In the last 7 years ,we have become a country that attacks another that did not attack us. We have become torturers and publicly justify it. We have insinuated ourselves into Iraqs economy and many believe we are after it’s resources, We have tracked our phone calls and mail of our own citizens. This is not the America I grew up in.
Can we ever get respect back from the world. ? How long would it take? Or have we destroyed the big shiny light of freedom which we thought the world yearned for.?
All we have to do is force Bush to consult our many real allies on real topics.
We used to have friends when we fought in Afghanistan and Kosovo.
It depends on the next president.
A good, levelheaded leader, with a realistic grasp of things, could do wonders from day one.
Far be it from me to defend Bush, but what makes you think that we have lost any reputation with the rest of the world? What makes you think we ever had one before? On what time scale would you like this alleged reputation returned and how long should we keep it if we ever get it back? History (and reputation) is one of those fluid things that changes based on who writes it and when. We have no idea how events of today are going to be interpreted in the future and most likely won’t be around to argue if we feel that it is wrong. Your question has no concrete answer.
I don’t think the world has lost respect for the U.S. The current situation in Iraq is a quagmire for sure. But you can still hold your head up.
Well, how about international opinion polls? A quick search turned up downward trends in international opinion of the US in 2007 and 2004.
It seems to me that a reversal of this trend will take time. It’s common business wisdom that it takes a long time to build customer trust but a very short time to lose it. What’s true of business customers is true of people in general, I’d say. I don’t expect people in other countries to trust US foreign policy any time soon.
I think we ought to stop meddling in other countire’s affairs. Like maybe, realize WWII is OVER-and get our troops out of korea, japan, Korea, etc. Second, be a friend to democratic movements (instead of allying ourselves with backward, reactionary regimes (like Saudi Arabia).
Third: get (force) a resolution of the Israel-Palestine thing.Make clear to all parties, that there will be a time limit-no more of the endless manipulation by each side-tell them: this willl be solved by 2015-or lese we wash our hands and walk awy. Stop being “world Cop”-it will be interesting to see what happens when countries realize they have to solve things themselves.
Huh?
Guantanamo Bay?
‘Waterboarding’?
The resources spent on Saddam compared to the resources spent on Bin Laden?
‘Tony Blair seldom enjoys complimentary headlines when it comes to bestowing or receiving honours. It is three years this month since the US Congress awarded him its highest civilian honour: the congressional gold medal. To date, it still hasn’t been collected.’
‘Picking up a medal in Washington while British soldiers continue to die in Iraq is unlikely to go down well.’
We are your closest allies, with British troops dying in Afghanistan and Iraq (some killed by US friendly fire) and our leader won’t accept your greatest honour. :rolleyes:
Yes, the US reputation is in the toilet.
Moving this to Great Debates, as there is no possible factual answer to a General Question.
samclem
How about the reception in the UK of Clinton and Bush?
‘Bill Clinton has flown out of the UK at the end of what was probably his final foreign visit as US President.
Mr Clinton had tea with the Queen during the last day of his UK visit.
He then gave a keynote speech on globalisation before leaving Birmingham Airport on Air Force One, the presidential jumbo jet.
After a two-day mission to help further the Northern Ireland peace process Mr Clinton spent Wednesday night at the Prime Minister’s country residence Chequers.’
‘After arriving in London, the Clintons strolled through Hyde Park to Serpentine Road, where Mr Clinton shook hands with well-wishers from a large crowd.’
‘Mr Clinton also visited London’s trendy Portobello Road, stopping off at a pub after looking around antiques shops.’
‘Tens of thousands of anti-war demonstrators are expected to take to London’s streets during Bush’s visit November 19-21,’
‘… the father of a military policeman killed in Iraq angrily rejected Bush’s claims that his son died for a “noble cause.”
Reg Keys, 51, whose son Lance Corporal Thomas Keys was one of six Royal Military Policemen gunned down defending a civilian police station in Al Majar al-Kabir near Basra in June, said he would like to meet the president to tell him that he was responsible for his son’s death.
Keys said: "I am totally against his visit. I don’t know how he has the nerve to show his face in this country after costing the lives of 54 British soldiers for his own glory.’
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/11/14/bush.uk/index.html
‘Some 14,000 police officers will front a massive security operation to protect President Bush when he begins his state visit to the UK tonight.’
‘The police last night settled on the route for Thursday’s demonstration, which organisers hope will bring 100,000 people onto the streets as Mr Bush holds talks with British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair.’
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2003/1118/2789960026HM1BUSHVISIT.html
Your syntax (as always) is a bit odd. Do you mean we attacked another (i.e. Iraq), and that this is somehow a trend? Perhaps a new trend (if so there are several interesting gaps in your view of history)? Or did you mean we attacked several others (i.e. Afghanistan included)? If you could clarify this (say, in 2 well formed sentences) I will attempt to respond. 
