An About-Face on America

[indigobusiness]

In Arab Eyes, the Former Land of Opportunity Can't Get Much Lower

By Philip Kennicott
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 24, 2004; Page C01

CAIRO -- Whether he's in his 18th-floor office in Cairo's World Trade Center, or at his villa near the Pyramids, lawyer and law professor A. Kamal Aboulmagd moves in very different circles than most Egyptians. In his long and distinguished career, he has held ministerial posts in the Egyptian government, served as an adviser to the crown prince of Kuwait, held innumerable positions on panels and advisory committees, and devoted himself to human rights issues. He has lived in America and waxes poetic about the color of the leaves in autumn.

But his opinion of the United States today is not far removed from that of Egyptians of much more modest resources.

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/images/I27425-2004Aug23
The recurring image of Palestinian children throwing stones at Israeli tanks and the way such images are viewed in the United States is a major source of anti-Americanism in Egypt, left, and the rest of the Arab world. (Osama Silwadi -- Reuters)

"He deserves to be in the Guinness Book of World Records," Aboulmagd says of President Bush. "He has changed the minds of the most people, about America, in the shortest period of time. Five years ago, they would say they like America, that it is an open society."

But not today, according to Aboulmagd, who bemoans the historically low esteem in which America is held in the Arab world. In Egypt, according to a highly regarded Pew Research Center poll two years ago, only 6 percent of people held a positive view of the United States.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27436-2004Aug23?language=printer

[ixion]

1. BushCo has destroyed nearly a century of diplomacy

in four short years.

if he is re-selected, casting the image of a mandate, I fear the world will consider the US a lost cause, which will mean many will switch to the Euro, among other things, which will in turn decimate our already battered economy, as well as destorying relationships with allies that we've had since the revolutionary war. :-(

Please, no more BushCo. Please. I don't think we can take much more of their 'stalwart leadership'. :puke: