Global Poll on how liked each Country is

I have to admit, when controversy over Iraq was at its peak, I really fucking hated the French. They kept on ranting about American Colonialism as they were subtly pushing their foot against the closet filled with stories of french military personnel enforcing corporate exploitation in Africa.

Well, all the propaganda in France at the time was "United States want to conquer Iraq for its oil" and clearly swept under the rug that our leaders were against it because Iraq was currently selling it to us.

The whole WMD clusterfuck didn't improve our opinion of you in the least.

Edit: Not to mention the "screw the UN" invasion itself.

edited 14th May '12 9:04:12 AM by Medinoc

Those are perfectly legit reasons to be mad, I just found it vastly hypocritical.

If it were, say, Germany or the UK, saying those things, then I'd have been neutral on it. But France being outraged about it made me think "Who the fuck do they think they are? They don't exactly have clean hands either, the regimes they are propping up are just a lot more silent because they are in Africa, where Western Media doesn't really exist."

NOOO

EUROPE WILL NOT FALL TO THEIR POLITE WAYYYS

Quick! Britain! Launch nukes!

This is nothing new.

Honestly, as a side-point, I disliked Tony Blair's policy of going into Iraq. Not because he went into Iraq, although that was rather foolish - seen (and probably rightly so) as hypocrisy upon his part, and also seen as pandering to Bush - but because he didn't consult anyone over. He literally declared war, because he's the Prime Minister. (The PM has the sole power to declare war, not Parliament)

Indeed, it was an EU standpoint that EU states should not support Iraq, but France was the most vocal - and hypocritical - about it.

edited 14th May '12 9:10:44 AM by Inhopelessguy

I don't like the whole EU concept. I can see the economic reasons for it, but the whole "western europe needs to be in lockstep on all foreign policy matters" part I do not. Since western european countries come in a lot of different stripes, culturally, and have a lot of differing historical obligations to meet. I don't feel that the EU should make any of its members feel compelled to support or not support a foreign policy action.

edited 14th May '12 9:19:57 AM by Barkey

The EU as a a geo-political entity?

You're just scared because you think the EU will unseat America!

No, but on a serious note, foreign policy on issues besides Iraq are generally agreed upon by all EU states anyway. It's very few (like Iraq) issues that have the EU split.

^

Mostly because if the EU gets big enough, I see there being some issues presenting themselves the next time we go off and do some cowboy stunt.

Not to say I would disagree with their reasons, but the EU trying to step in and stop us from doing something wouldn't sit well with me. I generally have a poor opinion of Europe politically(nothing against the people per se, but the same sort of disapproval Europeans have of the US government)

It's kind of like sticking up for a drunk older brother who is doing stupid shit. You don't necessarily approve, but nobody is allowed to kick the crap out of him.

edited 14th May '12 9:52:25 AM by Barkey

Well the EU itself (not the EU states in general) kinda doesn't like you much either. In April, the US government literally held a gun to the European Parliament's head. Your Dept of Homeland Security wanted flights outbound from EU airports to hand over passenger data to them. Age, address, phone numbers, ethnicity, seat number, baggage mass... In fact, if your flight just happened to fly near US airspace, they wanted everything about you. Flying to Montreal or Jamaica? The DHS knows when you pooped on the plane.

Basically, your DHS would hold more information on EU citizens than the EU's national governments themselves. What was idiotic was that the US government was willing to cancel visa-free travel between the EU and US, and restrict trade between us in order to get the EP to pass the bill. Of course, this is more akin to holding a bazooka to someone's head.

To be honest, I'm not a fan of the DHS as an entity.

It's just an extra layer of bureaucracy in a job that is only hampered by such things. A group of highly paid political appointees who get paid to take the findings of people like the FBI and hold press conferences to tell everybody about it.

Those are my thoughts on DHS then. As an entity, they have no purpose other than to be some centralized bureaucracy for all affairs that fall under its perview. Instead of the TSA issuing a statement, DHS does it. Instead of the FBI discussing findings, DHS does it. It's asinine.

... And limit the civil liberties of people who aren't even within your borders.

The poll must not have been weighted by population if Japan is at the top. Not if the Chinese and Koreans have anything to say about it.

To be honest, this poll is probably more relevant and helpful if we look at it on a country-by-country basis, rather than an arbitrary way of determining the average.

Oh, we didn't declare on the EU. Spaniards tried to fish in our waters and refused to back down so we sent a cruiser to help them remember whose waters they were in. We only fired warning shots and we impounded one of the boats.

Remind me to never fish illegally in Canadian waters.

Fishing is Serious Business.

You can do anything except touch our fish.

Oh! That makes sense.

By proxy, you declared war on the EU.

But still, tar sands, bro. Why you gotta be all ansty about the tar sands?

Because the current government's power base is in Alberta?

Oh, of course! Makes sense!

Of course. Anyway, guess who's supporting the Canadians in the Council of Ministers? Britain. Ohohoh. Totally unexpected. Considering they're both Tory governments.

The Parliament (IIRC) is pretty decided on the measures to make Alberta tar sands the most heavily-tariffed fossil fuel in existence due to the effects on the environment. The Commission (ie. the Executive of the EU) is fully behind the policy. Sadly, the Council (which is made up of the prime ministers and [in this case] Environment ministers of the governments in each EU state) is split upon the issue, causing deadlock. No Bill can be made into law without the consent of both Parliament and Council. Therefore, this bill will just sit there in limbo.

Ah the oil sands are so aggravating to me. It's like the combo of everything bad about Canadian politics rolled into one hairy ball of doom.