yeti wrote:kings4,
I really don't see a difference pre and post Bush. This nation and its citizens have been universally hated for decades. They were burning American flags in the streets of Tehran when I was in grade school, and are still doing it today.
no doubt we have always had, and always will have enemies, and we'll have to agree to disagree. check out this article from an european newspaper, it makes the point clearer than i can, whether you agree or not, it's worth the read.
The American Century Is Over
On Nov. 2, Americans blew their only chance to redeem themselves in the eyes of the world.
The entire world is stunned by the Bush administration's abandonment of a half century of U.S. diplomacy in favor of misguided, unilateralist, "preemptive" naked aggression on totally false pretenses against Iraq. America's allies are amazed at the ignorance manifested by the Bush administration. They are resentful of Bush's "in-your-eye" attitude toward friends who warned Bush against leading America into a quagmire and giving Osama bin Laden the war he wanted.
The world was waiting hopefully for the sensible American people to rectify the ill-advised actions of a rogue neoconservative administration. Instead, Americans placed the stamp of approval on the least justifiable military action since Hitler invaded Poland.
The world's sympathy for America that followed the Sept. 11 attacks has been squandered. If the U.S. suffers terrorist attacks in the future, the world will say that America invited the attacks and got what it asked for.
Europeans and Asians will never be able to comprehend that Bush was reelected because Americans were voting against homosexual marriage and abortion.
The world is simply unable to believe that Americans, so enamored of family values, would vote to send their sons, fathers, husbands, and brothers to unprovoked war unless Americans valued empire and control over oil as more important than their family members.
As hearts harden and minds close against America, Americans will have to go it alone. The U.S. invasion of Iraq has proved to be a disaster – exactly as everyone with a mere modicum of sense said in advance.
Eight of ten U.S. divisions are tied down by a few thousand insurgents. U.S. troops do not control towns, cities, roads, or even the fortified Green Zone. The American impulse is to smash cities, thus killing women and children and destroying the homes and livelihoods of noncombatants, while the insurgents regroup elsewhere. The top American generals, who were ridiculed by the Secretary of Defense and his deluded neoconservative deputy for forthrightly stating that occupation of Iraq would require a larger army than was available, stand vindicated.
The price of the Bush administration's delusion is 10,000 dead and maimed American troops – more than three times the casualties caused by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Bush's declared policy of "continuing to the end" will surely swell this number.
The world is amazed that Americans do not care that they have been deceived, lied to, and incompetently led and that Americans have chosen to continue along this path. Bush's reelection has ended forever respect for America.
The American century is over.
