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Quote:

Prior to the French Revolution, Europe was largely monarchical, and where otherwise, was oligarchic.

Actually, this was the situation worldwide, besides in Switzerland. :wink:

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I think a big misconception here is that people from around the world are anti - America. I don't think people are anti-america, i think we just have a problem with the American government.
I love America, i have been there many times but to see the way its being run has been bothering me.

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We should consider just what are the possibilities for widespread affection and admiration for a nation or power that eclipses all others in the contemporary scene. Is the general esteem and affection of others, less powerful or influential, a real practical possibility? Or are the normal reactions of fear and envy likely to cloud the general view?

I believe the lessons of history suggest that the views cited by the BBC are the inevitable reactions to the fact of our relative power, and are not particularly the result of our behavior. The truth is the United States is a net major supporter of international institutions and international norms for legal, social and economic development worldwide. The few exceptions to that rule are of course trotted out to 'prove' the contrary thesis by those whose attitudes are based only on what we might do based on our relative power, and not on the net effect of all that we actually do.

The slavish worldwide sympathy of much of the media and intellectual & scribbling classes for the Soviet Union, in the midst of its worst excesses during the '30s and '40s, should remind us that these judges themselves have, at best, a very uncertain record.

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We should consider just what are the possibilities for widespread affection and admiration for a nation or power that eclipses all others in the contemporary scene. Is the general esteem and affection of others, less powerful or influential, a real practical possibility? Or are the normal reactions of fear and envy likely to cloud the general view?

I believe the lessons of history suggest that the views cited by the BBC are the inevitable reactions to the fact of our relative power, and are not particularly the result of our behavior. The truth is the United States is a net major supporter of international institutions and international norms for legal, social and economic development worldwide. The few exceptions to that rule are of course trotted out to 'prove' the contrary thesis by those whose attitudes are based only on what we might do based on our relative power, and not on the net effect of all that we actually do.

The slavish worldwide sympathy of much of the media and intellectual & scribbling classes for the Soviet Union, in the midst of its worst excesses during the '30s and '40s, should remind us that these judges themselves have, at best, a very uncertain record.

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The fluctuations in the degree to which we are hated suggests that our actions indeed have consequence.

Case in point: They hated us less before the invasion of Iraq.

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Here's another perspective I don't think anybody else has touched upon, and that is that many of the government leaders of developing and third world countries are educated in the USA, and they are somewhat brainwashed to the politics and economics of our country. Our influence in this world is phenomenal when compared to the past; we are succeeding in changing the political philosophy of this world through our economic and educational ties to democracy and free trade. With five percent of the world population, and 40 percent of the world's economic productivity, we're doing pretty good - IMHO. c.i.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

The fluctuations in the degree to which we are hated suggests that our actions indeed have consequence.

Case in point: They hated us less before the invasion of Iraq.

Do we really know that to be true? I believe the reaction of some of our 'allies' BEFORE the invasion of Iraq shows us clearly that there already existed at a minimum the predisposition to believe the worst about our intentions.

Furthermore the histories of the development of the Kyoto and ICC treaties show clearly that there was a very strong 'restrain America" element in the policy goals of most of the European powers long before the advent of George Bush. Clinton temporized and avoided any confrontation on these issues, first by signing the Kyoto treaty, even though the Senate had already unanimously passed a resolution condemning the treaty, but never submitting it for ratification; and second by sitting on the ICC treaty for two years and then signing off on it just before his term ended. In both cases the issues were ripe for detonation no matter what the new administration did.

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georgeob1 wrote:

Do we really know that to be true?

No, we can't really quantify hatred but I have yet to see anyone make the case that Anti-Americanism has declined in the face of the actions of this administration.

Many research agencies have alledged that the hatred has increased, the recent terror probability index ranked America high on the list of probable victims of attacks almost solely based on that criteria. But I do not know what benchmarks they use.

My anecdotal evidence leads to this being the time of the greatest hatred of America in my lifetime. Most of my friends abroad love to visit America and love all thing American but since the war in Iraq those who had been the most pro-American of my aquaintances ahve been quite upset.

Traditionally even those who vehemently detest American policy usually separated that from American people and culture. They'd say thing like "I hate your government but love Americans and American movies, music etc.."

Recently even close friends have had a hard time making that distinction. They can't help but vent some of their anger at recent American policy at me.

