Americans Say No to Unilateralism

By Jim Lobe, AlterNet


Despite his standing in the polls, George Bush's post-9/11 foreign policy views are broadly rejected by both the average American and by public leaders, according to a major new survey released Tuesday by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (CCFR).


The survey, titled "Global Views 2004: American Public Opinion and Foreign Policy,' found that 76 percent of the general public reject the notion that Washington should play the role of world policeman and 80 percent believe that the U.S. is currently playing that role "more than it should be."

The results reflect the views of nearly 1,200 randomly selected members of the public and of 450 "leaders with foreign policy power, specialization, and expertise," including U.S. lawmakers and their senior staff, religious, business and labor leaders, senior administration officials, heads of major foreign policy organizations and lobby groups, and university professors and journalists who make foreign policy their main focus.

The survey, which was conducted in July, shows that all Americans - be it the layperson or a policy leader – much prefer multilateral solutions to foreign-policy problems to the more unilateral approach that has dominated the Bush administration.

Asked what is the more important lesson from the 9/11 attacks, 73 percent of the public said, "The U.S. needs to work more closely with other countries to fight terrorism," as opposed to 23 percent who said it "needs to act on its own more..." Among the leaders, who were surveyed separately, the margin in favor of multilateralism was even larger: 84 percent, as opposed to the mere nine percent who called for more unilateral action.

Support among both groups for strengthening the United Nations is particularly high, especially when compared to the results of the 2002 CCFR survey. More than two-thirds of respondents in both groups said the UN should have a standing peacekeeping force, while some four in five in both groups favored U.S. participation in UN peacekeeping operations.

Strong majorities among both groups also rejected Bush's notion of pre-emptive war, which is codified in his 2002 National Security Strategy and is often cited by the president as a justification for the war after the failure to find weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq. Only 17 percent of the public and ten percent of leaders interviewed in the survey said that war was justifiable if the "other country is acquiring (WMDs) that could be used against them at some point in the future."

Some 53 percent of the public and 61 percent of the surveyed leaders said war could only be justified if there was "strong evidence" that the country is in "imminent danger" of attack, while 25 percent of both groups said the U.S. should go to war only if the other country attacks first.

CCFR has conducted the 'Global Views' survey every four years since 1976, making it a standard reference for experts on public and "elite" attitudes on Washington's role in the world. It decided to conduct one this year, just two years after its last one, because of the importance of foreign policy in the current election campaign.

The survey found a "lowered sense of threat" from abroad compared to two years ago, with "protecting American jobs" cited more often among by the American public (but not the leaders) as a "very important" goal of foreign policy than both fighting international terrorism and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. It also found that "Islamic fundamentalism," which was considered a "critical threat" by 61 percent of the public in 2002, was cited by only 38 percent this year.

The most striking changes in elite opinion, on the other hand, were found in the sharp rise in the importance they gave to "improving the standard of living" in poor countries and in "strengthening the United Nations" compared with two years ago. Similarly, the percentage of leaders who cited "maintaining superior power worldwide" as a "very important" goal, fell from 52 percent in 2002 to only 37 percent in 2004 – the first time the issue has received less than a majority since the question was first posed to respondents in 1994.

Contrary to the Bush doctrine, large majorities of the public and surveyed leaders favor retaining rather than loosening traditional constraints on the use of force by individual states, including the U.S..

Majorities of both groups oppose states taking unilateral military action without authorization of the UN Security Council except in cases of genocide. Two thirds of both groups, for example, said the U.S. should be required to get the Council's approval before taking military action to eliminate North Korea's alleged nuclear arsenal.

The survey also found strong support for U.S. participation in international treaties and agreements that have been rejected by the Bush administration.

For example, nearly 90 percent of the public and 85 percent of the leaders said they favor a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty; 80 percent of both groups said the U.S. should agree to the global ban on anti-personnel land mines; and more than 70 percent of both groups said they support U.S. participation in the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Kyoto Protocol to reduce global warming. A strong majority also said that international terrorists should be tried before the ICC if their own countries refuse to put them on trial.

While the survey showed a broad consensus among the two groups in opposing the unilateralist policies pursued by the Bush administration on most issues, it also found that the leaders were unaware of just how multilaterally inclined the American public is.

