Just after 9/11, we had the sympathy of the world. People who didn’t even like us very much held candlelight vigils. And you-know-who pissed it away playing tough guy.
Let me guess…George the Terrible and his merry men perhaps? 
While I agree that right after 9/11 we had plenty of sympathy in the world (in many cases very heart felt, deep and quite touching), I think that by the time Afghanistan rolled around most of it had already evaporated. In fact, I was travelling in Germany about 2 months after 9/11 and already there were signs that it was pretty much gone.
Does GW get the lions share of the blame for that evaporation? Perhaps…its debatable, but I’m willing to conceed that he was certainly not blameless (hell, I’d be willing to conceed that he and the administration DO get the lions share of the blame). Was it all GW’s fault? No, I don’t think so. I think that had Bill Clinton been in charge we may have gotten a few more months of sympathy before it was back to business as usual…maybe. Clinton was the my sympathy gathering president in my own memory (I wasn’t old enough to travel under abroad under Kennedy, who I assume may have had even greater foreign appeal)…yet I still recall the hostility toward US policy in Europe and elsewhere DURING Clinton’s presidency.
-XT
You know that is a little silly; the US owed a debt to the French Monarchy. What has the French republic ever did for the US? We did help them out big time in WWII and then throughout the cold war.
Now England, despite our early differences, is the best ally a country could ever have. For nearly 100 years we have had each other’s back, time and again.
Lately the US has turned down a dark path of unilateralism. The Bush Admin is dragging our reputation through the mud. Cheney’s publicly fighting for the right to torture and lecturing a well-regarded Senator who was a POW about torture has got to look bad to the world.
Left and right George has pissed away decades of good will and the sympathy that much of the world had for us from 9/11.
Jim
Well, there was that little tussle we helped out in during WWI as well. And of course that Vietnam thingy the French managed to get us involved in (before they exited, stage left). Not to mention that the French declared war on us or not supporting Napoleon. I’d have to say that the slate of ‘moral debt’ between us was pretty well cleared after that…if not after WWI, WWII, etc etc. Obviously Mangetout’s MMV on that however.
Its kind of moot in any case. France didn’t help the US out during the revolution because they loved us, wanted us to be happy and free, or because Franklin was attempting to doink various French noblewomen. They helped us out to put a thumb into the eye of the UK of course. And they helped us in their own time and at places of their choosing (I’m watching the Revolution on the History channel…facinating).
By the same token, the US didn’t help out France duing WWI because we wanted to come to the aid of Europe but because…er…well, I’m not sure what WE got out of that one except to, well, come to the aid of Europe because Wilson wanted to do that. Ok, better example…the US didn’t help out in WWII because we wanted to save Europe but because we were dragged into the war kicking and screaming (and because FDR felt it was in our best interest to keep the Europeans fighting each other I suppose, so we sent a lot of promisses we never intended to keep, as well as arms and ammo to the UK and Russia to keep them in the game). So, we did it because it was in our own best national interest. Same with Vietnam.
This ‘moral debt’ stuff is pure bullshit. France doesn’t owe it to us for WWII…we don’t owe it to them for what help they provided during the Revolution. Nations do things in their best interest. If that best interest is served by helping out another country…well, thats a happy chance then for the nation helped.
-XT
I dunno. Do you feel Margaret Thatcher was representative of the “character of the British public?” 
Bush hatred is a big part of the simmering (nay, boiling) resentment of America these days.
On the other hand, there was quite a lot of resentment toward America abroad even back in the Clinton years. (If you are better with the search function than I, you may even find some old threads on the topic.)
Bush’s arrogance has made it worse, but he didn’t create the phenomenon.
This could just be a lack of reporting of the good stuff. If you’d have been in Ireland in 1996 when Clinton helped broker the Good Friday Agreement, you’d have seen nothing but gratitude and warmth. At least 50,000 people gathered in the centre of Dublin (I was one of them) to express that gratitude.
Initially, yes. Well, maybe. I remember the early years of the Thatcher regime as being quite optimistic; everyone was raving about how they were getting on the property ladder, or starting their own business, and this feeling persisted for a little while.
This perception might just be because I happen to live in the comparatively prosperous south (nowhere near any coal mines), and that’s not to say that I didn’t eventually recognise Mrs T as the incarnation of evil, neither am I ignorant to the fact that it all went tits up later on.
But perhaps that answers my question; democratically elected governments can change and start behaving badly mid-term (or just start showing their true colours). And I suppose it’s true that we don’t elect the best government, we (try to) elect the least worst.
That’s pretty rich from a guy whose ancestors went about the place raping and pillaging and burning down monasteries anywhere they could beach a longship or two!
Don’t mistake good wholesome fun for the whole family, with vulgar empire builders! Anyway we gave most of the girls back.
The US should stop whining about it. Humans have always and will always hate those more powerful, rich and more successful than themselves. But for some strange reason, Americans want everybody to like them. Never gonna happen. Anyway the contempt and hatred, does more damage to those societies in Europe consumed by it, than it does the US. That’s the real problem.
