George W. Bush is an empty suit

[TechTMW]

WOW. Actually Iain, we are using the same source ... difference is, I have the print copy of FP, which doesn't contain the full stats like the website ...

It doesn't have Norway in the private giving section of the magazine (Or any of the countries that donate more, privately, than USA)

Makes me wonder why the hell i'm paying for a print copy ...

[Iain]

Alright, I've got some more statistics here about the world oppionion on the USA, and Bush.

A survey conducted amoung almost 17,000 people in the USA and 15 other countries, from April 20-May 31, taken by the Pew Global Attitudes Project (a large project of more then 90,000 interviews, in over 50 countries, on public oppionions) gives these results.

These statistics are the favorabilty of the USA based given by various countries. All the numbers are percentages of people who voted favorable verus unfavorable for the USA.

USA 83%
Canada 59%

Great Britian 55%
France 43%
Germany 41%
Spain 41%
Netherlands 45%
Russia 52%
Poland 62%

Turkey 23%
Pakistan 23%
Lebanon 42%
Jordan 21%
Indonesia 38%

India 71%
China 42%

The only countries that favored the USA more then any of Germany, France, Japan, and China (those were the other 4 countries asked how wether or not they were favored) are listed below.

The USA rated all of the other countries less then itself.
Poland rated Japan and China worse, with 60% and 30% respectivly.
India rated all other countries worse.
and China rated Japan worse with 17%

Averaging out the ratings the other countries gave the USA (excluding the rating it gave itself) it gets a 43.9% rating. Saying more then half those surveyed, finds the USA unfavorable.

They rank slightly higher in the views of the Europeans with an average of 48.4% favorabilty. Still less then half.

Although, you can't say the Americans are nieve about it. Another part of the surveys asked how specific countires felt the rest of the world thought of their own county. 69% of the Americans surveyed felt they were disliked by the rest of the world.

Only one country other then the USA says they have a lot or some confidence in Bush, and thats India with 54%. 64% of the Americans surveyed had some or a lot of confidence in Bush. The next highest after India was Poland with 47%, followed by Canada with 40%. Jordan votes virtually unanimously against the U.S. president with a 1% vote of some or alot of confidence, followed by turkey at 8% and Pakistan at 10%.

When asked if the world was a safer place without Saddam, surprisingly, the most people per country saying it was is the USA, where 49% of the population belives it is a safer place without him.

All countries surveyed believe the world is acctualy a more dangerous place without Saddam with the exception of the USA and India, where only 40% and 26% believe it is more dangerous.

So you make your own judgement, but it is pretty clear a few things. Bush is belivied by the majority to be an "empty suit" as the subject of this thread would say, the USA does not get looked at very well by the rest of the world, and most of the world surveyed thinks that the decision to apprehend Saddam made the world more Dangeous. I wouldn't say the USA are on a good roll right now.

Source: The Pew Global Attitudes Project. From “16-Nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey,” Released 06.23.05 http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?PageID=800

[oldnslo]

It would be interesting to see more current stats. I think it is even worse than it seems from those from a few months ago, particularly in terms of US confidence in Bush. Countries demonstrating confidence in Bush are most likely beneficiaries of business opportunities. Why else would India give a damn about him? Lots of IT and service biz. It's all a load of trash. Bush wears a big hat, but has no cattle.

[Iain]

Obviously its all about money, thats one of the huge reasons for the US entering any war. They need war to fuel their economy. Look at the amount of money they put into their military. If they didn't have a reason to spend money on military, they would lose power. It happens to all world powers. Its how the US became the super power of the world today, same with Britain when it was the super power, it had its powerful naval fleet, and had a huge military, same when France was the world power, money is the by product of war. And I'm sure the US government will keep looking for reasons to fight so that they don't lose control, but I'm sorry to say, that China is on one huge growth spurt, and is on its way to making Americans rethink their position in the world. Same with south America, those countries are growing at huge rates too. So start teaching your children Mandarin, its already the most used language in the world anyways.

[oldnslo]

I've read that, too. It is expected by 2050 that the US will be in third place in the economic grand scheme of things, behind China/India, and Europe.

[flynrider]

I don't generally put too much stock in predictions like that. Remember back in the 70s and 80s when Japan was supposed to eclipse the U.S. as an economic power. Seems a lot of folks back then thought we should all be learning to speak japanese.