Asked to predict what percentage of the public supported the ICC, for example, only 20 percent of the leaders predicted the correct answer – a "strong majority." Seventy percent of the elite respondents (including 68 percent of senior administration officials and 91 percent of Republicans on Capitol Hill) thought ICC would receive support from less than a simple majority.

Similarly, the public was far more supportive of other international agreements and of steps to strengthen the UN than the leaders assumed, according to the CCFR results.

On Iraq-related issues, more than two thirds of both groups said the U.S. should withdraw from Iraq if a clear majority of the Iraqi people want it to do so. As to Bush's more ambitious plans for the Middle East, 57 percent of the public do not think Washington should put "greater pressure" on Arab states to become more democratic and 68 percent oppose plans for increasing aid and investment in the region on the order of the Marshall Plan after World War II. On this, as in some other specific areas, the leaders take the opposite view: 64 percent favor a Marshall Plan for the region, while 30 percent oppose the idea.

The CCFR report concludes, "All of these findings points again to the idea that Americans feel that the responsibilities and costs of many international actions are too great for it to shoulder alone ... More than ever, they are turning to other nations and to international institutions to help share the load through collective decision-making and collective action."

© 2004 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/20030/

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down to their level and beat you with experience." (c)TB

A strident minority: anti-Bush US troops in Iraq


WASHINGTON – Inside dusty, barricaded camps around Iraq, groups of American troops in between missions are gathering around screens to view an unlikely choice from the US box office: "Fahrenheit 9-11," Michael Moore's controversial documentary attacking the commander-in-chief.
"Everyone's watching it," says a Marine corporal at an outpost in Ramadi that is mortared by insurgents daily. "It's shaping a lot of people's image of Bush."


The film's prevalence is one sign of a discernible countercurrent among US troops in Iraq - those who blame President Bush for entangling them in what they see as a misguided war. Conventional wisdom holds that the troops are staunchly pro-Bush, and many are. But bitterness over long, dangerous deployments is producing, at a minimum, pockets of support for Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry, in part because he's seen as likely to withdraw American forces from Iraq more quickly.

"[For] 9 out of 10 of the people I talk to, it wouldn't matter who ran against Bush - they'd vote for them," said a US soldier in the southern city of Najaf, seeking out a reporter to make his views known. "People are so fed up with Iraq, and fed up with Bush."

With only three weeks until an Oct. 11 deadline set for hundreds of thousands of US troops abroad to mail in absentee ballots, this segment of the military vote is important - symbolically, as a reflection on Bush as a wartime commander, and politically, as absentee ballots could end up tipping the balance in closely contested states.

It is difficult to gauge the extent of disaffection with Bush, which emerged in interviews in June and July with ground forces in central, northern, and southern Iraq. No scientific polls exist on the political leanings of currently deployed troops, military experts and officials say.

To be sure, broader surveys of US military personnel and their spouses in recent years indicate they are more likely to be conservative and Republican than the US civilian population - but not overwhelmingly so.

A Military Times survey last December of 933 subscribers, about 30 percent of whom had deployed for the Iraq war, found that 56 percent considered themselves Republican - about the same percentage who approved of Bush's handling of Iraq. Half of those responding were officers, who as a group tend to be more conservative than their enlisted counterparts.

Among officers, who represent roughly 15 percent of today's 1.4 million active duty military personnel, there are about eight Republicans for every Democrat, according to a 1999 survey by Duke University political scientist Peter Feaver. Enlisted personnel, however - a disproportionate number of whom are minorities, a population that tends to lean Democratic - are more evenly split. Professor Feaver estimates that about one third of enlisted troops are Republicans, one third Democrats, and the rest independents, with the latter group growing.


Ann Scott Tyson | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor, 21-09-2004

__________________
"Never argue with an idiot, they'll just bring you
down to their level and beat you with experience." (c)TB

A four-year nightmare - It is not anti-American to reject this imperial power


Mike Marqusee

11/04/04 "The Guardian" -- "I will sleep and dream of great danger" ran the opening line of an email from a friend in Brooklyn. It was 4am eastern standard time and the last hope of a Kerry victory - or, more precisely, a Bush defeat - had dissolved into the night. "I believe the field day Bush will have for the next four years will create a nightmare worse than anything this country has seen."


Make no mistake, the fear and despair evoked across the globe by the US election result are shared by many millions of US citizens. Indeed, their grief, their frustration, has a peculiar intensity - because there's no loathing like the loathing within families. The 55 million Kerry voters who went to the polls primarily motivated by a burning desire to dump Bush are no more reconciled to his rule this morning than they were a few days ago.

