America as a rogue super power?

This morning, I found an interesting, but dreadful editorial article in Times which talks about a recent poll of global attitudes toward US. Please see below, and related statistics (I think many of you frequently use Pew's website, but if not, I would recommend you to check these website regularly. There are tons of interesting polls and statistics there).

As a staff of Religions for Peace - USA, which also has an area of activities, "advocat[ing] for responsibility of the U.S. as a citizen of the global community with particular regard to peace, human rights, and development," I cannot ignore the result of this poll. Image of America rottens so badly now.

The only good thing among the worsts is that, as Times discribes, people answering this poll seem to separate US politics and US citizens. American people themselves are not bad, but US politics is. This is what they want to say.
If you want to be seen favorably, you have to show kindness to others and understand others in deep. Only after that, people would see you in a favorable way. I think it applies everything, e.g., to our daily lives and foreign affairs.

What US politics has done for the last several years, not to mention Iraq War, might be totally opposite, pushing its self-determined value and ego onto others. No wonder people living in the other countries have suspicious eyes to US now.

I almost wholeheartedly support the idea of "soft power" invented by Professor Joseph Nye. It's so funny that US which Nye belongs to is struggling bad images of its conducts. It's so sarcastic...


http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=256

http://pewglobal.org/commentary/display.php?AnalysisID=1019

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=206


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/03/opinion/03tue3.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print


Through Others’ Eyes

The central finding of the latest Pew global opinion poll is, alas, drearily familiar: President Bush and his misguided war in Iraq have dragged the United States far, far down in the world’s eyes.

The only good news — and it’s not much comfort — is that most countries give higher ratings to the American people than to the country. That means a change of government could bring a change of attitude toward America. But there is a long way to go, especially to correct the perception that the United States promotes its values globally not because they are universally good, but because they are good for American interests.

The survey found that majorities or pluralities in 33 of the 47 countries polled expressed a dislike of American ideas about democracy, with the hostility highest in three allies: Turkey, France and Pakistan. The poll also showed a widespread perception that Washington acts without considering the interests of other countries. And strong majorities everywhere saw the United States as the worst culprit in “hurting the world’s environment.”

What the Pew poll reflects is a profound disappointment in America’s failure to live up to its own ideals and standards.

Ponder this: two-thirds of American respondents said it was good that “American ideas and customs were spreading around the world.” Yet two-thirds or more of the respondents in 26 other countries, and majorities in another 10, disagreed, including former pro-American bastions like Britain, Poland, Turkey, Kuwait and Indonesia.

Mr. Bush and his team are famous for not listening to anyone but themselves. But they need to listen to what the rest of the world is saying when they refuse to plan for a rational exit from Iraq or block serious efforts to control global warming or insist that the time is still not right for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. It’s not just their reputation that is suffering. It’s America’s.