Peninsula Peace and Justice Center
Reuters
Tue Aug 2, 2005 7:18 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans are anxious about the direction of U.S. foreign policy and how the country is perceived overseas and a majority believe the government has been too quick to go to war, a survey released on Tuesday said.
"Contrary to conventional wisdom that the American public doesn't know and doesn't care how it is seen abroad, strong majorities" believe the U.S. image overseas is suffering and "large majorities are worried about it," the survey concluded.
Some 63 percent of Americans say the charge that the United States has been too quick to go to war is justified and three-quarters worry about losing trust abroad and about the growing hatred of the United States in Muslim countries, it said.
"So far, public thinking is a disquieting mix of high anxiety, growing uncertainty about current policy and virtually no consensus about what else the country might do," the survey concluded.
The national survey of 1,004 American adults between June 1 and June 13 was conducted by the Public Agenda, a non-profit organization dedicated to public policy research, in conjunction with Foreign Affairs magazine, which is published by the Council on Foreign Relations.
It was funded by the Ford Foundation and is intended to be the first in a series of surveys designed to produce a "foreign policy index" that measures long-term U.S. thinking on foreign policy.
Dan Yankelovich, Public Agenda's chairman, declined to describe the results as a reprimand of the Bush administration but said "there is definitely dissatisfaction ... a feeling that we're not on the right track."
Although much of the concern focused on Iraq and U.S. relations with Muslim countries, the survey found that the problems of illegal immigration and the outsourcing of American jobs overseas also resonated strongly with the public.
These issues have received less attention from political leaders but the survey found that attitudes "are reaching a point where the public's concerns will be too strong to be ignored."
Some 64 percent of respondents said the U.S. government should put more emphasis on using diplomatic and economic methods to fight terrorism and 72 percent said that showing more respect for the views and needs of other countries would enhance U.S. security.
But the public also believed strongly in the United States as a force for humanitarian good, with 83 percent giving the country high marks for helping other countries during natural disasters, the survey found.
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