Anti-Americanism hits record highs across Asia

POPULAR PERCEPTIONS: The US has never enjoyed such healthy relationships with Asian governments, but the man on the street has a rather different view

AFP , WASHINGTON
Thursday, May 20, 2004,Page 6

Anti-American sentiment is rising in Asia, in sharp contrast with the dramatic improvement in government-to-government ties between the US and the region, experts told a forum on America's role in Asia yesterday.

"In fact I would say that anti-American sentiment is growing at a disturbing rate and has never been that bad as it has become today," former senior South Korean diplomat Kim Kyong-won told the conference in Washington.

He said US-Northeast Asia inter-governmental relations at present had blossomed to "unprecedented" levels, with Washington close to governments in China, South Korea and Japan.

But the story is different if one goes out onto the streets, noted Kim, a former envoy to the UN and US.

"This is rather surprising because there is huge gap between formal inter-governmental institutions and the popular public man-on-the-street perceptions," said Kim, now the president of the Seoul Forum for International Affairs, a private group.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/05/20/2003156232

As I reported to the DU for 2 years from Asia. Look e'm up in the archives.

I had met so many people who used to or were thinking to vacation in America but changed to Europe, Australia, New Zealand... because of one aWol uneducated dirty lying cheating fool.

Not only that I reported how I expected a huge drop of foreign students seeking higher education in America. The ones who pay triple the tuition we do. The ones who buy tons of gifts to take back home.

That's got to hurt Jebbie.

The loss in tourism revenues also contributed to California's record budget deficit which was a driving point that got Arnold elected.

The US may never again be viewed as the keeper of the flame of liberty and justice. It ain't gonna get away with what it has since the end of WWII.

This may make the entire world a sadder and more bitter place for the loss of even unwarranted hope from seemingly institutionalized ideals.

Governments around the world will spend more on weapons and less on the well-being of its citizens.

The harsh dose of corrupt unchecked power the neocons are displaying will wake up a world to the hard work still ahead of us to make real the Hallmark card sentiments about justice expressed in the US Constitution that have yet to be achieved.

press, freedom to demostrate, freedom from a security state feeling...

As I've reported before and all of you can see, protesters in other countries never get touched by police. Even when the protesters show up with bats and helmets. The stuff that happened in Oakland was televised all over Asia. America, the only country that beats, shoots with guns and sprays poison on its protesters.

Since the Michael Moore story broke in Asia I get dozens of emails from Asian friends. The movie has no sex, no violence, no swearing but it's banned in America? What's going on?

It hurts like hell to learn that fascism is a disease that walks this land like a vampire that had the stake removed from its heart.

Most people I know are in depressed denial and can't bear to look the facts dead on.

I wish Kerry were the man who came back from Nam to say the emperor has no clothes. I know he's someone else now.

But we need a second American Revolution where the Bill of Rights is taken seriously as the only document that seperates the American Experiment in 'rule of law' from the millions of years of 'might makes right.'

In this month's issue of Harper's magazine the cover story is called 'What Democracy? The Case for Abolishing the United States Senate.' It describes how our government wasn't even designed to actually deliver democracy. It was designed favoring the few in the Senate who would prevent the 'mob rule of the majority.' And the inequality has gotten worse and worse. Add the fascism science of TV mind control and mega-corporations and we have the world's largest arsenal in the hands of Nazis, something our parents fought WWII to prevent.

How ironic.
I heard a variation on the old adage 'absolute power corrupts absolutely.'
Instead:
'Absolute power reveals absolutely.'

The Stanford Prison Experiment also illustrated how It Can Happen Here. We can all become Nazis. The USA as hyperpower is now revealing the demons of its past of genocide,holocaust, slavery, apartheid, and eugenics.

I had no idea. Did the rest of the world know at the time the Busholinis STOLE the election and began RULING the country,...that they would be this insane in growing so much hatred?

C'mon now,...who really predicted just how evil this administration could be without doing a retrospective thingy.

I don't believe this to be true:

As I've reported before and all of you can see, protesters in other countries never get touched by police. Even when the protesters show up with bats and helmets. The stuff that happened in Oakland was televised all over Asia. America, the only country that beats, shoots with guns and sprays poison on its protesters.