Really? Is this because you didn’t know about it or because America has really changed at a fundamental level? And really, is America so different than other countries with regard to your shopping list of all our evils? Or are we simply not better than everyone else? Perhaps you’ve bought into too much propaganda…both the good and the bad. One should attempt to look more rationally at things and not drink the kool aid…regardless of the flavor.
That depends…when did we have it again? At what period of time did we have this respect of ‘the world’…and how long did we have it for? You see, the world I grew up in, the US road the roller coaster of ‘world’ opinion…and mostly the roller coaster was down. I remember the near riots of anti-Americanism in Korea, in Europe at various times, in Central and South America (with better reason than our Euro bretheren IMHO)…hell, just about everywhere you can think of at one time or another. I recall some anti-American protests in Europe during Carter’s presidency and even during Clinton’s. There was a bit of a dustup when LBJ was in office wrt our ‘respect’ by ‘the world’ IIRC…and even Kennedy came in for a touch here and there. Maybe there was less protest and more ‘respect’ during WWII, but then ‘the world’ was a bit distracted so it was probably an aberration…
Recently ‘the world’(s) ‘respect’ for us has certainly gone down even further than the, er, norm (though I have serious doubts its at an all time low…I suppose it depends on where in ‘the world’ you are looking), but eventually a country has to ask itself…if no matter what you do ‘the world’ (or some significant percentage there to) doesn’t ‘respect’ you regardless of what you do, should you even care anymore?
Frankly I don’t agree with what Bush et al has done, think its stupid and that we completely fucked up, etc etc…and could give a flying fuck what ‘the world’ thinks about my country in the same breath. I also don’t think that a major nation can afford to play the popularity game before it does anything, polling ‘the world’ to see if its ok before we move. YMMV
-XT
As a non-American who is disillusioned with the war in Iraq etc, I think the premise of the OP is flawed.
We (the other Western democracies at least) never thought the US was perfect. It was flawed and made mistakes, but we generally liked and admired you most of the time. So getting that back doesn’t mean you have to be perfect. You will be forgiven for a lot of stuff up to a rather generous point.
Maybe if we “threw a shrub on the barbie”. It would at least give him a preview of where he will end up.
What XT said, although my own frame of reference doesn’t begin until the Nixon administration. One of the first time I noticed ‘world opinion’ was when our planes kept on getting hijacked and embassies burned and stuff; remember that joke in the Woody Allen movie BANANAS when Howard Cosell was reporting on a coup in a fictional South American country and started, “The revolution began with the traditional bombing of the American embassy, a custom as old as the nation itself!”
That was in 1971.
So, those of us with memories of more than one or two presidents can be forgiven for being a little skeptical of the OP.
Besides, how are you defining the world to begin with? Germans, Mexicans, Iranians, Chinese, Guamanians (I know, they’re Americans), Canadians, Icelanders, Kenyans, Israelis, Liberians, Kosovars, or what? Wouldn’t they all have different ideas and histories with America? Whose opinion, precisely, are you trying to get “back”? Because we can’t please everybody no matter what we do.
Yes, but not until the Cuntcider is out of office!
Do you lay awake at nights thinking up clever compound word putdowns you can use in a debate?
If so, is that the best you could do?
Regarding the OP: You haven’t seen anything until you saw the protests against the U.S. in the 1980’s. I remember the weekly Reagan burning-in-effigy thing. They must have had a factory churning out those straw Reagan figures somewhere.
If you were to read the letters section of The Australian (newspaper) you will notice that many people have a negative opinion of the U.S. and of Americans.
This has always been the case to some extent, but it far more prevalent since the invasion of Iraq.
My view is that the USA is very new to international diplomacy and that the current bunch don’t understand how other countries work.
With spectacularly good leadership, the USA could easily be seen as a force for the good.
Bah.
There’s nothing to worry about getting back because we never lost anything. Those who run the other countries, the countries that matter anyway, know what we did after 9/11 was inevitable and right, even if they can’t always come out and say it. Politics is a tricky business.
Hell, they know that if it had been their country attacked they probably would have gone a lot further (i.e. some serious internal security, absolutely no arab immigration, detention centers etc.)
Big anti-US protests don’t mean shit. They existed before 9/11 & Bush and will continue to. Reagan was protested everywhere he went (especially Europe) as an evil warmongerer. Yet he stayed the course and won the cold war, immensely benefiting those same people who protested him.
America is still the most prosperous and generous country than all others combined and regardless of wars, politics etc. the rest of the world still lines up for our help (financial, agricultural etc.) because they know they’ll get it.
You know the phrase about not making policy based on opinion polls? Well you absolutely never, ever, EVER make foreign policy based on foreign opinion polls.