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January 23, 2007
Polls

The good news:

  1. Bush’s approval rating is down to 28 %.
  2. People in Kenya, Nigeria and Phillipine still have a somewhat positive attitude towards U.S foreign policy.

But elsewhere? Well …

The poll shows that in the 18 countries that were previously polled, the average percentage saying that the United States is having a mainly positive influence in the world has dropped seven points from a year ago–from 36 percent to 29 percent—after having already dropped four points the year before.

…
Over two-thirds (68%) believe the US military presence in the Middle East provokes more conflict than it prevents and only 17 percent believes US troops there are a stabilizing force.

The poll shows that world citizens disapprove of the way the US government has handled all six of the foreign policy areas explored. After the Iraq war (73% disapproval), majorities across the 25 countries also disapprove of US handling of Guantanamo detainees (67%), the Israeli-Hezbollah war (65%), Iran’s nuclear program (60%), global warming (56%), and North Korea’s nuclear program (54%).

Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes comments, “According to world public opinion, these days the US government hardly seems to be able to do anything right.”

…
[A] majority of Americans (57%) say that the US is having a mainly positive influence in the world. This is down from 63 percent a year ago and 71 percent two years ago.
World View of US Role Goes From Bad to Worse
Global Views of the US – Questionnaire and Methodology (pdf)

The downtrend is obvious in the U.S. too, but there is still a majority that believes the U.S. to be a positive force.

This number will still have to drop much lower before a general change in U.S. foreign policy attitude can be expected.

Even then nothing will change with the current administration:

CHENEY: Well, Chris, this president, and I don’t think any president worth his salt, can afford to make decisions of this magnitude according to the polls. The polls change day by day…
Vice President Cheney on ‘FOX News Sunday’

Posted by b on January 23, 2007 at 08:19 UTC | Permalink
Comments

in the longer range planning documents that the u.s. generates, it’s been accepted for a while that the popularity of the united states & it’s influence will inevitably decrease. the global trends 2015 document ends by positing “four alternative global futures” — inclusive globalization, pernicious globalization, regional competition, and post-polar world — in which, as the report points out, “In all four scenarios, US global influence wanes.” of course, that means that the united states has to find new ways to do what it wants to. as frida berrigan related in a recent article on the nightmare weaponry of our future, air force planning also takes into account the reaction of the rest of the world to u.s. hegemony

The 176-page Air Force Transformation Flight Plan was issued in all its glittering verbosity in November 2003, bristling with a dismal, hyper-militarized view of the future. In it, Air Force planners envisioned a world with the United States even more embattled and unpopular than it was at that moment, and where we lacked all powers of persuasion to entice other nations to join future “coalitions of the willing.”
The solution: new bombers that could fulfill those “deep-strike requirements” which, sadly, cannot be carried out by tomorrow’s F-22 and F-35 fighter planes. (They “may not have enough range to attack critical ground targets far inside enemy territory, repeatedly, and under all circumstances.”)

in the binary worldview of empire, you’re either w/ us or against us, and, apparently, the plans call for moving ahead w/ the pursuit of national interests (read: elite interests) in spite of popular opinion.

Posted by: b real | Jan 23 2007 16:13 utc | 1

Hours before State of Union, Bush approval drops to low of 28 percent

On the day of his State of the Union speech, President Bush’s approval rating has dropped to a new low of twenty-eight percent, and sixty-four percent “disapprove of the way he’s handling his job,” according to CBS News.

They really ought to stop doing these polls inside defense factories. Meanwhile, here is a sneak-preview of Bush’s State of the Union Speech:
here.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 23 2007 16:57 utc | 2

Well, Chris, this president, and I don’t think any president worth his salt, can afford to make decisions of this magnitude according to the polls.
So according to Dick, the more crucial the decision, the less the peoples’ opinion matters. Democracy isn’t something that happens for a half hour every four years, in spite of what our administration says.

Posted by: Pyrrho | Jan 23 2007 17:26 utc | 3

sorry people, I can’t get too caught up in using polls as a justification for the idiocy of BushCo. What were their polls on the eve of invasion? Immediately after invasion? So Americans are opposed to the war now. Big fucking deal, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
This war was wrong when it started. It’s wrong still. It’s great that people seem to understand that now. But it was then that it mattered.

Posted by: Rowan | Jan 23 2007 17:35 utc | 4

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