I've seen video of many countries where their "police" or military goons cracked heads with batons and shot at protesters. I believe a tank ran over some Chinese citizens in Tienanmen Square. Just trying to be accurate.

Now these following comments in no way take away from the f-ups your current president has commited but let me tell you something....

It's your self-righteous ridiculously high view of yourselves as 'keepers of the flame of liberty and justice' that absolutely makes the rest of the world want to BARF.You are just another country!You did not invent freedom!Quite frankly we can all do without your Vietnam,Korea,Serbia,Gulf War and hundreds of covert war BS about 'giving' the world freedom.My god,you didnt even enter WWII til it was just about over because it didnt suit you,and by then all the damage had been done but you came to reap the rewards and steal the spoils of a crushed Europe.You are not the be all and end all of freedom despite all that rhetoric that has been taught in your history books.99% of what is the American 'system' and 'way of life' is just European common law and the freedoms enjoyed in Western Europe,Canada,Australia and New Zealand are freedoms that America has NEVER known in its entire history.The RIGHT to free healthcare,the RIGHT to quality public education,the RIGHT to live in a society without a third world-like attitude to the death penalty.

please,WHEN Kerry becomes president,just make sure you keep this anti-war rhetoric going.Just BE A NORMAL COUNTRY and mind your business and THEN the world will respect you again like it did 60 years ago.America can be great but no nation can be the guiding light of the whole world...........that is what the UNITED NATIONS is for.

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:hi: and WELCOME to democraticunderground !! :hi:
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And the US has "lost" all over the World.

Although I have visited the US in the past, no more.

I have LIVED in the US before, - no more.

I had planned to RETIRE to the US in the near future

NO FECKING WAY!!

and I have NO intention of crossing that border for ANY reason

and if our government gets too friendly with the regime to our south?

I'll retire to a different friggen CONTINENT!
________________________________

Welcome again seloa to DU :hi:
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I was just lammenting over all the greatness that America lost since Bush took over, but I guess a lot of that was just an illusion anyway.

When I hear Bush say "They hate us for our freedoms," I just want to vomit. They may hate us now, but it's got nothing to do with our freedoms.

Maybe they hate us for our giant prisons. Or our shrinking schools. Or they hate us for our lack of free public health care.Or maybe they hate us for our prison guards. Or maybe they hate us for our deluded population of sheep.

and it was used to get away with mass murder.

But, paradoxically, many people around the world don't know that the US became Nazi Germany after WWII and still derived hope from the idea that the US was a comparitive Eden.

Seems you thought I believed that Superman Jesus image that is marketed in puffy nationalist rhetoric. No fucking way.

So don't think all Americans think they are the Chosen Few/Master Race. Many of us know the 300 year history of genocide, holocaust, slavery, apartheid, lynching, torture, etc that actually inspired Hitler in his planning of a Final Solution.

Thanks for sharing your outrage though!

I never believed such horrors could ever be committed in my lifetime.

Not here,...not in my country,...the US of A.

I never believed that my love and loyalty and trust would be betrayed in so many ways by those who are supposed to be the pillars of American values.

I never believed we could end up with a leadership that is 100X worse and more corrupt than Nixon.

I never believed any leader could be so cold-blooded and greedy and evil-hearted.

I mourn for my country,...every single day.

I mourn for all those victims of corrupt acts exercised by corporatist politicians.

I worry about the future, both immediate and long-term, of my country.

Being a compassionate American, these days,...is incredibly difficult.

I can offer an apology for what others have done in my name. But, I know it's not enough.

:cry:

It's that very attitude that signals the metastasis of such underlying cancers. That attitude, prevalent in this country, assures that there're no countermeasures in place. Denial, denial, denial. Even as we see a mere handful of the THOUSANDS of photographs and videos of widespread crimes against humanity, the average American man-in-the-street is (like a kid in Disneyland) blissfully (and pridefully) ignorant of the atrocities his tax dollars subsidize.

"It can't happen here" is precisely what the average German thought prior to the 1930's.

