Victor Davis Hanson: Why they hate, and like, us.
[Historian Victor Davis Hanson is the author of Between War and Peace: Lessons from Afghanistan to Iraq.]
... Contrast all that dislike with those nations who appreciate the United States, which tells us something much different about America’s role in the world. The Kenyans and Ghanaians, for example, reveal more admiration for the United States (87 and 80 percent, respectively) than do we Americans ourselves.
In fact, all of sub-Saharan Africa — poor and with a past of exploitation — has an unbelievably high regard for the U.S. Perhaps black Africans appreciate our support for democracy, realize that we were not colonialists, see that blacks are succeeding in the U.S. in a way unthinkable elsewhere, know that we spearhead the global effort to bring AIDS relief and stop the genocide in Darfur, and sympathize with their own long struggle against radical Islam.
Much of Eastern Europe is similarly well-inclined. Poland, for example (61 percent approval rating), does not trust Russia — and does not trust Europe to offer any help in a future hour of crisis.
Likewise, many countries of Latin America — Mexico, Chile, Peru — poll staunchly pro-American. We have tried to support these shaky Latin American democracies, welcomed their immigrants, and allowed billions of dollars to be sent back as worker remittances. And unlike a Spain, France, Germany, the Muslim Middle East, Russia, or China, such confident emerging nations also are not hung up on perceived past grandeur, blame-gaming the new superpower for their own subordinate roles.
Indeed, how strange that these poor countries in Africa, Eastern Europe, and South America are more favorable to America than are oil-rich sheikdoms, rich European socialist republics, and Middle East recipients of massive U.S. aid.
Or perhaps it’s not so strange at all.
The more confident a nation is, even when poor, the more likely it seems to admire America. Some of our best supporters turn out to be one-billion person India (59 percent favorable rating), Japan (61 percent), and South Korea (58 percent) — all democratic, capitalist juggernauts, and appreciative of liberal American trade policy and U.S. military support. Again, should we Americans value the friendship of such democracies — or that of a China that cheats on international trade accords and intimidates its neighbors?...
Read entire article at National Review Online
... Contrast all that dislike with those nations who appreciate the United States, which tells us something much different about America’s role in the world. The Kenyans and Ghanaians, for example, reveal more admiration for the United States (87 and 80 percent, respectively) than do we Americans ourselves.
In fact, all of sub-Saharan Africa — poor and with a past of exploitation — has an unbelievably high regard for the U.S. Perhaps black Africans appreciate our support for democracy, realize that we were not colonialists, see that blacks are succeeding in the U.S. in a way unthinkable elsewhere, know that we spearhead the global effort to bring AIDS relief and stop the genocide in Darfur, and sympathize with their own long struggle against radical Islam.
Much of Eastern Europe is similarly well-inclined. Poland, for example (61 percent approval rating), does not trust Russia — and does not trust Europe to offer any help in a future hour of crisis.
Likewise, many countries of Latin America — Mexico, Chile, Peru — poll staunchly pro-American. We have tried to support these shaky Latin American democracies, welcomed their immigrants, and allowed billions of dollars to be sent back as worker remittances. And unlike a Spain, France, Germany, the Muslim Middle East, Russia, or China, such confident emerging nations also are not hung up on perceived past grandeur, blame-gaming the new superpower for their own subordinate roles.
Indeed, how strange that these poor countries in Africa, Eastern Europe, and South America are more favorable to America than are oil-rich sheikdoms, rich European socialist republics, and Middle East recipients of massive U.S. aid.
Or perhaps it’s not so strange at all.
The more confident a nation is, even when poor, the more likely it seems to admire America. Some of our best supporters turn out to be one-billion person India (59 percent favorable rating), Japan (61 percent), and South Korea (58 percent) — all democratic, capitalist juggernauts, and appreciative of liberal American trade policy and U.S. military support. Again, should we Americans value the friendship of such democracies — or that of a China that cheats on international trade accords and intimidates its neighbors?...