swestrup | Why are American's Hated World Wide?

At least one American gets it:

Americans have more and more occasion to wonder why we are disliked around the world -- why the polling data routinely shows citizens of other nations listing us as the greatest threat to world peace, for instance, or why so many of the citizens of Iraq say they think our occupation is worse than Saddam's rule. The Bush administration insists that our critics "hate freedom," and hence us; many others suspect that they envy our prosperity. I think they mostly resent the toxic (and unnecessary) combination of arrogance and cluelessness with which we treat them. The trouble with being the unchallenged top dog is that you get to win without having to try very hard to persuade, and since you rarely lose you rarely learn. We're like the pointy-haired boss in the Dilbert cartoons -- because we have all the power, we always talk, never listen. We do as we please.

The entire article is well worth reading.

This doesn't mean that I agree with many (or even any) of the author's other opinions. I don't think I'd agree with any of the contents of his book "Enough", for instance.