Bush will claim a mandate, but there's no reason we should accept the claim. The result confirms that this is a wartime leader who does not speak for, or enjoy, the confidence of half the population.

There will be those in Europe who will seize on this result to urge us to reconcile ourselves to the superpower and its peculiar ways. And it will be claimed that a refusal to do so is tantamount to "anti-Americanism". This charge has been fouling the atmosphere since 9/11. It is alleged that the left or Europe is blindly hostile to America and Americans. As a US passport-holder long resident in London, I know that this charge is baloney.

Anti-Americanism has become a catch-all charge levied against anyone who engages in a radical critique of America's global power, its sway over the lives of billions who had no vote in Tuesday's election. People rebel against US hegemony for the same reasons they rebelled against the dominance of earlier imperial powers, not out of a distaste for the culture of the rulers but out of an objection to undemocratic, unaccountable, self-serving rule by remote elites of whatever culture.

A disbelief in the prerogatives or the beneficence of the American empire is not anti-American. Nor is it anti-American to be alarmed by features of US political culture, an alarm shared by many millions of Americans.

Bush supporters should be wary of crowing too soon. This election result will do nothing to placate those Americans who cry out for health care, a living wage, and decent public services. It will not reverse the leftwing tide in Latin America. And it will do nothing to curb resistance in Iraq. As casualties mount, there is bound to be increasingly militant opposition to White House war policies among a widening spectrum of US citizens, including serving GIs.

My friend in Brooklyn fears for his children's future. He sees them growing up in a benighted, detested land, their liberties, living standards and security menaced by the triumphant neocons. He's right to dream of danger. But the millions of US voters who queued for hours to register their protest against Bush should reflect in their hour of despair that they are by no means alone - not within their own country and not within the human community at large.

· Mike Marqusee writes on politics and popular culture

Copyright: The Guardian

__________________
"Never argue with an idiot, they'll just bring you
down to their level and beat you with experience." (c)TB

Americans flock to Canada's immigration Web site
Fri November 05, 2004 01:30 PM ET

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The number of U.S. citizens visiting Canada's main immigration Web site has shot up six-fold as Americans flirt with the idea of abandoning their homeland after President George W. Bush's election win this week.

"When we looked at the first day after the election, November 3, our Web site hit a new high, almost double the previous record high," immigration ministry spokeswoman Maria Iadinardi said on Friday.

On an average day some 20,000 people in the United States log onto the Web site, www.cic.gc.ca -- a figure which rocketed to 115,016 on Wednesday. The number of U.S. visits settled down to 65,803 on Thursday, still well above the norm.

Bush's victory sparked speculation that disconsolate Democrats and others might decide to start a new life in Canada, a land that tilts more to the left than the United States.

Would-be immigrants to Canada can apply to become permanent resident, a process that often takes a year. The other main way to move north on a long-term basis is to find a job, which requires a work permit.

But please spare the sob stories.

Asked whether an applicant would be looked upon more sympathetically if they claimed to be a sad Democrat seeking to escape four more years of Bush, Iadinardi replied: "There would be no weight given to statements of feelings."

Canada is one of the few major nations with an large-scale immigration policy. Ottawa is seeking to attract between 220,000 and 240,000 newcomers next year.

"Let's face it, we have a population of a little over 32 million and we definitely need permanent residents to come to Canada," said Iadinardi. "If we could meet (the 2005) target and go above it, the more the merrier."

But right now it is too early to say whether the increased interest will result in more applications.

"There is no unusual activity occurring at our visa missions (in the United States). Having someone who intends to come to Canada is not the same as someone actually putting in an application," said Iadinardi.

"We'll only find out whether there has been an increase in applications in six months."

The waiting time to become a citizen is shorter for people married to Canadians, which prompted the birth of a satirical Web site called www.marryanamerican.ca.

The idea of increased immigration by unhappy Americans is triggering some amusement in Canada. Commentator Thane Burnett of the Ottawa Sun newspaper wrote a tongue-in-cheek guide to would-be new citizens on Friday.

"As Canadians, you'll have to learn to embrace and use all the products and culture of Americans, while bad-mouthing their way of life," he said.

Copyright Reuters


U weet toch wat dat betekent? Een nóg grotere overwinningsmarge voor de Republikeinen bij de volgende verkiezingen.