Ray Saintonge wrote:
In the course of a Canadian Broadcating Corporation
program on the US
election it reported on a survey of whom Canadians would vote for if
they could. 80% favored Kerry. That's an astounding ratio, but I
suspect that a similar result would be found in many countries. The
damage that Bush has done to the reputation of the United States may
take at least a generation to repair. No US president has been so
widely reviled around the world as the current one.
Well, if you were to take a survey of what US citizens thought about
other countries' elections, I would suspect you'd find similar ratios
against many of Europe's current ruling governments (how many US
citizens do you think would vote for a party named any of "Socialist
Party", "Labour Party", or "Democratic Socialists"?). But as far
as
international support of the US goes, I think you're forgetting the
Vietnam War. Lyndon Johnson was widely reviled both inside and outside
the US, as the popular chant "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill
today?" captures. And in that war, the US didn't even have the few
allies it has in this war---Canada even went so far as to offer asylum
to US citizens avoiding the Vietnam draft, on the basis that it was an
illegal war.
-Mark