,...nevertheless,...I believe that, notwithstanding heavily censored news and reports,...the average American still has the capacity to "sense" that something is very, very wrong. The average American really does value all human life. The extremists have been unleased but they are certainly not representative of the average American.

Moreover, the average American IS becoming more informed about what has been and is happening. The average American has more access to such information than ever before.

As despairing as I am from time to time,...as ashamed and humilitated as I may feel at every revelation of wrong-doing by those who have persistently committed crimes against humanity and using taxpayer money to do it,...as angry as I may feel about all of these things,...

I still believe that humanity's potential to do good will overcome humanity's potential to do evil.

is exactly where we need to begin to question if\where there is a distinction between "the greatest place to live"\ "democracy that should be exported by force" and "master race."

and welcome to DU. Please stay awhile and post more. :hi:

Jay

Thanks for your perspective, I keep wishing more Americans shared it. Please come back and post some more.

We treat everyone like a criminal who comes here. So they are detered from being on USA fbi list and possibly picked up for something and tossed in jail as "enemy combatant" and no due process and no getting out and no communication with the world....


sounds like china, argentina, hilter's germany.......

Bush wishes to control through fear...and fear...and fear...He does Goering proud.

It was not undeserved.

And yes, it will take time for all this heinous news to filter down to the little villages in India, Thailand, Poland, the Australian Outback. But mind you they will take notice. They'll sit in their pubs and discuss the torture for hours. Along with everything else we've come to be associated with.

When you have lost trust, you don't have much left. We are destined to become the pariah of the world. Don't believe it? Neither did all the other Empires who inevitably toppled.

About a dozen people eating. Mostly older, lower-middle class people. A TV was showing the torture photos in a news report (thankfully the grossest ones weren't). You could see the indignation in people's faces. One man, that looked like 80 or so, said "what a disgusting bunch of cowards".

fought for during the Revolutionary War!

:grr:

you could get out of dodge but you choose not to. don't abandon the ship. bush can't last. join us in sending him packing

artists have done! If he comes back for four more years, heaven help us all.

Granted things have gotten quite a bit more out of hand but it still can be reversed. The first major course of action is to restore the "Fairness Doctrine" We can not allow the uninterrupted source of propaganda to continue. Also the propagandizing of the military with political crap. I understand the necessity of propaganda in teaching warfare but not in demonizing other Americans. Unless we fix this propaganda problem there is no hope.

What the Bush regime has done to Americas in three short years is simply astounding! It has practically destroyed the most powerful and wonderful nation on earth in such a short time. We will never be the same.

I find the AdAge story (with executives discussing whether anti-Americanism matters, if it doesn't affect product sales abroad) especially surrealistic.

Grim events in Iraq call for reassessment of goals
<snip>
The price the U.S. is paying extends well beyond the nearly 800 U.S. servicemen and servicewomen killed so far. The U.S. image in the world has plummeted. NATO allies, who rallied to our side after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, now turn away because of differences over Iraq. Polls repeatedly show anti-Americanism on the rise across the globe, driven by a sense that the world's only superpower is acting with imperial disdain.
<snip>
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-05-19-our-view_x.htm

Bush legacy: 'Poisonous anti-Americanism around the globe'
Zakaria said “a handful of officials at the top of the Defence Department and the vice presidents office have commandeered American foreign and defence policy. In the name of fighting terror they have systematically weakened the traditional restraints that have made this country (US) respected around the world. Alliances, international institutions, norms and ethical conventions have all been deemed expensive indulgences at a time of crisis,” Zakaria added.
<snip>
Zakaria said on all issues involving Iraq, Washington proved wrong. “By now most have reversed, often too late, to have any effect.”
“This strange combination of arrogance and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an international outlaw in the eyes of much of the world.”
With note of desperation, Zakaria concludes “Whether he wins or loses in November, George W Bush’s legacy is now clear: the creation of a poisonous atmosphere of anti-Americanism around the globe. I am sure he takes full responsibility.”
http://nation.ittefaq.com/artman/publish/article_9227.shtml

