mac03

Why is it that everyone seems to hate the US?

The US invades Iraq. Sipposedly Unilateral action. (I recall seeing several different uniforms along side those American troops. And when multiple countries are involved, by definition it is no longer uni-lateral.)
A country whose ruler gased his own people, killed citizens who talked bad about the gov't and other atrocities. A country who was in violation of UN mandates. Etc... Etc... you've all heard this before.

BUT... The world gets Pissed off because we wouldn't get UN-approval.

So, it comes time to deal with North Korea. The US tries to establish a multi-country talk including major countries in the world and region. No no no, everyone wants the US to deal with this one solo.

Can't win either way....


OK, disaster strikes. US coughs up $$$ like always. Now we're "Stingy" because we quote a dollar figure that is strictly gov't to gov't money and doesn't include what all the organizational and private money will be.

Do these people not remember the Marshall plan? You're welcome Europe. We know that it was leveled during World War 2, but we decided to give you a hand and finance the rebuilding. Japan. You're welcome. Our occupation there was done rather well. We helped modernize your economy and 40 years later you are in a situation where your products and practices are what other nations model. Do these nations that call us "stigny" not realize how many countries get money from the US every year? And how much they get?!?!?!?

If the US was to go just one year without giving another country a dime. And one year with keeping all the US troops at home. It would save enough money to finance social security for the next century and allow some lovely tax breaks and help out education and still have money left over.

But yet, everyone still hates us, except the British and Israelis. Who both realize what we do.

filtherton

And don't even get me started on those damn liberals!!!

Willravel

You listed some good stuff we do. Don't neglect the bad.

Vincentt

Well... they have to hate someone.

Boo

^What they said.... I am not sure of the British or Israelis though.

Sometimes I wonder if it is just "fashionable" to have an anti-XXX agenda. Some people cannot see the good that the US does. I really don't want kids to suffer if we did decide to change our "generous" contributions. Being poor is one thing, being third world poor is immoral.

I do understand that we could do more. We can and should do more (at home also).

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OFKU0

Recently I think it comes down to the perception regarding how the U.S tends to deal with really any country it wants. The world knows the U.S can quash any country if they try hard enough including the US but beyond that there is something each country and culture thrives on and that is pride, integrity and respect and when it seems that the only superpower in the world runs short on those characteristics from time to time toward others, people tend to get a little pissed off.

The U.S virtually killed New Zealands livelyhood when they didn't partake in the first Gulf war. A friend of mine just came back and said 10 years later the economy is starting to turn around since trade ceased between the countries. George Bush, but more prominently US Ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci has threatened several times that the US would shut down the Can/US border if Canada didn't comply completely with US demands. This would devestate millions of lives in Canada.

I think, or better put, I would like to believe the US has the best intentions regarding global affairs, but the "You're with us or against us" stigma is arrogant and disrespectful to the point that diplomancy has no place in world affairs unless the world is rightfully where it belongs, on its knees.

That in a nutshell is a very basic answer to the question.

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Lebell

It is easy to be flip and give a single one line answer either for or against the US as an answer, but the truth is that the answer is as complicated as the number of nations or peoples that supposedly "hate" the US.

Some of the reasons are assuredly justified as some of them are not and many of them are in-between, but the rational person usually acknowledges that by and large, the United States does more good in the world than harm.

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ARTelevision

I do think this is a myth.

And I don't see a lot of reason to put much energy into it.

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mac03

[QUOTE=Boo] I am not sure of the British or Israelis though.

QUOTE]


The British stick with us good or bad decisions we make mainly due to our historical/cultural ties. The Israelis stand by us because we keep them running; Economically and militarily.

Ilow

[QUOTE=OFKU0]
I think, or better put, I would like to believe the US has the best intentions regarding global affairs, but the "You're with us or against us" stigma is arrogant and disrespectful QUOTE]
I feel like this is a fairly accurate starting point as far as a reason goes, but it is much more complex than this. Truthfully, there are two sets of people who "like us or hate us," the political administration and the actual population of these countries. I have friends who live all over the world, from France, to West Africa to Singapore and they almost universally report that there is rather significant anti-American sentiment wherever they go. Granted there are some bad apples... yada, yada, but there are countless stories of people having to pose as Canadians to avoid harassmant when abroad. As far as the political administrations liking or hating us, it seems whether someone "likes us or hates us" is fairly proportional to what they are getting from us. There are people who point to this fact as an indicator that America is right and other countries just have "sour grapes" over us not helping them, but really it is sad that we are not well regarded by neutral countries. Having to constantly buy allegiance is no way to go through life.