It is important to note that my anecdotal evidence comes from the nations least affected by the war (read: they are not Arab nations) and from nations that are very pro-American.

georgeob1 wrote:

I believe the reaction of some of our 'allies' BEFORE the invasion of Iraq shows us clearly that there already existed at a minimum the predisposition to believe the worst about our intentions.

I'd put that at the maximum. I believe the pre-war trepidation was bourne of what has turned out to be a valid accessment: that the U.S. Administration was overstating the threat posed by Iraq and that the rest of the world was not being asked to come along so much as told that this decision had already been made.

Their accessments of the Iraq threat seem more realistic than what you have already rationalized as an acceptable lie by the Administration. I don't think they "believed the worst" so much as simply didn't believe. As you justify the use of deception in making a case for war I think it's justifiable for other nations not to believe deception when it fies in the face of their own accessments.

georgeob1 wrote:

Furthermore the histories of the development of the Kyoto and ICC treaties show clearly that there was a very strong 'restrain America" element in the policy goals of most of the European powers long before the advent of George Bush.

As to Kyoto I agree. Getting America to cut down on pollution is half the battle and there was an obvious (if perhaps not justified) attempt to curb American pollution.

In regard to the ICC I not only have no idea what you are talking about but I also have no idea what you could possibly be using to reach such a conclusion. Please elucidate. I suspect you are not well versed in the matters of the ICC at all because that is an indefensible statement (even if vastly differing interpretation is considered).

georgeob1 wrote:

Clinton temporized and avoided any confrontation on these issues, first by signing the Kyoto treaty, even though the Senate had already unanimously passed a resolution condemning the treaty, but never submitting it for ratification; and second by sitting on the ICC treaty for two years and then signing off on it just before his term ended. In both cases the issues were ripe for detonation no matter what the new administration did.

I agree 100%. But that is not the argument I am making. I didn't bring up these subjects. You did. I brought up Iraq.

If your game is to pin this on previous administrations please use Iraq and, say, the breaking of the Nuke treaty. You made the contention that we are hated not because of our actions but because of our status. While I concede that there is a substantial element of anti-American sentiment that fits that description I contend that this is a common cop-out. It's an attempt to lessen the responsibility for our actions by claiming the negative backlash was an inevitability.

That is simply not true. There are days when the rational objection to American policy is at a low, and there are days at which it is at a high. Even the irrational hatred fluctuates along that index and while it's not quantifiable it's quite obvious. I understand that you believe that the actions taken were justified and therefore might try to label the dissent irrational but my distinction is a clear one.

Some will hate us for our status. This is, indeed, inevitable. But what of those who vehemently object to our policy? Even if you support said policy you can't simple dismiss the concerns out of hand.

Our actions have consequences and yes, they are sometimes negative George. That was my only point. Do you object to that?

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I think there is a very puerile attitude among far too many adults in the U.S. that we can, indeed, dismiss the objections of other nations out of hand, and the smug pride of the bully in doing so.

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Setanta wrote:

I think there is a very puerile attitude among far too many adults in the U.S. that we can, indeed, dismiss the objections of other nations out of hand, and the smug pride of the bully in doing so.

And I would counter that it is the smug pride of bullies in those other nations that leads them to think that we in the US should care more what they think is best than we care what we think is best.

Which got me thinking...

Those on the left seem to live in a strange world where double-standards are the rule, rather than the poorly considered exceptions. Liberals--here and abroad--are constantly castigating the US for meddling in the affairs of other nations and for having the hubris to tell other cultures how they ought to live and behave, yet when it is liberals in other nations who wish to meddle in the US, then suddenly the problem isn't with the meddlers, but is found among those who would prefer to make their own choices as a free and sovereign nation.

The world seems split into two groups today: those who think the world is better off because of the US and those who think the world is worse off because of the US. Amongst those who are outspoken, it seems that most liberals are among the former group, while most conservatives are found in the latter.

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That's a silly argument.

Here is how it works:

A calls b, c, d, and e "left".

b = thinks America should not invade any nation it pleases
c = thinks some cases are warranted others are not
d = thinks America should get off its ass and go to Liberia
e = thinks America should mind it's own business.

