The US has done many good things in the world. And many bad ones. This is nothing new, and not that different from any other country on earth. France still rules, colonial-style, over other nations -- at times with an iron fist. Russia is as intent on expansion as ever. China seems to be trying to control large swaths of the third world. The Saudis are working as hard as ever to radicalize populations around the world with their own particular brand of Islam. The Pakistani government plots against its neighbors. South Korean leaders give aid and comfort to the dictators in the North. And Germany's former chancellor was paid to extend Russian petroleum hegemony across Europe -- not that you'd know it from the press coverage.
Many of the things America has purportedly done wrong (I say purportedly because I agree with only some allegations) were in the 1950s and 1960s -- during the Cold War. Oddly, this era was, as best I can determine, also the height of America's popularity and esteem abroad. After Nixon, Carter attempted to pursue his vision of a moral foreign policy, yet during his term Americans also saw, for the first time, Iranians screaming for death to America.
Why?
I believe that people around the world believe America is good or bad, to a large extent, simply because they react to the messages they're given. The actual ground truth has very little to do with it in most cases. America is popular right now in Iran because the Iranian regime has been blatantly anti-American, and the Persians are wise enough to see what's going on and perhaps even over-compensate a bit in the opposite direction. On the other hand, the Western press and Hollywood -- believed to be credible authorities on the US, since they aren't under governmental direction -- have switched, since the late 1960s, from depicting US actions in a largely positive light to a thoroughly negative one. When these movies and news reports are repeated abroad, people hear them and believe.
Listen to OBL's recent rants, for example, and you'll hear him repeat ideas which originated from the Western left -- George Bush's Pet Goat moment, he stole the election, etc. The enemies of the United States, around the world, take their general critical direction and specific narrative from George Monbiot, Oliver Stone, George Clooney, Michael Moore, Rosie O'Donnell, The Guardian, Al Gore, etc.
Ironically, these peoples' intentions, it seems to me, are good: They believe that the US is hated because we have too high a view of it, and if we'd be more humble (i.e. increasingly depict the US as bad, not good) then they'd love us more abroad. Or perhaps the America-trashing is just a way of distancing themselves from an unpopular cause: "Hey! Don't hate me! I hate America just like you do!" -- a bit like the American tourist who dons the Canadian flag. Either way, the belief seems to be that if we talk about how bad the US is, the world will love us (or at least that individual) more.
But that isn't how it works.
The New Republic talks about the recent anti-American trend in Russian films. Note carefully the various themes:
The old Soviet-model anti-American propaganda machine, retired with the decline of communism in the late 1980s, has been reactivated in the past five or six years, in the new authoritarian Russia of Vladimir Putin (and now, Putin successor/Mini-Me Dmitry Medvedev). And the campaign doesn't just launch standard-issue complaints of U.S. policy; it indulges in a wildly conspiratorial streak, too. Last September, Channel One, Russia's largest national television channel, aired a program endorsing claims that the September 11 attacks were an inside job by American warmongers. A November 2 rally held by the state-subsidized youth movement Nashi ("Our Guys") at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow featured an amateur film in which a drunk "George W. Bush" bragged that the United States had engineered both World Wars, Hitler's rise, and the conflict in Georgia in order to expand its power and to keep Russia down.
Strangers, partly financed by a government grant and written and directed by Russian cult filmmaker Yuri Grymov, could be the Reefer Madness of this propaganda campaign, its message as subtle as an old Pravda editorial. The film's American characters--played by actual Americans--are both odious and pathetic. The blustering Tom (Mark Adam) is a coward, his lack of manliness underscored by his infertility and confirmed by his sullen resignation to cuckoldry. Jane (Scarlett McAlister), desperate for a baby, solves her problem by trysting with the brutish native fighter who serves as the group's bodyguard. Meanwhile, Miss Stone (Kathleen Gati), an obviously unhinged and sexually frustrated aging spinster, terrorizes the native children by trying to educate them in Western ways; she rails hysterically against the filthy habit of eating with one's hands and physically forces the kids to clap after she plays the accordion.
The two remaining members of the motley crew--a gay interracial couple, Mike and Bill--might look like an exception to the parade of grotesques. Despite Mike's occasional vanity and snippiness, the men seem kind-hearted, decent, and clearly devoted to each other. But that's not how they are meant to be seen by audiences in Russia, where nearly half of the population still opposes equality for gays in areas other than marriage. Apparently, Grymov's idea is to show--according to the synopsis on the film's official site--"how an unnatural relationship can become a norm in the eyes of modern society." The group's acceptance of Mike and Bill is thus intended as an indictment of American political correctness. At the end of the movie, a young native boy who has innocently befriended the duo is horrified and repulsed when he peers through the window and sees them in bed, kissing. (Interestingly, the linkage of "American" and "gay" is part of the mindset of hardcore America-hating in Russia: the preferred anti-American slur of recent years, pindos, bears a strong resemblance to pidoras, the Russian equivalent of "fag.")
Even the Americans' seemingly altruistic medical mission turns out to be a sham; we quickly learn that they're only in it for the big bucks. The movie's last minutes reveal--preposterously, at a public press conference--that the real purpose of the trip was to test a new vaccine for a pharmaceutical company, using Third World kiddies as guinea pigs.
The US uses third world children for medical experiments? That comes directly out of "The Constant Gardner." The narrative of the evils and prevalence of "forcing" Western culture on others can be found on almost any left-leaning website. George W. Bush as a drunk? American Dad. The US as behind the even the world wars? Not too different from what I hear young American students posting here. America worse than Saddam? (Not excerpted above.) Counterpunch. 9/11 as an inside job? Too many famous sources to mention.
Ironically, the one thing that Hollywood truly reveres -- acceptance of sexual variety, and hatred of traditional sexual mores -- is one of one the things that damages us most abroad. People all around the world look at the US media's constant focus on Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears, Sex in the City, and our apparent promotion of homosexuality -- and think that most rank and file Americans must be sleeping with anything that moves.
The same goes, to a lesser degree, with Hollywood and the western press's hatred of Christianity. In many Muslim nations, sincere Christianity would be respected; the depiction of the West as uniformly impious (atheistic) or even pagan is, in contrast, abhorrent. This is especially sad given the Hollywood portrayal of the US culture (where sincere Christian belief is typically mocked) is so radically different than the demographic "ground truth" of a nation where many, if not the majority, take their religious beliefs sincerely, and do so many charitable works in accordance with the precepts of their faith.
The movies mentioned above bombed, which might mean that Russians aren't buying the message, or perhaps simply that the production values stank. On the other hand, a similarly anti-American film in Turkey was doing fairly well, last I checked, and Turkey, despite our many decades of faithful alliance with them, is becoming increasingly anti-American.
Either way, the takeaway point is that US's enemies abroad -- who seldom stop the US from doing bad things, but often thwart some of her better impulses (such as vaccination efforts), and usually use the propaganda to justify even worse things they do -- obtain plenty of psychological aid, comfort, cover, and anti-American narrative from the Western left.
Ironic, isn't it? The left tells us, incessantly: "They hate us! They hate us!" and yet a lot of that hatred is traceable to their own efforts to be loved. They enthusiastically and publicly bash George Bush (for example) imputing the worst motives to every effort he undertakes, but don't realize that they, themselves, as Americans, will be seen as partners in crime in each new fictional criminal narrative they disseminate.