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Jesus Pimp

Just face it, our government pissed too many people off. And now the people are getting the flack. The US is a greedy country.

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Dragonlich

I'd say a lot of the people "hating" the US in most of Europe can be divided into:

- a very small percentage of people who really hate the US. Usually extreme left/right people, and/or extremist muslims.
- a large percentage of people who hate what the US stands for in their eyes, be it raw power (scary), stupid politicians, over-the-edge capitalism (evil), bad environmental plans, religious nuts ruling the country, etc.
- another large percentage would be young people that say they hate the US because everyone does.

People generally don't hate the US as a whole - hell, they don't even *know* the US or it's people. All they see is their little problems, their little grievance. In that sense, the invasion of Iraq "confirmed" many of these anti-US feelings. No matter if they're right or not, what they see is this: you don't care about other countries, you torture and kill innocent civilians, you only invaded because of oil (=bad for environment, abuse of power, corruption, etc), you only made things worse for the poor Iraqis...

As I said, no matter if what they see is real or not, they'll hate you for it. The media increases those feelings by only showing the bad things, and people generally don't take the time to find out if things are as they seem. Example: in the Netherlands, all we hear out of Iraq is that people are blown up every day. We occasionally hear vague stories about how our soldiers there are doing a lot of good work. What we DON'T see is the rebuilding of the country, the many Iraqis that don't get blown up... We don't see the context of the news, only the little (bad) incidents.

A perfect example seems to be that statement from Jesus Pimp... The US as a whole is held responsible for the actions of a few people. There are greedy people (thus "countries") all over the world, but we don't hear about them.

alansmithee

The only unilatteral actions the world expects from the US is giving away our money. Apparently we are all evil and exploitative, but you notice everyone shows up with their hands open when something bad happens.

Personally, I'd like to see the US go back to a more isolationist position. Get out of meaningless wars, quit giving out aid to ungratefuls.

oktjabr

To me seems that many US people who perceive the european sentiment as anti-american (and think that is unfair) seem also to think that the french are cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Isn't that a bit contradictory? When it comes to Iraq war, you can't even say that "their government just sucks, the plain ordinary frenchies are ok", because the public opinion was very much against the war.

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Dragonlich

Going back to my post: I just realized that the US is featured *very* often in the (Dutch) news media. Much more than any other country. I think that fact in itself is a cause of many anti-US sentiments. After all, the US is doing what many other countries are doing, but we simply don't hear about it.

If the US president gets elected, we have day-long election specials here (including all the minor election problems); if the French president gets elected, we get a small news item about the final outcome. If the US president says something stupid, we hear about it; if the German prime-minister does the same, we don't. If US police officers or soldiers abuse prisoners, we hear about it for weeks on end; if Spanish, Iranian or Indonesian officials do the same, nobody will know.

Basically, the US is in the news a lot, and a lot of the news is negative *and* out of context. Given this, I find it understandable that, for example, many Muslims "hate" the US - they usually watch rather, er, biased news reports. Propaganda, pure and simple.

oktjabr

I don't know if Dutch press fundamentally differs from the press of my homeland, but at least the newspapers I read usually tend to cover politics far better than just giving a small news item about French presidential elections, but I get your point - however, there is a simple reason why US elections get more publicity than many other countries and that is because USA as a superpower tends to make people interested about it's politics. A good example of this would be that local press where I live don't do huge articles about governor election in for example New Mexico, but California was still on the spotlight. This isn't really bias, it's just the way press operates - it tells people about stuff people want to read about. It's kinda crap if you are interested about the intriguing internal politics of Bangladesh, but rather understandable as you cannot print newspapers 1000 pages thick.

And about for example prisoner abuses, it'd be rather tedious if all human rights abuses of for example Iran and Indonesia would be reported on daily basis - I suppose that everyone already knows that those countries tend to use torture systematically. Maybe US should also start torturing on a daily basis, too?