A decides that his generalizations about political affiliation should fit neatly into logic and that taking conveniently selected samplings of individual rhetoric will illustrate that the group (that A makes arbitrarily) is inconsistent.

So A points at the fact that e and d contradict themselves and that the whole political ideology ("left") is therefore a work of contradictions.

It's among the silliest notions that can be contstucted. Of course you will have inconsistency when you selectively take different people's thoughst and try to mesh them into a generalized ideology.

Look beneath, you might find that e consistently thinks America should not intervene, anywhere. You might find that d wants intervention everywehre. They are individually consistent but by selecting arguments that are convenient for you you attempt to disparage the ideology you dislike.

It's beyond silly. Using such convenient measures any ideology can have a fallacious logical attempt at a smear campaign.

Watch:

Conservatives make no sense. They want America to be able to have the weapons we need "for our protection" and our "self defense" yet they deny this right to other nations.

They don't want other nations to have a say over what we do and they undermine global institutions like the UN and the ICC at every possible opportunity. Yet they are often the fiercest advocates of their nation getting to dictate what others do through military or diplomatic force.

See? There is a double standard!!! Rolling Eyes

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Typical nonsense, you've taken what i wrote, and twisted it into an indictment of those you percieve as your political opponents. I made no comment upon what ". . . liberals in other nations who wish to meddle in the US . . . " might or might not think. This thread is about what the rest of the world thinks of us, and, specifically, of what is contained in the BBC link about this subject. That program did surveys in 11 countries, which you would have discovered had you clicked on the link. In fact, had you done so, you would have learned:

BBC wrote:

As part of the What The World Thinks of America programme, 11,000 people in the UK, France, Russia, Indonesia, South Korea, Jordan, Australia, Canada, Israel, Brazil and the US responded to a poll asking their views and opinions on America.

It is YOUR decision to characterize this as a discussion of what "liberals in other nations" think about the United States. That assumption on your part is not supported by what any of us here have written, nor, specifically, by what i had written which you quoted.

You wanna start trouble? I suspect you do, because you seem to get your jollies that way. But you'll have to do better than that feeble attempt.

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I don't think we can or should dismiss the criticisms of others "out of hand". However it would be a great error to suppose that dislike and even fear or the United States has necessarily grown out of rational proportion to our influence in the world. 19th century literature is rather full of Euroipean descriptions of vulgar and materialistic Americans attempting to bully their way in various situations. Indeed the aquisitive, materialistic, and uncultured Yankee was a fairly stock figure in British, French and even Russian literature then. European attitudes towards the Monroe Doctrine a century ago were hardly different from those we see today with respect to Iraq.

It is natural that as our potential to affect the lives of others grows, their concerns about their ability (or lack of it) to limit or control our actions should grow along with it. My point about the ICC, that Craven could not see, was that it is a rather obvious attempt of its mostly European proponents to acquire through the treaty of Rome the power to control an unruly America, that they lost in their ill-conceived wars of the last century. Understandable that they should try: equally understandable that we should reject the attempt.

In short some degree of disapproval and concern over the potential and actual behavior of the United States on the part of the European powers is a natural result of the order of things in the world. In particular, given the centuries of European domination that preceeded the current era, it would be most unusual for Europeans to suddenly accept a secondary role without complaint. Are the levels of discontent and dissapproval reported by the BBC much greater than what one might expect under these circumstances? I don't claim to know the answer to that one, but I do know that it accounts for at least a great deal of what is being reported.

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georgeob1 wrote:

I don't think we can or should dismiss the criticisms of others "out of hand". However it would be a great error to suppose that dislike and even fear or the United States has necessarily grown out of rational proportion to our influence in the world.

I'm wondering if you miss the connection between our status and our policy. They are intertwined as one is the result of the other.

When you say people dislike us merely on the basis of our status and not because of rational objection to our policies it makes me wonder if you think our policies have a bearing on our status or if you treat them as separate issues.

georgeob1 wrote:

19th century literature is rather full of Euroipean descriptions of vulgar and materialistic Americans attempting to bully their way in various situations. Indeed the aquisitive, materialistic, and uncultured Yankee was a fairly stock figure in British, French and even Russian literature then.

