What Others Think

From Britain:
Loud and brash, in gawdy garb and baseball caps, more than three million of them flock to our shores every year. Shuffling between tourist sites or preparing to negotiate a business deal, they bemoan the failings of the world outside the United States. The reputation of the "Ugly American" abroad is not, however, just some cruel stereotype, but - according to the American government itself - worryingly accurate.

From Palestine:
The Palestinian elections took place according to America's expressed wishes, its open encouragement, and strict oversight, but as soon as the less than mysterious results became clear - as many signs had been pointing to this outcome [the election of Hamas] - as soon as that happened, we found the world's shepherd of democracy turning against our Palestinian democracy, and punishing all of our people for their democratic decision.

From Mexico:
What can French students, who are demanding the resignation of President Jacques Chirac, have in common with the hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, who, in the streets of Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago, are calling for the right to step out of the shadows of illegality?.... The United States made itself into a unique hinterland for its migratory workforce, in that it paid it a quarter of the normal wage, guaranteed no civil or human rights, and with a government that has no conception of its obligations..... Now the elite French want this same treachery inserted into their industrial and technological institutions. But it's too late. The protests in Paris and Los Angeles are the first powerful signs of the bankruptcy of arguments based on the irrevocable rationality of the market, among the countless migrants without the tools to be part of it. All the arrogant pride of the 1990s has now turned to pessimism. The United States is facing the most unpredictable challenge in its entire history of immigration: to find a solution to a migrant identity problem which at its root pertains to America's national identity.
Posted on The Human Stain