Errrr… no, it wasn’t the optimal thing at the time; Bush 1 didn’t topple Saddam because he’s far smarter than Bush 2. The present disaster in Iraq or something similar would have happened then instead of now, and Bush 1 was smart enough to realize it. IIRC he even warned Bush 2 about it, and was ignored.
I’m sure the phenomenon goes back as far as the end of WWII and possibly further (We’ve been jingoistic louts since the Revolution, but weren’t a dominant superpower until maybe 1943-ish). If you think we were beloved during the Carter years, remember some of the songs on the radio at the time, like Randy Newman’s Political Science or the Kinks’ Catch Me Now I’m Falling. At our most beloved, we’ve been regarded with some caution. Does the 40s wartime descriptor “Overpaid, oversexed and over here!” ring any bells?
The PJ O’Rourke quote was given some short shrift. He went on further to say that the developing world, represented by a teenaged boy, would try to get our (“we” being represented by an attractive 20-something woman) attention by doing obnoxious things like embracing Communism or affecting radical Islam, in lieu of wolf-whistles or that annoying sucking sound. O’Rourke is usually dismissed as some sort of neocon tool, but I think he’s pretty insightful. And Ale, we know that “poor country” does not equal “stupid.” One of our big internal debates these days is about outsourcing our high-paying tech jobs to Asia. Our arrogance periodically bites us in the ass, and we’re increasingly aware of it.
A statement of real-politics that would make Henry Kissinger proud. On the other hand I’m not so sure those hundred of thousand of Kurds and South Iraqis killed by Saddam after the war, are quite so overjoyed.
And the one’s we’ve killed/let die are somehow better off ? Besides, it’s not like we tried to stop him; we encouraged them to try to revolt, then let them get slaughtered. Let’s not pretend we have any moral advantage over Saddam in this.
Oh, some are, but a lot aren’t. I am thinking about people like the Taliban, al-Queda (and those who expressed sympathy for them after 9/11 ), the notion that AIDS being caused by HIV is a conspiracy furthered by the CIA, the usual loony conspiracy theories about 9/11, and suchlike nonsense.
And the French. Can’t forget them.
Well, I’m not treating anyone as a retard who doesn’t deserve it. And that stuff about cultural paradigms and economic handicaps is another of those things people make up and assign to me, so I won’t bother with it.
Regards,
Shodan
Really? Because I seem to recall not long ago a bunch of third worlders bent the American ass over a barrel for a day and gave it a jolly lengthy rogering
And the poor dears haven’t stopped talking about it for years. Wincing when they walk.
Unfortunately education is not always a cure against stupidity. Stupid Nobel Prize winner, Wangari Maathai thinks HIV is a western weapon to hold down the black man – they sure know how to pick them in Oslo.
I have only been to Ireland once unfortunately. Most of my experience (at that time) was on the continent, though since I’ve been to England fairly regularly.
And you figure that Bush I had access to a time machine, ehe? The fact (which I’m sure you’ll ignore) is that Bush I didn’t finish off Saddam because our allies (mostly those in Saudi, but also IIRC the French) didn’t WANT Saddam deposed…because Iraq acted as a buffer between Saudi and Iran.
This, however, wasn’t in what was perceived to be the US’s best interest (at the time)…but we allowed ourselves to be swayed by our allies into this position, despite the fact that we had the army right there with Iraq’s forces completely shattered and nothing serious to prevent us from rolling into Iraq and finishing Saddam off. You are attempting to transpose what you wish had happened with a healthy dose of hindsight and revisionist history. For my part I don’t think that, had the US invaded at the time, things would have worked out exactly as they have THIS time…but YMMV and its reasonable to speculate that they might have. However, I think its false to assume that Bush I and HIS administration knew this would be the case and so took steps to avoid it.
Though I have no doubt that your assertion that Bush I was smarter than Bush II is correct. Then again, despite Bush I having (for whatever reason) managed to avoid the final invasion of Iraq, and despite a stunning victory there, Bush I managed NOT to get himself re-elected…while Bush II, despite all the problems managed to do so fairly easily.
-XT
Yeah. “Landslide George”
No, I figure that Bush 1 had enough brains to figure out the obvious consequences of toppling Saddam and occupying Iraq. It’s not like our present disaster wasn’t predictable.
And because we didn’t want to, or need to.
According to you.
The election was quite close, and appears to have at least partially won by cheating, just like his first.
And you will notice that this happened long before the invasion of Iraq. So maybe the fact that we are not Miss Congeniality in the Third World is not because Bush is a bully. But this is pretty much what I meant by trying to get a reaction, and blaming America for everything.
Because Osama said one of the causes of 9/11 was the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia, on the occasion of driving Saddam out of Kuwait. In other words, the US acting to protect one Muslim country from the depredations of another means that we are hated. Not the ass hole who invaded, the US who drove him out.
:shrugs;
Much of the Muslim world is poor and undeveloped, unless they have petro-dollars. A convenient excuse for their lack of achievement since, oh, the Renaissance or thereabouts is to blame the US for it all.
It only appears that way for those whose motivations are other than commitment to the truth. All that remains is to point out that GWB is the first President since Reagan to be re-elected with an absolute majority of the votes cast.
Regards,
Shodan