To be fair, at that time America had less in way of culture and education than did Europe. Sure some bias persists, just as our bias is idicated by our willingness to portray the third world as primitive. This is hardly a European issue.

georgeob1 wrote:

My point about the ICC, that Craven could not see, was that it is a rather obvious attempt of its mostly European proponents to acquire through the treaty of Rome the power to control an unruly America, that they lost in their ill-conceived wars of the last century. Understandable that they should try: equally understandable that we should reject the attempt.

I am with you in the understandability to not cede power as well as the understandability of the desire to undermine overwhelming power. But the ICC is not a case in which I see a valid threat to our power. Not because of an inability to see the willingness but because of an unwillingness to cede the ability though the ICC to inflict any loss of real power on America.

Please show me how the ICC had the ability to do anythign about the US at all other than undermine our status as the arbirator of morality (i.e. determining who is and is not violating human rghts etc). I am more than willing to recognize the desire to restrain a superpoer. What I do not recognize is the ICC being a effective tool for said aim.

georgeob1 wrote:

In short some degree of disapproval and concern over the potential and actual behavior of the United States on the part of the European powers is a natural result of the order of things in the world. In particular, given the centuries of European domination that preceeded the current era, it would be most unusual for Europeans to suddenly accept a secondary role without complaint. Are the levels of discontent and dissapproval reported by the BBC much greater than what one might expect under these circumstances? I don't claim to know the answer to that one, but I do know that it accounts for at least a great deal of what is being reported.

What of the rest of the world? You frequently characterize this as a European sentiment while Europe is usually on the more favorable-to-the-US side.

Other nations occasionally have a fling with America but by and large the resentment of America in non-European nations is greater than in Europe and your argumenst do nothing to address this.

I agree with much of your statements about Europe yet I do not think that comes close to explaining the bulk of the disapproval of our policies.

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BTW, my request in regard to the ICC can be put into good perspective by a similar request:

How could the Belgian courts have undermined US power?

You mention in your arguments fear of potential rather than what is realized and in the case of the ICC I think you have the argument backwards with America fearing a potential that I see little chance of realization for.

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With respect to the ICC --

It is a major departure from past norms in international law. The signatories of the treaty claim its terms apply to all nations regardless of whether or not they sign. The ICC judges have no accountability to any international body other than the signatories themselves. They are empowered to charge and bring to their jurisdiction any citizen or official of any government allegedly involved in any "crime against humanity" involving a signatory nation, as very broadly defined in the treaty. This includes, among other things, any action that can be interpreted as offending the dignity of the alleged victims. Government signatories of this remarkable treaty represent less than 20% of the world's population; non signatories over 80%.

It is not in the interest of the United States to accept any point asserted to be binding international law that we do not intend to abide by.

I believe the real feelings of the populations of the non-European worlld are eloquently given in the testimony of the thousands who seek immigration to the United States. Even widespread envy can, however, become a dangerous thing, and I agree that we should be sensitive to international concerns.

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Belgian courts overstepped their jurisdiction. And the fears of politically motivated prosecution were actually realized there yet it posed to significant threat to US hegemony.

As to the ICC I'll take the lazy way out and quote nimh. He researches well:

nimh wrote:

Those arguing against the ICC seem to often bandy the idea around that such an international court would be out to persecute random, ordinary US servicemen, in revanche against US foreign policies that may have disgruntled such countries as are able to get the chairmanship of a UN commission, like Lybia.

But thats not wholly fair, to say the least. First off, the ICC has been established for only the very worst crimes imaginable. Not for the US serviceman who raped a Filipino (or was it Korean) girl. Not for the US soldier who caused the death of a number of people with his flying antics in Italy.

"The Court's jurisdiction will be limited to the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole. It will therefore have jurisdiction with respect to the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes".

(All quotes above are from www.icc.int, btw).

Also, the ICC has extremely limited resources compared to the tasks they could theoretically face. Prioritisation means that thus far, its expressed capability for taking only one or two cases at a time (counting "Yugoslavia" as one case, I mean). It will not take on cases lightly. The Prosecutor is independent, and can not be directly steered in his actions by any country. He is appointed by an Assembly of all the states that have ratified the Statute of the ICC, in a process in which it is stipulated that "every effort has to be made to reach decisions by consensus both in the Assembly and the Bureau".