There seems to be a belief on this thread that a right to hate/not-hate (I think even this entire concept of hate is debatable) is a scale of some sort where the good things are heaped on the plus-side and bad things on the minus-side. This kind of "empirical method" of measuring whether the country is "good" or "bad" and whether people who "oppose/hate/criticize" it are wrong sounds somewhat flawed to me.

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Dragonlich

The point, as you obviously know, isn't that the US should torture more people. The point is that when the US abuses prisoners (torture is a bit of a stretch here), it's in the news for weeks on end, and the pictures keep coming up over and over again. People then assume that this is common practice in US-run prisons. It gets to the point where Dutch people don't see it as hypocritical when countries like Cuba, Iran and North-Korea use those abuse pictures to blast the USA for being evil... Things are pulled out of context, it's assumed *only* the US does these things, and everyone jumps on the bandwagon to condemn them.

Another example: that unarmed, wounded Iraqi guy shot dead in Fallujah, during the US assault. Everyone condemned it, everyone said it was a war crime, and that this was just a small example of what US troops do. Yet, a few days later, a British soldier says they are trained to do exactly the same, just like other NATO soldiers. But nobody reported that; nobody explains the context of the incident, with insurgents playing dead to ambush US soldiers... Nobody cares; All they care about is that a US soldier shot an unarmed enemy soldier, supposedly in violation of the Geneva convention, and *thus* the US as a whole is to blame, and is in fact evil.

Just to show the hypocrisy here: a Dutch soldier was accused of shooting an unarmed "looting" Iraqi civilian a while ago. The Dutch department of justice decided to pull him out of Iraq and put him on trial for murder. Most Dutch people were appalled that the DOJ would do that to someone who had the balls to do "what was right". If a US soldier would do the same, and he wouldn't be put on trial, those same people would be crying about human rights and a cover-up.

energus

About the attention the US gets in the media. I feel that that is explained by the fact that the US is important to all our lives. Probably the greatest single economy, military mogul and scientific leader (or one off at least) in the world. Combine that with the "American Dream" (myth or fact) , the constant flow of movies and music as well as other forms of culture. That adds up to a big influx of American ideas and goods in every life. In other words the US attracts attention.

That attention can be envious or admiration.

Personally I find the US politics questionable, but that is me. I thought that the action against Iraq was ill adviced at best (most of the pilots of 9/11 came from saudi-Arabia and the majority of Al-Quaida was in Afghanistan (or that is what I was lead to believe)) to me it also seemed that the motivation changed emphasis during the campain, from Weapons of Mass Destruction towards a more huminatairian approach. I felt that the right time to get Saddam had past when a united front was in the right place, but at the wrong time roughly a decade earlier (the first Gulf War).

However what most people find frightening was the reaction by the politicians when Europe as a whole did not join. I heard politicians ask to rebury American soldiers who died liberating Europe (yec mac03 we are thankfull for the liberation, the lives it took, the freedom it restored as well as the Marshal Plan), but that reaction "join us or you are against us" made a lot of people feel uneasy (even threatened). It create a tare in 50 years of friendship between the US and Europe (and if you ever had a fight with someone close to you about something you both feel strong about you'll know sometimes those wounds heel slowly). It will get better in the long run (don't ask how long I am not a psychic).

On the other hand a lot of the actions done by the US government over the past decades already tarnished the US armor. Iran contra, Pinochet, Panama along with Vietnam fuelled the thought that the US was becoming a colonial power. When the war started I was following a course at uni in colonial discourse and travel literature, there where similarities between the european motives for colonising the unknown and the reasons for starting the second Gulf war.

As for callig the AMericans stingy. If you are able to get into debt by billions in order to defend your freedom/interests half way across the world a few extra millions to save people in direct need (as well as a grand PR stunt towards Al-Quaida "fans" in te region (of which there are planty)) seems odd.

I think hate is a strong word. Maybe misunderstood or ill educated about America and its ploitics are better words. Sometimes it feels that European, American, Asian and other world politics differ so much we no longer speak the same language,

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oktjabr

If noone reported that, where did you get the information? I'd be glad to see an article about it, if you have a link or something. Still, sounds rather absurd, that all NATO soldiers would be trained to shoot unarmed, Iraqi guys. Or do you mean that if there is an incident where insurgents have played dead to shoot at coalition troops, there is an open season for all wounded and unarmed enemies?

