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**FrassyLap** · 10-25-2005, 08:16 AM

Your being a tad optimistic there, separating the people from your government, I cant think of any international region where US government is popular. As most Americans seem not to care what non Americans think, I cant see any change anytime soon.

I agree to a certain extent. You cannot really seperate the people with the government in democracies. Because if the people does not agree with the policy of the government there are ways and means to change the direction of the government.

So the differences between American and Europe can get a problem if the image of the US in Europe is constantly bad or worsening, because then it could get politically suicidal for a government to openly support the US policy. You could already see in the last German elections how Schroeder put the anti-US policy into his agenda to win votes, as well as in Spain when Aznar could win a lot of votes because of disagreeing with US foreign policy in Iraq.

So in general I think that the US and Europe need each other and cooperate in large fields. Nevertheless the US makes a huge mistake when she thinks that the image of her created abroad does not make a difference. But it does, it influences the public opinion and that does a lot in democracies.

10-25-2005, 08:16 AM	#4
FrassyLap Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 417 Senior Member	Your being a tad optimistic there, separating the people from your government, I cant think of any international region where US government is popular. As most Americans seem not to care what non Americans think, I cant see any change anytime soon. I agree to a certain extent. You cannot really seperate the people with the government in democracies. Because if the people does not agree with the policy of the government there are ways and means to change the direction of the government. So the differences between American and Europe can get a problem if the image of the US in Europe is constantly bad or worsening, because then it could get politically suicidal for a government to openly support the US policy. You could already see in the last German elections how Schroeder put the anti-US policy into his agenda to win votes, as well as in Spain when Aznar could win a lot of votes because of disagreeing with US foreign policy in Iraq. So in general I think that the US and Europe need each other and cooperate in large fields. Nevertheless the US makes a huge mistake when she thinks that the image of her created abroad does not make a difference. But it does, it influences the public opinion and that does a lot in democracies.
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