{"id":320794,"date":"2017-08-08T16:12:01","date_gmt":"2017-08-08T15:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=320794"},"modified":"2017-08-25T21:14:38","modified_gmt":"2017-08-25T20:14:38","slug":"polls-u-s-greatest-threat-peace-world-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/polls-u-s-greatest-threat-peace-world-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Polls: U.S. Is ‘the Greatest Threat to Peace in the World Today’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

It has happened again: yet another international poll finds that the U.S. is viewed by peoples around the world to be the biggest threat to world peace.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, to start, let\u2019s summarize the first-ever poll that had been done on this, back in 2013, which was the only prior poll on this entire issue, and it was the best-performed such poll: “An end-of-the-year WIN\/Gallup International survey found that people in 65 countries believe the United States is the greatest threat to world peace\u201d<\/span><\/a>, as the N.Y. Post<\/i> reported on 5 January 2014. <\/span><\/p>\n

On 30 December 2013, the BBC had reported of that poll: “This year, first [meaning here, \u2018for\u2019] the first time, Win\/Gallup agreed to include three questions submitted by listeners to [BBC\u2019s] Radio 4’s Today programme.\u201d<\/span><\/a> And, one of those three listener-asked questions was phrased there by the BBC, as having been \u201cWhich country is the biggest threat to peace?\u201d The way that WIN\/Gallup International itself had actually asked<\/i> this open-ended question, to 67,806 respondents from 65 countries, was: \u201cWhich country do you think is the greatest threat to peace in the world today?\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/a> #1, 24% of respondents, worldwide, volunteered that the U.S. was \u201cthe greatest threat.\u201d #2 (the second-most-frequently volunteered \u2018greatest threat\u2019) was Pakistan, volunteered by 8%. #3 was China, with 6%. #s 4-7 were a four-way tie, at 5% each, for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, and North Korea. #s 8-10 were a three-way tie, at 4% each, for: India, Iraq, and Japan. #11 was Syria, with 3%. #12 was Russia, with 2%. #s 13-20 were a seven-way tie, at 1% each, for: Australia, Germany, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Korea, and UK.<\/span><\/p>\n

The way that W\/G itself had phrased this matter, in their highly uninformative press release for their year-end survey<\/span><\/a> (which included but barely mentioned this finding, in it \u2014 as though this particular finding in their annual year-end poll, hardly even deserved to be mentioned), was: \u201cThe US was the overwhelming choice (24% of respondents) for the country that represents the greatest threat to peace in the world today. This was followed by Pakistan (8%), China (6%), North Korea, Israel and Iran (5%). Respondents in Russia (54%), China (49%) and Bosnia (49%) were the most fearful of the US as a threat.\u201d That\u2019s all there was of it \u2014 W\/G never devoted a press-release to the stunning subject of this particular finding, and they even buried this finding when mentioning it in their year-end press-release.<\/span><\/p>\n

I had hoped that they would repeat this excellent global survey question every year (so that a trendline could be shown, in the global answers over time), but the question was unfortunately never repeated.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, now, on August 1st of 2017, Pew Research Center has issued results of their polling of 30 nations in which they had surveyed, first in 2013, and then again in 2017, posing a less-clear but similar question (vague perhaps because they were fearing a similar type<\/i> of finding \u2014 embarrassing to their own country, the U.S.), in which respondents had been asked \u201cDo you think that the United States\u2019 power and influence is a major threat, a minor threat, or not a threat to (survey country)?\u201d and which also asked this same question but regarding \u201cChina,\u201d and then again but regarding \u201cRussia,\u201d as a possible threat instead of \u201cUnited States.\u201d (This wasn\u2019t an open-ended question; only those three nations were named as possible responses.)<\/span><\/p>\n

On page 3 of their 32-page pdf<\/span><\/a> is shown that the \u201cmajor threat\u201d category was selected by 35% of respondents worldwide for \u201cU.S. power and influence,\u201d 31% worldwide selected that for \u201cRussia\u2019s power and influence,\u201d and also 31% worldwide said it for \u201cChina\u2019s power and influence.\u201d However, on pages 23 and 24 of the pdf is shown the 30 countries that had been surveyed in this poll, in both 2013 and 2017, and most of these 30 nations were U.S. allies; only Venezuela clearly was not. None of the 30 countries was an ally of either Russia or China (the other two countries offered as possibly being \u201ca major threat\u201d). And, yet, nonetheless, more respondents among the 30 sampled countries saw the U.S. as \u201ca major threat,\u201d than saw either Russia or China that way.<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, the trend, in those 30 countries, throughout that four-year period, was generally in the direction of an increase in fear of the U.S. \u2014 increase in fear of the country that had been overwhelmingly cited in 2013 by people in 65 countries in WIN\/Gallup\u2019s poll, as constituting, in 2013, \u201cthe greatest threat to peace in the world today.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Consequently: though WIN\/Gallup never repeated its question, the evidence in this newly released poll, from Pew, clearly suggests<\/i> that the percentage of people in the 65 nations that WIN\/Gallup had polled in 2013 who saw the U.S. as being \u201cthe greatest threat to peace in the world today\u201d would be even higher<\/i> today than it was in 2013, when 24% of respondents worldwide volunteered the U.S. as being the world\u2019s most frightening country.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps people around the world are noticing that, at least since 2001, the U.S. is wrecking one country after another: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine<\/span><\/a>. Which is next? Maybe Iran? Maybe Russia? Maybe Venezuela? Who knows?<\/span><\/p>\n

Regarding the 2013 WIN\/Gallup End-of-Year international survey, you can see the nation-by-nation results here<\/span><\/a>. For example, their sampling that year of 4,556 Americans<\/span><\/a> found that residents of the U.S. answered to \u201cQ8. Which country do you think is the greatest threat to peace in the world today?\u201d: #1 Iran 20%, #2 Afghanistan 14%, #3 N. Korea 13%, #4 United States 13%, #5 Iraq 6%, #7 Syria 5%, #8 China 5%, #9 Russia 3%, #10 Pakistan 1%. A remarkably high 13% of Americans gave the correct answer. And, late in that year, U.S. President Obama pulled the trigger on his long-planned bloody overthrow and replacement of Ukraine\u2019s government, which was portrayed throughout the Western press as being a \u2018democratic revolution\u2019, though it actually ended democracy in Ukraine<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

And the U.S. has just increased its \u2018defense\u2019 spending, which already is three times China\u2019s, and nine times higher than Russia\u2019s<\/span><\/a>. Do the owners of America\u2019s military-industrial complex own the U.S. government, and own the U.S. \u2018news\u2019media, to permit this rabid military to control the government\u2019s budget, in a \u2018democracy\u2019<\/span><\/a>? Is that how it happens?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org It has happened again: yet another international poll finds that the U.S. is viewed by peoples around the world to be the biggest threat to world peace. But, to start, let\u2019s summarize the first-ever poll that had been done on this, back in 2013, which was the only prior […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":320795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[115,30,32,96,3604,535,698,59,753,691,524,754,523,49,1235,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-320794","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire","8":"tag-barack-obama","9":"tag-big-brother","10":"tag-cia","11":"tag-cover-up","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-global-news","14":"tag-hillary-clinton","15":"tag-military","16":"tag-police-state","17":"tag-polls","18":"tag-russia","19":"tag-syria","20":"tag-ukraine","21":"tag-usa-news","22":"tag-war","23":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}