I have a feeling that only a very small minority really think so strongly. People often tend to say for example "The US have illegally attacked Iraq, that is evil." but with that statement they often just refer to the government of USA. Try asking them whether they really hate the americans as people.

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Dragonlich

It was on an interview on BBC world. But that was once, never heard anything about it since. Hence my statement that it wasn't reported.

You seem to misunderstand my statement, and the training I was talking about. If you take it to the extreme you do, yes it's absurd. But in the real world, and with the real training, it's not.

Imagine the situation: a group of soldiers are told to clear a house. They go in, find what looks like dead people on the floor. They have to secure the room, and make sure there's not going to be any surprises. So they move closer to the bodies, weapons at the ready. One of the bodies moves a bit. They have to make a split-second decision; is he going for a weapon, or isn't he?

The proper military reaction supposedly is to shoot the moving person. Sounds harsh, but you have to remember that it's a hostile area, and the soldier's *own* safety comes first. They're trained not to take any chances.

Now, if that original "dead" guy were to have put up his arm, and offered to surrender, he would not have been shot. Case in point: in the reported incident, a second wounded Iraqi did that immediately after the first one was killed; he was taken prisoner.

If I recall correctly, the British soldier said that they would have shot the "dead" body. They'd then check the body for obvious booby traps, after which the soldier would have to lie on top of the body, to prevent any further movement. Finally, he would grab the body, and roll sideways, exposing anything that was underneath the body; and protecting the soldier a bit in case of an explosion.

I can only assume he was telling the truth, of course.

Mephisto2

Please get your facts right.

Did you even hear the interview?

Do you realize that this UN official was talking about "western countries" and not the US?

As I've said before, you must have an inflated view of yourself to think that a comment lamenting the poor state of affairs with regards to general international aid is aimed directly at America and no where else.

This topic has been thrashed to death already.


Mr Mephisto

oktjabr

I understand your point - and I'm sure that many unfortunate, but understandable incidents happen on the battlefield.

However, if I have understood correctly, in this particular case the US soldier shooting the insurgent, he is seemingly not in "combat mode" as he just walked there and shot the guy from three or four feet distance, standing, not crouching or taking any cover as for example I would do if I'd be clearing a house full of enemies. And if it was a combat zone, why on earth was the camera man there? I have a feeling that this subject has already been debated on the other threads.

Anyway, media tends to function like this - and I'm quite sure that if there was a video of a Dutch soldier similarly shooting an unarmed, wounded insurgent, the international audience would be just as shocked.

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Dragonlich

Well, as I mentioned, there was a Dutch soldier shooting a supposedly innocent civilian (looter). I believe it has been caught on camera too.

oktjabr

I find it hard to believe that it wouldn't be shown on the media more, if it was captured on video. But if true, maybe it wasn't spectacular enough? Dutch media might be biased and avoid showing it, but surely not other countries...?

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smooth

It's also a stretch to be comparing the two incidents.

One was of a looter acting illegally (not an "innocent" civilian as dragonlich put it) and the other was of a wounded man laying prone in a mosque after being illegally left there for 24 hours by the US troops who injured him. And the reporter present has much to say about what he witnessed go down in regards to how life threatening the situation was to his perspective.

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Dragonlich

Ah, you make it sound so very simple. But of course, reality kicks in. The guy in the mosque wasn't as nice and friendly as you paint him here, but we already discussed that.

The Dutch DOJ said this looter was just as innocent as any other Iraqi. Human rights organizations agreed. Fellow soldiers who witnessed the action agreed - the looter wasn't a threat, was part of a group of people trying to get food, and the guy shouldn't have shot him. Finally, the rules of engagement also seemed to agree that the guy shouldn't have fired.

Luckily, the Dutch population and politicians by and large supported the soldier's actions, and condemned the prosecuter trying to put the soldier in jail. Wouldn't want our boys go down in history as murderous bastards, now did we?

I suppose you could go over to the Iraqi family members and explain how the looter being shot was justified; they didn't agree back then, and I doubt they'd agree now.

But of course, shooting a poor, innocent insurgent who tried to kill you a day earlier is *much* worse than shooting a poor, innocent Iraqi trying to get some damn food.

Or perhaps... there is indeed a hint of bias here.

