Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Obama Loses Miss Congeniality Title in World Pageant

Obama may be personally popular and likeable enough in the USA. But in the rest of the world, not so much. The rest of the world is not so wrapped up in glitzy presidential campaign propaganda and apparently has not developed our acquired taste for authoritarian kool-aid. The rest of the world that happens to be of the Muslim persuasion is not impressed with the Leader of the Free World's intellectualized "signature" drone strikes, nor does it buy into the canard of American Exceptionalism. (Do as we say, not as we do.) The rest of the world is not impressed with a president who can kill anyone, anywhere in an undeclared, free-floating War on Terror that includes every back yard as a battlefield. Or, if he decides to show mercy, who can imprison anyone, anywhere -- without charge or trial.




As a matter of fact, China is actually winning the world popularity contest in some of those unstable, terrorist-harboring regions. You know -- the China that imprisons and disappears dissidents, censors the Internet, pollutes its air, enslaves its workers, and is sort of repressive. Europeans now consider China, not the U.S., to be the dominant global economic power. And China itself is becoming less and less fond of the United States and the president.

The Pew Global Attitudes Project just released a report today showing that
Global approval of President Barack Obama’s policies has declined significantly since he first took office, while overall confidence in him and attitudes toward the U.S. have slipped modestly as a consequence.

(snip)

Even though many think American economic clout is in relative decline, publics around the world continue to worry about how the U.S. uses its power – in particular its military power – in international affairs.

There remains a widespread perception that the U.S. acts unilaterally and does not consider the interests of other countries. In predominantly Muslim nations, American anti-terrorism efforts are still widely unpopular. And in nearly all countries, there is considerable opposition to a major component of the Obama administration’s anti-terrorism policy: drone strikes. In 17 of 20 countries, more than half disapprove of U.S. drone attacks targeting extremist leaders and groups in nations such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
By contrast, a pretty shocking 62% of Americans polled are just fine with a president killing people overseas with drones. Probably because no other country has yet attacked us with drones, and because many of us are unfamiliar with the term "blowback." But it is only a matter of time. The unremitting bombing of civilians (aka "militants") in Yemen and Pakistan is only creating more terrorists where none otherwise would have existed. And when the relatives and friends of anonymous collateral damage do stage a revenge attack on American soil, you know what the official story will be: "They hate us for our freedoms."

Ironically, of all the countries surveyed, it is Greece that most despises the American drone program. Though not victims of predator bombs themselves, they are the victims of predator banks. It seems fitting that the birthplace of democracy only gives the Obama drone program a 5% approval rating. Sanity is alive and well somewhere in this world.



4 comments:

Zee said...

@Karen--

I guess that after (1) a worldwide apology tour and then (2) receiving the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, turning around and not-so-clandestinely bombing many of the people with whom we were allegedly trying to make peace wasn't such a good idea after all.

But then, Obama doesn't need the votes of those foreign "bombees" this November. He needs the votes of those domestic drones who think that Obama is somehow protecting them.

PS: I agreed with some of the things for which Obama apologized on his worldwide tour, and disagreed with others. Secret bombings of people who are merely suspected of being terrorists--and taking any number of innocents out along the way-- is one of those things of which I disapprove.

4Runner said...

I would think he'd do better in a congeniality poll because he's usually genial and always a con.

Valerie said...

Well, unlike America, Europe and the rest of the (actually) free Western world gets REAL journalism and gets a better picture of what Obama is really like. Also, the rest of the Western world isn't blinded by America's partisan policies. They aren't going to give Obama a free ride just because he is running for Pres under the Democratic label. What I find amazing is that these countries are more disapproving of Obama and they don't even know the half of what Obama has done! Most countries think he has improved health care for all Americans and don't know that extraordinary rendition in places like Somalia have grown in number under O. They don't really understand the NDAA or even that the NDAA exists.

And you are SOOOO right, Karen. There WILL be blowback, especially as America loses it's economic power. And while I don't like the Chinese government one bit, ya gotta wonder how stupid is Obama to be spoiling for a fight with China considering they could throw American dollars onto the world market and trash our currency in one fell swoop! But the Chinese are patient, I give them that. They are just watching America self-destruct.

Denis Neville said...

The thrill is gone.

And we wonder why they hate us?

Ruben Bolling, “Li'l Barack Has a Playdate,” http://boingboing.net/2012/06/06/tom-the-dancing-bug-lil-bar.html

Ted Koppel: “The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, succeeded far beyond anything Osama bin Laden could possibly have envisioned. This is not just because they resulted in nearly 3,000 deaths, nor only because they struck at the heart of American financial and military power. Those outcomes were only the bait; it would remain for the United States to spring the trap. The goal of any organized terrorist attack is to goad a vastly more powerful enemy into an excessive response. And over the past nine years, the United States has blundered into the 9/11 snare with one overreaction after another. Bin Laden deserves to be the object of our hostility, national anguish and contempt, and he deserves to be taken seriously as a canny tactician. But much of what he has achieved we have done, and continue to do, to ourselves. Bin Laden does not deserve that we, even inadvertently, fulfill so many of his unimagined dreams. “We have raced to Afghanistan and Iraq, and more recently to Yemen and Somalia; we have created a swollen national security apparatus; and we are so absorbed in our own fury and so oblivious to our enemy's intentions…If bin Laden did not foresee all this, then he quickly came to understand it. In a 2004 video message, he boasted about leading America on the path to self-destruction. 'All we have to do is send two mujaheddin . . . to raise a small piece of cloth on which is written 'al-Qaeda' in order to make the generals race there, to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses.' “Through the initial spending of a few hundred thousand dollars, training and then sacrificing 19 of his foot soldiers, bin Laden has watched his relatively tiny and all but anonymous organization of a few hundred zealots turn into the most recognized international franchise since McDonald's. Could any enemy of the United States have achieved more with less? Could bin Laden, in his wildest imaginings, have hoped to provoke greater chaos? It is past time to reflect on what our enemy sought, and still seeks, to accomplish -- and how we have accommodated him.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/09/AR2010090904735.html

Nemesis is at our door. Nemesis is long delayed sometimes, but it comes in the end.