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  • Poll reveals world anger at Bush

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselection...327568,00.html

    Poll reveals world anger at Bush

    Eight out of 10 countries favour Kerry for president

    Alan Travis, home affairs editor
    Friday October 15, 2004

    George Bush has squandered a wealth of sympathy around the world towards America since September 11 with public opinion in 10 leading countries - including some of its closest allies - growing more hostile to the United States while he has been in office.
    According to a survey, voters in eight out of the 10 countries, including Britain, want to see the Democrat challenger, John Kerry, defeat President Bush in next month's US presidential election.

    The poll, conducted by 10 of the world's leading newspapers, including France's Le Monde, Japan's Asahi Shimbun, Canada's La Presse, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Guardian, also shows that on balance world opinion does not believe that the war in Iraq has made a positive contribution to the fight against terror.

    The results show that in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Japan, Spain and South Korea a majority of voters share a rejection of the Iraq invasion, contempt for the Bush administration, a growing hostility to the US and a not-too-strong endorsement of Mr Kerry. But they all make a clear distinction between this kind of anti-Americanism and expressing a dislike of American people. On average 68% of those polled say they have a favourable opinion of Americans.

    The 10-country poll suggests that rarely has an American administration faced such isolation and lack of public support amongst its closest allies.

    The only exceptions to this trend are the Israelis - who back Bush 2-1 over Kerry and see the US as their security umbrella - and the Russians who, despite their traditional anti-Americanism, recorded unexpectedly favourable attitudes towards the US in the survey conducted in the immediate aftermath of the Beslan tragedy.

    The UK results of the poll conducted by ICM research for the Guardian reveal a growing disillusionment with the US amongst the British public, fuelled by a strong personal antipathy towards Mr Bush.

    The ICM survey shows that if the British had a vote in the US presidential elections on November 2 they would vote 50% for Kerry and only 22% for Bush.

    Sixty per cent of British voters say they don't like Bush, rising to a startling 77% among those under 25.

    The rejection of Mr Bush is strongest in France where 72% say they would back Mr Kerry but it is also very strong in traditionally very pro-American South Korea, where fears of a pre-emptive US strike against North Korea have translated into 68% support for Mr Kerry.

    In Britain the growth in anti-Americanism is not so marked as in France, Japan, Canada, South Korea or Spain where more than 60% say their view of the United States has deteriorated since September 11. But a sizeable and emerging minority - 45% - of British voters say their image of the US has got worse in the past three years and only 15% say it has improved.

    There is a widespread agreement that America will remain the world's largest economic power.

    This is underlined by the 73% of British voters who say that the US now wields an excessive influence on international affairs, a situation that 67% see as continuing for the foreseeable future.

    A majority in Britain also believe that US democracy is no longer a model for others.

    But perhaps a more startling finding from the Guardian/ICM poll is that a majority of British voters - 51% - say that they believe that American culture is threatening our own culture.

    This is a fear shared by the Canadians, Mexicans and South Koreans, but it is more usually associated with the French than the British. Perhaps the endless television reruns of Friends and the Simpsons are beginning to take their toll.

    ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,008 adults aged 18 and over by telephone between September 22-23 2004. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults.

  • #2
    The world backs Kerry

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselection...327971,00.html

    The world backs Kerry

    Leader
    Friday October 15, 2004
    The Guardian

    Millions of Americans are scratching their heads over how to vote on November 2 after the last of the three televised presidential debates left George Bush and John Kerry neck and neck over jobs, education, health care and taxes, with little mention of Iraq or 9/11. But the rest of the world, according to a poll we and several other newspapers publish today, has already made up its mind, backing the Democratic challenger by a margin of two to one.
    Any sample, of course, is just a sample, but this survey of public opinion in 10 countries does include the US's two immediate neighbours, Canada and Mexico, as well as Israel and Russia, Washington's close allies in the "war on terror", and Britain, still its most loyal transatlantic friend, despite widespread criticism of Tony Blair. Unfortunately, Muslim countries are absent, though their inclusion would have made even gloomier reading for the White House. A recent Pew Research Centre poll, for example, showed just 7% of Pakistanis approve of Mr Bush, while 65% have a favourable opinion of Osama bin Laden.

    These findings - likely to achieve a high degree of exposure because they are media-driven - confirm previous polls in underlining the degree of global hostility to President Bush and the Iraq war. Some 74% of Germans, according to GlobeScan, want to see Mr Kerry win the election. A June poll conducted by the German Marshall Fund found that 76% of respondents in nine European countries disapproved of Mr Bush's handling of international affairs, up significantly from a survey in 2002. It also found that 80% of Europeans polled - compared with half of Americans - said Iraq was not worth the human and financial cost. In Europe, only Poles would rather see Mr Bush back in the Oval office. Elsewhere in "new Europe" there is a distinctly "old European" wish to see the Massachusetts senator win. Further afield, Israelis are the only people to back the incumbent and to see American democracy as a model for other countries. Similarly positive views in Russia appear to reflect the hardline US view on Chechen terrorism: the survey was carried out in the aftermath of the Beslan school massacre.

