Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Negative Attitudes toward the United States in the Muslim World: Do They Matter?

Testimony of Dr. Steven Kull

Director, Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA),
University of Maryland
Editor, WorldPublicOpinion.org

May 17, 2007 – 2:00 PM

Before House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight

From World Public Opinion:
"...For decades, polls in the Muslim world and the statements of Muslim leaders have shown a variety of resentments about US policies. Muslims share the worldwide view that the US does not live up to its own ideals of international law and democracy. There have also been specific complaints that the US favors Israel over the Palestinians and the Arab world as a whole, that the US exploits the Middle East for its oil and that it hypocritically supports non-democratic governments that accommodate its interests. These attitudes persist.

But now there is also a new feeling about the US that has emerged in the wake of 9-11. This is not so much an intensification of negative feelings toward the US as much as a new perception of American intentions. There now seems to be a perception that the US has entered into a war against Islam itself...."
Click Here for Webcast of Testimony

Photo Credit: World Public Opinion

2 comments:

sonobono said...

This is hardly new; if you have been reading Chomsky for the past two decades you'll have read very much the same feelings; even after 9/11, he wrote, when the WSJ took a poll of its middle-eastern readers (upscale of course) they said much the same thing.
The US has been looting the ME since WWII when we replaced the British as the last emperors.

The Unknown Candidate said...

Not new to you and me, but to the vast number of people out there who DON'T read Chomsky and watch TV news instead -- it may be, sadly, news to them.