Friedman on the Anti-Americans

I found myself nodding in agreement with Tom Friedman's* column in today's Times.

Perfect we are not, but America still has some moral backbone. There are travesties we will not tolerate. The U.N. vote on Zimbabwe demonstrates that this is not true for these “popular” countries — called Russia or China or South Africa — that have no problem siding with a man who is pulverizing his own people.

So, yes, we’re not so popular in Europe and Asia anymore. I guess they would prefer a world in which America was weaker, where leaders with the values of Vladimir Putin and Thabo Mbeki had a greater say, and where the desperate voices for change in Zimbabwe would, well, just shut up.

Insofar as America's poor reputation comes from certain Bush administration policies (Iraq, Abu Ghraib, torture, et cetera), it's a shame, and one that the next president must work to improve. But I don't have a whole lot of patience for people who turn resentment of the United States' global position into the belief that we are no better than a common dictatorship. That's such a stupid sentiment, but one you hear implied a lot. One example: the tagline for the movie The Road to Guantánamo here in Mexico is "The World's Most Inhumane Prison." (I don't think that's the case for the English-language version.) That's simply ridiculous, but no one gets called out on it because it would be defending the indefensible. Another example: not too long ago, I had a conversation with an educated, well traveled man who was arguing that the difference for the rest of the world would have been nil if the Russians had won the Cold War. 

*I think this was Tom Friedman's debut in Gancho. I imagine he's just found out, and he's blushing with pride while waiting for an interview with a 31-year-old Taiwanese billionaire manufacturer of nano-processors.