I do agree that the video wasn't very damning - it showed a group of Iraqis, well, looting and running around, and one man lying on the ground, shot, IIRC. But still, the rest of the things, including witness reports, should have been enough. Or is something only bad when it's on video??? Because that would be the logical next step...

qweds

People don't hate or not hate the U.S for the Iraq war or some crimes in it. Not for the last Iraq war or the School of the Americas or any of the other incredibly horrific acts the American Gov't and corporations perform. They, and living part time in Canada and having been overseas several times, I believe they are quite numerous, hate the US for our attitude of,

'Fuck you, I'll do whatever I want cuz I'm America and I save everyone when anything bad happens.'

We started developing this after WW1 and solidified it after WW2. Americans are, by and large, under the laughable impression that we won WW2. We didn't, we came in after most of the fighting had been done and cleaned up and took the glory. Russia won WW2, end of story. But they're pinko commie motherfuckers, so, fuck them.

And that not even considering our international economic policies which purposely keep poor countries poor and us rich...or the way we subsidize the shit out of our purely destructive aggricultural methods and then force other nations to import out oil grown corn. The list of reasons to hate america is far longer than most Americans think or will ever care to realize. It's not, sour grapes, that fact that so many of us, on tfp and in general think so only goes to illustrate how arrogant we really are.

You can only piss of so many millions of poor farmers and religious fundementalists, and nationalists before your nukes and democracy can no longer save you from gettin your commupins.


but seriously think about it

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whocarz

Russia did not win WW2. The Soviet Union won WW2. However, America's involvement did two things. First, it saved Soviet lives, and second, it prevented western Europe from falling into the hands of another totalitarian regime, where terror and misery was the order of the day.

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Dragonlich

qweds, I think the same can be said about pretty much every (relatively) powerful country. People "hate" China for saying "we're a huge market, so we can do whatever we want, or you won't get in on the action." People hate Russia for saying "we've got nukes and a big attitude, so don't fuck with us." People hate France for saying "we're French, so fuck off." The list goes on and on.

Perhaps your statement is part of it, not it doesn't explain everything.

I bet the Germanic tribes hated Rome in ancient time... And you can bet the Dutch hated the Spanish during their occupation, and the French during their occupation in the Napoleonic glory days, and the Germans during Hitler's leadership. The big boys are always hated, no matter what they do - they're simply a threat to everyone else.

Seaver

Not quite that simple...

Russia, by the time they had stabilized their fronts, had already lost almost all of the agricultural land. They already lost almost their entire army. They were trying to move their industry to the other side of the Urals, unfortunately it was winter and it was beginning to fail horribly. They moved their industrial supplies over the mountains but failed to secure food provisions before the Germans over-ran it.

We came in with enough food to keep most of the Russian army fighting until the spring. We also came in with much needed iron (much of the Russian Iron mines/refineries were captured or destroyed), rubber (Russia doesnt have rubber trees nor did they have the newly designed synthetic rubber), explosives (explosive factories were captured, and it's extreamly difficult to build them in the dead of Russian winter).... pretty much everything else you can think of to win a war including direly needed planes (though outdated), jeeps, trucks, trains, etc was sent over there.

So while the Russians may have "won the war", there is no way they could have survived the next spring or summer campaigning season without our supplies, not to mension our opening of a second and third front.

Mephisto2

This is a very old and well debated topic.

The facts are that the Soviet Union "won" the second world war with UK and American aid. Without it, the war would have dragged on possibly for years, but would have been won anyway.

The fact that America helped defend the UK and then took part in the liberation of Europe, is perhaps one of the greatest acts in its history. Millions more lives would have been lost and Europe would have descended into a dark communist totalitarianism were it not for the US.

But to say that the US "saved" Europe is not correct.

The US assisted both Britian and the Soviet Union. All sides should be proud of their contribution.

Could be an interesting topic for another thread.


Mr Mephisto

Konichiwaneko

I believe if the US keeps on playing nice with everyone else, they will continue bully'ing us around.

It will be like in grade school when the little kids picked on the big one because he was a freak. Our political pacifism the last few years I believe will probably lead us to that.

