The Biggest Threat To World Peace
Many Americans were at a loss to say why a Time Europe poll showed in the months before the war that the vast majority of people in the world viewed Bush rather than Saddam as "the biggest threat to world peace." Surely, no one could ever credibly argue that Bush's evisceration of the Constitution approaches the physical brutality of Saddam's rule.
And on this basis, many dismissed the poll as mere hysteria, and evidence that the rest of the "free world" has grown soft in the face of tyrany. The image was of "High Noon" with Bush as Gary Cooper and Europe as the townsfolk. (Thing is, the outlaw in our version was not heading into town, and had no way to do so, but that's another story.)
As is often the case, the American press offered incomplete and sensationallistic analysis, which played directly to the propoganda needs of the neoconservatives. What was ignored was the difference between being a brutal dictator and being a destabilizing international politician. Look at exactly the question that was asked: "Which country poses the greatest danger to world peace in 2003?" It does not ask which country you would rather live in. It does not ask which country's leader you'd rather have to dinner. It does not ask which country has the most respect for human rights.
While Saddam was a brutal dictator, directly responsible for the violent and deadly oppression of his own people, he had not been a threat to global stability, nor even to his own neighbors since 1991. By contrast, the United States under the Bush regime has been a loose (and singularly powerful) cannon: abrogating treaties, unraveling international law, and aborting diplomacy.
The problem is not that those who answered this poll are morally blind. They were honestly and reasonably answering the question exactly as it was asked. The problem is that our leaders and our press don't take the perspective of the wider world seriously, and would rather distort their views than deal with them honestly.
9:49:42 AM 
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