Are Bush's Policies Not Promoting Anti-Americanism?
GEORGE W. Bush has shown clearly, in two major matters of world concern, that if the UN does not back him, he will nevertheless pursue policies that serve the interests of the US military industrial complex, and of wider corporate America, whether or not, in doing so, he arouses anti-Americanism and wreaks havoc with the earth's environment.
<snip>
Only yesterday, in a column in the South African paper, Business Day, that also appeared in the Financial Times of the UK, Martin Wolf, who acknowledges his Republican sympathies, and his having voted for Nixon and George Bush Snr, declared that "Bush is just not up to the job".
His reasons are that, put simply, the Bush Administration "fails to understand the basis of US power, mis-specifies US objectives, and is incompetent in executing its intentions".
After the September 11, 2001 plane bombings in New York, "a huge proportion of humanity regarded the US as a victim of an outrage. Today, after the revelations of the treatment of prisoners in Iraq, it is seen as the perpetrator of outrages".
<snip>
http://allafrica.com/stories/200405140140.html

NEW KEITH REINHARD GROUP TO BATTLE ANTI-AMERICANISM
Marketers and Ad Agencies Join in Business for Diplomatic Action
On the heels of a study that documented diminishing foreign regard for American culture and products, a new organization of marketing and advertising corporations is preparing to raise an initial $1 million to combat anti-Americanism abroad.
The move comes after a several of the group's members at last week's NOP World conference heard the findings of the latest annual survey of global consumer attitudes by the market research organization. The survey found that regard for American culture and products was declining. The research chief presenting the findings termed the findings a "warning sign" to American marketers.
<snip>
The organization's board met yesterday to discuss different initiatives and their price tags. The group would like to collect another $2 million for an in-depth category- and brand-specific global study because many top executives doubt foreign sentiment affects sales, Mr. Reinhard said.
Indeed, representatives from Gillette and Kraft at the NOP conference said anti-Americanism has not affected their companies because many of their brands abroad, such as Kraft's Tang in Saudi Arabia, are perceived as homegrown rather than as an American export.
<snip>
http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=40485

Below is a survey from last October. Can you imagine what the numbers would be today? I just don't understand why American business just lies down and takes this. Anyone selling image must be absolutely devastated by this aggressive, arrogant posture of the new America. It's not just in the Arab world your image has been hurt. It's also been badly hurt in places like the Philippines and China.

America's competitors should get down on their knees and worship *, Cheney and the neo-conservative cult for what they have done for them.

This is really scary. How many decades have US companies worked to establish their image? To see it all lost,...for what? And how many companies have spoken up?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/3156836.stm
Published: 2003/10/02 09:23:24 GMT

US image drops among Muslims
Hostility towards the US has reached "shocking" levels in the Muslim world, according to a report released in Washington.

In March 2003 more than two thirds of Muslims in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan saw the US as a greater threat than Iraq

15% of Indonesians view the US favourably, down from 61% in 2002

15% of Turks view the US favourably, down from 52% in 2000

3% of Spaniards have a very favourable view of US, 49% have a very unfavourable view

Only 2% of British Muslims agree with the statement that "the US supports democracy around the world"

Source: The Advisory group for Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World

edit: added the date

It's a good thing that I didn't apply for the job.

:kick:

:kick:

He managed in two years to ruin the image of the most powerful democracy of the world, the image of the flag keeper of the democracies, the image of an attacked nation, a wounded and mourning nation with sympathy from every decent and sain people, the image of a country other countries owe so much...What a mess!
It's a crime 'we' democracies will all pay and maybe with blood. That criminal did harm so much the camp of the democracies while ennemies of Democracy and Freedom are raising everywhere our combat is now badly discredited. Now it's upside down, jihadists and burkas prophets are heros, mission accomplished scumbag ! Now who can make the difference between them and the insurgents ?!? "With ennemies like that who needs friends?" should say OBL !
We see that clearly in Europe and particularly in France where islamic fundamentalism is pushing harder every day, we are disarmed when the TV is showing all those images from Iraq (and not only the abuses!)...How hard it became to explain the young people that burkas prophets are no saints and heros.
Bush is a fool and a criminal.