The International Business Times & The New York Post Editorial Board – 2017-09-26 22:12:48
http://www.ibtimes.com/gallup-poll-biggest-threat-world-peace-america-1525008
In Gallup Poll, The Biggest Threat To World Peace Is . . . America?
Eric Brown / International Business Times
(January 2, 2014) — Is the most dangerous country in the world the United States of America? According to a new poll from WIN and Gallup International, the US represents the largest threat to world peace today.
In their annual End of Year poll, researchers for WIN and Gallup International surveyed more than 66,000 people across 65 nations and found that 24 percent of all respondents answered that the United States “is the greatest threat to peace in the world today.” Pakistan and China fell significantly behind the United States on the poll, with 8 and 6 percent, respectively. Afghanistan, Iran, Israel and North Korea all tied for fourth place with 4 percent.
Much of the animosity toward America comes from Muslim Middle Eastern and North African nations, all located in a region most likely to be affected by American military actions over the past decade.
Forty-four percent of Pakistani respondents, for instance, voted America as the most dangerous nation, despite Pakistan’s acceptance of US foreign aid. The Chinese and Russians rated the United States as dangerous even more than Pakistanis did, at 54 and 49 percent, respectively.
However, a plurality of people polled in several officially American-allied nations also rated the United States as dangerous. Thirty-seven percent of Mexicans and 17 percent of Canadians view their neighboring country with suspicion on the world stage. A surprising 13 percent of American respondents rated their own nation the biggest threat to world peace as well.
While poll respondents seem anxious about the United States’ role in world affairs, many of them would have no problems moving to America if they could. The United States topped WIN/Gallup’s list of top countries people would move to with 9 percent of the vote. Canada and Australia came in second with 7 percent apiece, while 38 percent said they were happy exactly where they are.
Overall, responders seemed remarkably optimistic about their own futures, despite any misgivings about the United States. Nearly 50 percent of responders say that 2014 will be better than 2013, the first time since 1990 that people thought a better year was on the way.
“Despite an unstable economic situation, our happiness index is extremely high all over the world except in Europe,” Jean-Marc Leger, President of WIN/Gallup International Association, said in a statement. “Moreover people think that 2014 will be better than 2013. Optimism is back in the world.”
Poll: US Is the Greatest Threat to World Peace
The New York Post Editorial Board
(January 5, 2014) — The United States is the greatest threat to world peace. That’s the finding of an end-of-the- year, WIN/Gallup International survey of people in 65 countries.
Of the 66,000 people polled, just under a quarter named Uncle Sam as the greatest threat to world peace.
Other menaces didn’t even come close: 8 percent named Pakistan, putting that country in second place, while 6 percent named China. A mere 4 percent found Iran threatening — which tied it with Israel.
As we were reading the results, we couldn’t help thinking we had seen it all before. And when we looked, we found a 2006 Pew Research Center poll of 17,000 people from 15 different countries that found something very similar: More people thought the US intervention in Iraq a threat to world peace than Iran.
Back then, of course, the press summarized the findings this way: It’s all because of Bush. As Britain’s Guardian newspaper put it in its lead sentence on the survey:
“George Bush’s six years in office have so damaged the image of the US that people worldwide see Washington as a bigger threat to world peace than Tehran.”
In 2008, President Obama would go on to campaign about how Bush’s policies had harmed America’s standing in the world, at one point suggesting that attitudes in the Muslim world would be transformed simply by his election.
It hasn’t turned out that way, as these Gallup numbers suggest. Maybe we’d do better to accept the real message of all these global surveys: There are many people in this world who don’t like the US and will regard us as a threat no matter who is president.
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