Stars And Stripes Forever.

Put This In Your Profile If You Support Georgia!


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Perplexing are the attitudes voiced by some key European countries - France (60 percent unfavorable to the U.S.), Germany (66 percent unfavorable), and Spain (60 percent). Millions of Europeans in these countries express a much more negative view of the United States than do Hugo Chavez's Venezuelans. So much for the supposedly sweeping changes in France and Germany that brought the Sarkozy and Merkel governments to power. For this unspoken implosion of the Atlantic Alliance, we can fault the usual suspects - Iraq, the war on terror, George Bush's 2002 unilateralism, America's failure to ratify Kyoto, or the envy that these erstwhile imperial powers feel about being upstaged by a mongrel democracy. But who really cares to calibrate all the reasons why the Germans hated us when Ronald Reagan deployed Pershing missiles to protect them, or why the Greeks hated us when Madeline Albright tried to stop Balkan genocide, or why the French hated us for ending the once lucrative Baathist regime in Iraq? Instead, at some point Americans should ask themselves how they can continue to be allied militarily with countries whose populations have a more negative view of us than do our supposed rivals in Russia (48 percent unfavorable) and China (57 percent). Contrast all that dislike with those nations who appreciate the United States, which tells us something much different about America's role in the world. The Kenyans and Ghanaians, for example, reveal more admiration for the United States (87 and 80 percent, respectively) than do we Americans ourselves. In fact, all of sub-Saharan Africa - poor and with a past of exploitation - has an unbelievably high regard for the U.S. Perhaps black Africans appreciate our support for democracy, realize that we were not colonialists, see that blacks are succeeding in the U.S. in a way unthinkable elsewhere, know that we spearhead the global effort to bring AIDS relief and stop the genocide in Darfur, and sympathize with their own long struggle against radical Islam. Much of Eastern Europe is similarly well inclined. Poland, for example (61 percent approval rating), does not trust Russia - and does not trust Europe to offer any help in a future hour of crisis. Likewise, many countries of Latin America - Mexico, Chile, Peru - poll staunchly pro-American. We have tried to support these shaky Latin American democracies, welcomed their immigrants, and allowed billions of dollars to be sent back as worker remittances. And unlike a Spain, France, Germany, the Muslim Middle East, Russia, or China, such confident emerging nations also are not hung up on perceived past grandeur, blame-gaming the new superpower for their own subordinate roles.

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