Furthermore, the ICC "will not replace national courts, but will be complementary to national criminal jurisdictions. The Court will only investigate and prosecute if a State is unwilling or unable to genuinely prosecute." Thus, in the hypothetical case that a case of war crimes would ever be accepted against an American, the case would still not be accepted if the US itself were prepared to prosecute it 'at home'. Finally, the ICC can not be used to prosecute past crimes - Kissinger can sleep peacefully <wink>.

I'm sure such descriptions still leave plenty of questions open, and allow for plenty of your criticism or your outright rejection, still. But I do have the distinct impression that even these facts are hardly known among the Americans who most fiercely oppose the ICC, and they should at least moderate part of the deepseated suspicion that the ICC is intended to be used to "condemn [US] military personnel for U.S. pursuit of security/national interests".

I'm not even mentioning here the concession that the US eventually acquired, that there will be a preliminary exception status for Americans only, who are guaranteed not to be prosecuted, period, for a number of years.

To proceed one more paragraph on the above tack, the ICC may also "exercise its jurisdiction only if either the State on the territory of which the suspected crime occurred (State of territoriality), or the State of which the person suspected of having committed the crime is a national (State of nationality of the suspected person), is a State Party to the Statute".

I.e. - the mere existence of the ICC doesnt mean that the UN police can come pick up Americans in their own country and try them in The Hague. If the US doesn't ratify the Rome Statute, no act committed by its own citizens on its own territory can be taken into consideration by the ICC, no matter how pernicious.

The bottom line here is that the ICC is not about usurping power from national states; it is about national states delegating authority to it over the most heinous of mass-scale crimes. Which brings us to another point, because the US is not just refusing to delegate such authority itself. It is also bullying other governments around the world into withdrawing or freezing their ratification, or adopting a caveat that explicitly safeguards American nationals.

Now your argument about the Americans' attachment to their own country's sacrosanct freedoms can still be used to defend the American choice not to take part in the delegating thing (i.e., to not ratify the Statute) itself. But the only of the US's sacrosanct freedoms that is at stake here is the freedom to, abroad, do whatever it wants without fearing prosecution.

That freedom, first of all, of course isnt guaranteed in any case, ever - engaging in war, for example, there's always the risk that you lose (some), and that the victors will be sitting in trial over (some of) you. Compared to that risk, any improbable case before the ICC would be much preferable, I'm sure.

But 'defending the American sacrosanct freedom' also becomes a bit twisted as an argument, I'd say, when used to defend bullying another country into adopting a caveat that safeguards American nationals, specifically, from a process of law that the country in question is itself, otherwise, freely opting for, regarding anything they might ever do there. (The parallel would be if the Dutch government forced the US to guarantee, say, that no Dutchman will ever be brought before the Supreme Court.)

The logic of the 'sacrosanct freedom' the US government is aiming to enforce there, then, fundamentally, is the guaranteed freedom for Americans, where-ever they go, to be above any law except for the one back home.

In my conviction, the ICC constitutes one of those rare achievements in which countries from around the world, right across those divergent cultures you mention, and without the bullying of a superpower to make them do so, did agree on establishing a first building stone for the kind of "viable, potent, and real-life functioning international legal system backed by an overarching governing body with the power to enforce its decisions with justice for all". And the US did its very best to nuke it, not because it shared your pessimism and considered the goal impossible - but because it patently opposes the goal itself. The US government has made it most clear that it doesnt want such an international legal system, because it would interfere with freely being able to "pursuit [its own] security/national interests" regardless of any international law.

Misconceptions about the ICC abound.

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I saw nothing in the piece from Nimh which contradicts or in any way modifies anything in my earlier description. The piece itself was long on rhetoric and argument in behalf of the treaty, but short on the research you cited.

The ICC is a remedy in search of a problem. Tell me how will the signatory nations and the judges in the Hague enforce their judgements on countries such as China, India, Russia, Pakistan, and Indonesia - none of which have signed the treaty??

With a UN Human Rights commission staffed by the likes of Lybia, Cuba and others of that ilk, one must recognize that noble words in the charter statements of such organizations mean very little indeed. They can be seriously troubling to basically law-abiding nations, but will have very little effect on those that do the very things for which such "law" is usually established. Even the UN has done very little indeed to enforce even the most basic elements of its charter in the face of the worst actions of outlaw nations including China during the cultural revolution or the invasion of Tibet and many others.

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What The World Thinks of America (BBC program)

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