Applebaum worries about America's image

Ann Applebaum writes today in the Washington Post expressing concern about other countries and other peoples not liking either Americans or America's government or both. And, she claims it matters because we may need other countries to help us in the event of another war and they may not help us if they don't like us. America isn't liked, she says, because of incompetence, especially in Iraq but also in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She says America isn't liked because people don't like losers.

Unlike most journalists and columnists, she admits that America had a coalition of the willing when it invaded Iraq. She says we couldn't gather such a coalition now.

It's necessary to make a lot of assumptions to go along with her conclusions. First, it must be assumed that America is a loser. Plenty of people in America would take issue with that. Harry Reid would agree but many people would not. America has lost only one war, the war in Vietnam, and isn't losing in Iraq or Afghanistan, despite what Reid might say and has said. Reid is simply wrong.

Then it must be assumed that America is incompetent. This is easier to argue. Mistakes have been made in Iraq, plenty of them. Bush's biggest mistake was in trusting certain generals and a defense secretary too long. But he was smart enough to change course. If you fix your own mistakes are you still incompetent? If you succeed in Iraq, are you still incompetent? Presumably, the jury is still out on the question of competence.

Further, it must be assumed that Applebaum is right in saying that other countries wont help you if they don't like you. But don't other countries do what is in their own interests? Would any country join a losing battle because it liked the losing country, even if it knew it was going to get its butt kicked? Not likely. So Applebaum's assumption is highly doubtful.

Finally, it must be assumed that being liked matters, whatever the reason. The question seems moot because being liked or not liked isn't anything America can control. It shouldn't try.

America, in its history, has done more for the other countries of the world than any other country that ever existed. (World Wars I and II are sufficient proof of that, not to mention the Cold War.) If people still dislike us in spite of that then that is proof of the assertion in the previous paragraph.