    Against this bleak background, the good news is that there is a clear distinction between anti-Americanism and criticism of US policies. No less than 68% of all those polled - with the French, Mr Kerry's most fervent backers, scoring a surprising above-average 72% - have a favourable view of Americans but are implacably opposed to the US government. Opinions of the US have worsened for 57% over the past three years.

    Strikingly, though, political differences may now be casting shadows in other areas. Young Britons, avid consumers of Big Macs, Starbucks and Friends, are now hostile to American culture on a scale traditionally associated with the French. Canada, Mexico and South Korea feel even more threatened. It is common ground that Iraq and the Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib scandals have eroded the sympathy generated by the 2001 terrorist attacks. Encouragingly for whoever does win, 90% believe it is important to maintain good relations with the US. The danger is, perhaps, of expecting too much from a Kerry victory.

    Mr Bush may well wish to exploit this hostility, against a rival he has portrayed as caring too much for allies and not enough for America. Clearly, if the world had a vote, the result on November 2 would not be in doubt. The president is unlikely to be surprised that the Guardian, Asahi Shimbun, Le Monde or El Pais believe that Iraq is a "deadly and highly questionable war". That though, is the view of the Lone Star Iconoclast, published in his home town of Crawford, Texas. It matters a lot what others think about the US. But it is only Americans who can choose their own leader.

    Comment


    • #3
      Get over yourself, from speaking to non-americans it doesn't matter, as ZFBoxcar has pointed out many times. You really have to stop careing, they arn't going to like us anyway. Lets lose the war on terror, but at least France and Germany will pretend to like us!! The way i see it, they didn't like us before, they won't like us after. We're damned if we do and we're damned if we don't.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Gio
        Lets lose the war on terror, but at least France and Germany will pretend to like us!! The way i see it, they didn't like us before, they won't like us after. We're damned if we do and we're damned if we don't.

        You are forgetting that Bush in an interview with Matt Lauer of NBC had this to say about war on terror "We can't really win it".

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        • #5
          And he clarrified what he meant, in contrast to Mr. Kerry who explains his explanations to the point he confuses people. To that i point at all polls showing Bush ahead by large margins in who can handle the war on terror better.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Gio
            And he clarrified what he meant, in contrast to Mr. Kerry who explains his explanations to the point he confuses people. To that i point at all polls showing Bush ahead by large margins in who can handle the war on terror better.

            Yes he "clarified" it in an interview with Rush Limbaugh!

            But I did watch the Matt Lauer interview in which he sounded quite honest when he said that war on terror can't really be won per se.

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            • #7
              What's your point? Do you enjoy trolling?

              Comment


              • #8
                What part you consider trolling? Did I say anything which was factually inaccurate? It was Bush who flipped-flopped, by first saying he can't win the war or terror and then later on correcting himself on another talk radio show.

                Anyway you were wrong when you said this in your first post:

                "Get over yourself, from speaking to non-americans it doesn't matter, as ZFBoxcar has pointed out many times. You really have to stop careing, they arn't going to like us anyway."


                Perhaps you did not pay attention to this paragrapgh from the first article:

                "But they all make a clear distinction between this kind of anti-Americanism and expressing a dislike of American people. On average 68% of those polled say they have a favourable opinion of Americans".

                As you can see your interpretation has been wrong. Even within US roughly 1/2 the country does not support Bush policies.

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                • #9
                  Screw the world, let them fall back into another dark age, just leave us the hell out of it.
                  Last edited by Praxus; 16 Oct 04,, 14:27.

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                  • #10
                    The majority has been wrong many times before, this is one of those times.
                    No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
                    I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
                    even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
                    He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

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                    • #11
                      How can we be expected to be a model for the worlds democracies? How can we expect to lead the world in any matter when we demonstrate such disregard for world opinion? I can't believe that we can't even acknowlegde on this forum that this is problematic at all. Don't you see it in any way shape or form as bad? The screw the world mentality will get us nowhere in the long run.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Fonnicker
                        Don't you see it in any way shape or form as bad?
                        I do. Just from the opposite side you see it. If the world is against fighting tyranny, and for appeasing tyranny, even supporting it, then the world is wrong. I don't care what country we're talking about.
                        No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
                        I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
                        even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
                        He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          I belive GBW said national security is not a popularity contest, id rather be safe and not so well liked then dead and loved.

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                          • #14
                            The U.S. obviously cares about the situation and/or our interest with other countries, otherwise the US would not go to such extremes to fight for the causes in other countries. Being that we take that stance pertaining to other countries, it is very important that we should care about our credibility as to what other countries feel about the US. Everything is a two-way street, and the US has a bad tendency to forget that in crucial times. And, as someone pointed out above, a one-way street will not get us far in the long run.

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                            • #15
                              As someone from a country not surveyed in the story I can say that we feel similar. There was a lot of sympathy for your country after the terrorist attack on the WTC. My country and others provided fighting troops (only a couple of dozen SAS from us) in the invasion of Afganistan, and we and other countries still have troops there. We can also differentiate between American civilians and the governments they elect.

                              You don't have to listen to us when deciding who to vote for, as we don't have to listen to you.

                              Perhaps all you should do is consider why majorities in other countries, including the British and Australians who fought in the war against Iraq alongside your troops, don't like your leader and his policies. If you don't care why or disagree and are happy with the status quo, that is also fine.

                              Comment

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