I guess how you can really see it is the US is the Celebrity of the world. Were our everyday actions in life is not newworthy at all, a simple event like Britney Spears having smoking is blown out of proportion. The US is the worlds celebrity right now, and it seems some people on the outside may be a little bit envious



Concerning the post above about the US playing Hardball with other countries. It's not the US's fault if your country economy dwindles with sanctions are placed against you. It's the demand of your population and how your economy is designed. Same with the US. We would suffer terribly if within the next 10~20 years we had full sanctions put against us from various Asian countries and so on.

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sob

That particular situation didn't crop up at my grade school, but the current state of affairs makes me feel like I just gave money to a panhandler, and he said, "Thanks. Now kiss my ass."

Except that the countries we give money to don't usually say "Thanks."

alansmithee

I hope this wasn't learned in an American school, because it would reflect horribly on our much maligned school system. The thing germany feared the most was a two front war. When hitler started his march east, most of the western front was already under control. Without the US there is no western front, and russia cannot effectively counter-attack into europe. Had you said that about WWI, I would agree (accept for russia winning, they had backed out). But its erroneous about WWII.

That is some of the most ignorant statements I have heard on here. We subsidize farmers to NOT grow goods. If they grew up to full production, it would greatly drop world prices and devestate countries that depend more heavily upon agriculture (like some of those countries supposedly kept poor). Alot of it is sour grapes because we do have the largest economy, and are most visible in world affairs. Everyone says how spoiled americans are, but few note that there are many nations with higher per capita income. That doesn't help support their anti-american rhetoric.

I'm sure you were cheering on the planes flying into the towers

john_713

In the original post there was a comment about the British view. Being a Brit i think i can shed some light on this.

Unfortunately many Brits are dead set against the war in Iraq. They see it as a way to nab a bit of oil and thats it. Our envolvement in the war as allies of the US might lead to the downfall of the current government. Tony Blair has lost SO much respect from being seen as George Bush's lap dog throughout his term in office. I don't know how many of you saw the film love actually but the image of the Prime Minister predecessor being submissive to the US and the new pm (Hugh Grant) standing up to him is one which most Brits would love to see.

I can't say anyone I have met dislikes the people in the US but there is some resentment for are apparent lack of back bone towards your government.

JohnnyRoyale

Has anyone else listened the original UN press conference that everyone's referring to in the press? Here's a RealMedia webcast, if you're interested:

http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/pressco...ce/pc041227.rm
The quoted parts come at about 30 and 40 minutes in.

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almostaugust

And lets not forget the US pressence in the pacific during WW2. It was instrumental. And, if this thread was about bragging rights, then you couldnt really overlook Australia- which has lost more men fighting on forign soil (for its population) than any other. But, i think the subtext of why this was brought up was about 'arrogance'. Many people on the planet feel as though the US (forign policy esp.) thinks it can do what it pleases, just because it is so powerful. Meanwhile trampling the values that many feel underpin western thought and indeed the US constitiution. And, that by waving a flag in everyones face and saying that its in the name of 'freedom' or against 'terror' will somehow legitimise these transgressions. I guess many just fear the way things seem to be heading.

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roachboy

there is a huge list of actions that explains why folk might well detest the american state. my experience, however, is that people in other places make a hard distinction between the people and the state.

as for the list, you could start with even a cursory history of american foreign policy during and after world war 2 and move in almost any direction, from cultural imperialism to economic domination to incompetent marketing...seriously, you could go in any direction and compile your own wonderful list of things the american state and/or its empire have done to alienate people around the world. enough so that even the things the amerians try to do that are helpful are not taken at face value: and why should they be, really?
add to it, over the past 4 years, the new frontiers in ignorance and arrogance embodied by the bush administration-- bull-in-the-china-shop concerns are not unreasonable.

what is strange in all this is the persistence of the split amongst many americans between how they understand themselves and where they live, what that country is in action, in real time, and how where they live is seen from other places. of course, this split is carefully managed, and is critical for the engineering of domestic consent for the state. whence the recurrent whining from the right about how they are misunderstood internationally and the about the international community.
.

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it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Justsomeguy

social imperialism,wealth, brute strength>all.

My question is, would you rather be loved by everyone? It's important to preserve a position in the world with a growing Russia and China in the future as well a uniting Europe.

Dragonlich

If that's the competition, the US is so going to be on top...

Let's face it, pretty much every country of importance is hated by someone, somewhere. Countries that are more visible themselves (through media attention) get more visible hatred.