Why does part of the world hate the U.S.?
 

http://www.msnbc.com/news/885222.asp?vts=031720030705

The Arrogant Empire
America?s unprecedented power scares the world, and the Bush administration has only made it worse. How we got here?and what we can do about it now?

March 24 issue ? PART I: The United States will soon be at war with Iraq. It would seem, on the face of it, a justifiable use of military force. Saddam Hussein runs one of the most tyrannical regimes in modern history.

FOR MORE THAN 25 years he has sought to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and has, in several documented cases, succeeded. He gassed 60,000 of his own people in 1986 in Halabja. He has launched two catastrophic wars, sacrificing nearly a million Iraqis and killing or wounding more than a million Iranians. He has flouted 16 United Nations resolutions over 12 years that have warned him to disarm or else, including one, four months ago, giving him a ?final opportunity? to do so ?fully and immediately? or face ?serious consequences.? But in its campaign against Iraq, America is virtually alone. Never will it have waged a war in such isolation. Never have so many of its allies been so firmly opposed to its policies. Never has it provoked so much public opposition, resentment and mistrust. And all this before the first shot has been fired.

Watching the tumult around the world, it?s evident that what is happening goes well beyond this particular crisis. Many people, both abroad and in America, fear that we are at some kind of turning point, where well-established mainstays of the global order?the Western Alliance, European unity, the United Nations?seem to be cracking under stress. These strains go well beyond the matter of Iraq, which is not vital enough to wreak such damage. In fact, the debate is not about Saddam anymore. It is about America and its role in the new world. To understand the present crisis, we must first grasp how the rest of the world now perceives American power.

It is true that the United States has some allies in its efforts to topple Saddam. It is also true that some of the governments opposing action in Iraq do so not for love of peace and international harmony but for more cynical reasons. France and Russia have a long history of trying to weaken the containment of Iraq to ensure that they can have good trading relations with it. France, after all, helped Saddam Hussein build a nuclear reactor that was obviously a launching pad for a weapons program. (Why would the world?s second largest oil producer need a nuclear power plant?) And France?s Gaullist tendencies are, of course, simply its own version of unilateralism.

But how to explain that the vast majority of the world, with little to gain from it, is in the Franco-Russian camp? The administration claims that many countries support the United States but do so quietly. That signals an even deeper problem. Countries are furtive in their support for the administration not because they fear Saddam Hussein but because they fear their own people. To support America today in much of the world is politically dangerous. Over the past year the United States became a campaign issue in elections in Germany, South Korea and Pakistan. Being anti-American was a vote-getter in all three places.

continued........... http://www.msnbc.com/news/885222.asp?vts=031720030705

Most of the countries that oppose this war have a lot of money at stake.

I can't imagine that the US can go on knowing that Saddam is still in power. Maybe what the US press needs to do is to show the world exactly what he has done.

I remember Kuwiat. Here is a small country that did nothing wrong, yet they got attacked, invaded, looted, and raped. Do you remember seeing what Iraq did to their oil wells as they tucked their tails up their asses and ran home?

If the US did that no one would ever forget it.

Great another US/war/sadam/iraq/blablalba thread :helpme

Quashe, the war is coming closer, today is an important day :winkwink:

:pimp

Kurt Vonnegut notes in "Cat's Cradle" that the US would do better if it was occupied less with imagining being loved by the world and more with recognizing hate. If you have a successful system that generates more wealth and freedom for a larger proportion of your population than other systems in HISTORY, of course you would be hated.

I think that hate is too strong a word to use for most people of the world. but here are afew excuses.

Muslims could dislike the US because of it's support for Israel. Because of the econmic power of the "Jewish Lobby". Nice to criticise France and Russia for looking after the money, but that is a two edged sword.

The arrogance that everything US is perfact and better than anywhere else in the world. I'm interegated a lot of the time by immigration officials when visiting the States. They are convinced I want to stay illegally. Even though I quite clearly am very successful where I am.

MacDonnalds and Pizza Hut.

The coach loads of tourist driving around Europe looking for civilisation and only finding in a MacDonnalds and Pizza Hut.

Their dress sense.

American movies and TV, most of it is dumbed down to the lowest level.

Other than that I think what the US has given the worl id far more than it has taken. I think that soemtimes the knockers need to remember taht. Maybe the US should spend a bit more on PR.

I really think equating the opposition to this war with hate of the US is wrong.

I like the US and think it could be a very nice place to live. But I don't care much at all for US foregin policy. It's covered with arrogance.

The US is burning bridges faster than ever...

You know what...you're right. Hate is too strong a word. Let's stick with the term "Resented"

Justice, Liberty, and Freedom.

When americans say "other people dont like us because we're better/richer/smarter than anyone else in the world" it just makes me want to smack them in the head. I dont hate America, but I guess I do hate those arrogant ignorant guys....