Saturday, July 11, 2009

They Love Us in Nairobi   [Fred Schwarz]

According to the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, Kenyans and Nigerians are wild about America.  No surprise there, in view of who our president is; presumably other sub-Saharans would be similarly enthusiastic.

 

Out of Africa, we are rather less popular.  The Germans, for some reason, are narrowly pro-America, and India, after years of assiduous courtship by President Bush, only slightly anti.  Among the rest . . . well, all you need to know is that our biggest fan is Egypt.

Judging from the results of the poll, taken between April and June of this year, Mexicans appear singularly unmoved by our generous immigration policies, our friends the Iraqis seem less than grateful for being rescued from tyranny, and the “special relationship” with Great Britain looks to have dissolved around the time the Beatles did.

There’s no surprise in any of this, really.  The most powerful nation makes a convenient scapegoat for all the world’s troubles and every nation’s inadequacies.  Another three and a half years of Obama apologies may conceivably shrink the red bars by a point or two, but as long as America has the world’s strongest economy and its most powerful armed forces, it will unavoidably continue to attract jealous hostility from despots and democrats alike.

07/11 10:43 AMShare