These predictions are always made based upon current trends. In real life, a lot can happen in 45 yrs. China has some stunning economic potential right now, but their system of government is going to have to undergo some radical change in order to sustain it. Change has never been one of their strong suits. Only time will tell.

[Iain]

True enough. But the US dollar is already dropping, and support for the country is definately falling. Maybe Canada will rise up and take the calling of a super power. Then everyone can experiance the greatness of Tim Hortens and our crazy french politicains! The world would be such a great place if everyone looked up to Canada.

[sv-wolf]

Hi Iain

you wanted some sources. This is what I've held on to, but there is a load more stuff available giving the same message - the UN is a good source .

The (London) Guardian (February 2005 - not sure of exact date) reported that "...almost 2/3 of the money promised by governments to help the millions of people affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami has not yet been received by the UN, confirming the fear that many countries would try to wriggle out of their commitments."

It continued: "The UN said in the first week of the disaster the promises of aid from rich countries to cope with the effects of the tsunami which directly and indirectluy killed 283,000 people might not be fulfilled.

This was because some countries used dubious methods, including 'double counting' to appear more generous than they really were, it said. And many simply reneged on their humanitarian pledges, promising money, but not delivering it."

I wrote down that the figure pledged was $977 (presumably millions) but at that time only $360 had been received. Sorry, not sure where I got this from but it seems to fit with the above story.

In Jan 2005, The Committee on Economic Affairs and Development of the European Parliamentary Assembly commented on the the money committed for the disaster in 'Section II: Impressive Pledges' of its report but continued, in 'Section III, But Seeing is Believing...'

"We all remember the earthquake that destroyed the Iranian city of Bam, to the day one year before the Indian Ocean tsunami. Here pledges amountng to over $1 billian dollars were made by the international community in the immediate aftermath to the catastrophy. However, to date only 2% of the pledges have actually been received. For the whole of 2004 the UN launched various assistance appeals totalling $3.4 billion, of which only two-thirds were met by pledges and far less actually disbursed. Similarly in November 2004 a UN appeal was made for $1.7billion to assist over 20 million people around the world and above all in Africa, but only 30% of this sum has been committed."

The Financial Times World Desk Reference 2002 states:
"The USA gives proportionally little foreign aid, only 0.1% of GNP, and aid allocations are often held hostage to special pleading in Congress. Most went to Israel and Egypt until the 1990s." (It's an old edition, but I can't afford to buy it every year.)

After that much went to Turkey, of course, as military aid to fund that country's genocidal war on the minority Kudish population. it's interesting that Tech's statistics show that the Turkish population is very Anti-Bush nonetheless. That, I think, is an indication of the way in which electorates are very out of step with governments on this issue. At the time Tony Blair went to war in Iraq as Georgie's side kick, the majority of the British population were against it. The same is true, of course, of Aznar's Spain.

The Bush administration even had the cheek to threaten the Turkish government because they bowed to a call from a huge majority (90+% I seem to recall) of their population not to allow the U.S. access to airspace over Turkey during the attack on Iraq. Didn't someone here claim the U.S. government wanted to bring democracy to the world? I don't think so.

The target for aid set by the UN for industrialised nations is 0.7% of GNP. For comparison:

Australia gives 0.25
Belgium gives 0.3%
Denmark gives 1.0%
Finland gives 0.33%
Japan (No accurate figures, but the largest doner in the world)
The Netherlands give 0.8%
Norway gives 0.7%
Portugal gives 0.25%
Spain gives 0.23%
Sweden gives > 0.7%
Switzerland gives 0.35%
The UK gives 0.24%
The USA gives 0.1%

Reckoning Aid against head of population ignores how wealthy a nation is and so is a less useful form of comparison.

[Robkhb]

Omg I can't believe I have missed this topic this whole time! I love to rant and rave about how much of a corrupt/neocon/idiotic waste of life our president is! I am still in shock that this country re-elected this freaking idiot. Look at what's happening to Tom Delay, another fine example of the quality of republican politicians. Bush and his group of cronies are driving this country very quickly into the sub-cockle (see: Dennis Leary) area of a deep dark muddly hole, all the while adding to their fortunes. From 9/11 to katrina our government is not equipped to prevent or handle real catastrophe, the war in iraq is sucking billions of dollars away from where it needs to be spent, the mistakes that have been made and that continue to be made by our administration go on ad nauseum.