6 B.S. Myths You Probably Believe About America's 'Enemies' (Cracked.com), page

A while ago I saw another member posted from a Cracked article and I thought this was a pretty relevant one to post for people who don't regularly visit Cracked.

www.cracked.com... =new+article&wa_ibfanpage

#6: Iran Could Start a Crazy War Any Minute!

From the article: Ahmadinejad is more like the Joe Biden of Iran -- he says stupid things that embarrass the country, but the guy in power thinks he's a good enough s***, so he keeps him around. Though even that gives President Spell-Check a little too much credit, because Ahmadinejad isn't even the second most powerful guy in the country.
Try 14th. In addition to Lord Sexgantic Ayatollah Khamenei, he's outranked by the 12 members of the Guardian Council, which sounds like something out of the extended Star Wars universe, but actually functions more like Ahmadinejad's boss. They can shoot down his ideas via veto and get to decide who runs for president in the first place.

#5: China's Economy Is Going to Steamroll America's!

From the article: The media tends to portray America like China's deadbeat brother-in-law who keeps borrowing money and promising he's good for it. But the truth is that China is far more dependent on the U.S. than the other way around. If they decided to pull the rug out from under the U.S., they'd be pulling it out from under their own economy.
As for China's educational superiority, it's definitely true that China kicks America's ass in educating its children, and they even produce more college graduates than America. It's just that their colleges suck. One Chinese professor said that the average Chinese engineering graduate may not know more than a typical auto mechanic.

#4: America Relies on Its Enemies for Oil!

From the article: For starters, 36 percent of American oil is domestic. Another 22 percent of America's oil comes from the hostile and violent country of, uh, Canada. In fact, our friendly neighbor to the north produces more of America's oil than all the gulf countries combined. So that's over half of America's oil controlled by countries with NBA franchises. Did we mention that America's third largest supplier of oil is Mexico?

#3: Al-Qaida Is Still A Huge Threat!

From the article: They're stopping, or at least slowing down to the point that it's hard to tell the difference. It's true that bin Laden's death didn't cripple al-Qaida, but that's mostly because they were in terrible shape to begin with. In what had to have been at least a little anti-climactic, the computers seized from his fortress revealed that bin Laden had spent his final months worrying about al-Qaida's bank balance.

#2: North Korea's Military Is Dangerous and Insane!

From the article: North Korea may spend a huge chunk of its GDP on its army, but its GDP is tiny -- which shouldn't surprise you, considering the chief exports are requests for food aid and passive-aggressive threats. In actual dollars, North Korea's military budget is only five to eight billion dollars. By comparison, South Korea's military budget is over triple that. Actually, South Korea spends more on its army than North Korea has in its entire budget.

#1: The World Hates America!

From The Article: Since 2005, the BBC has conducted a poll on world attitudes toward various countries. In 2011, 49 percent of people surveyed said America had a positive influence on the world, while 31 percent held negative views. That's better than most presidential approval ratings from the past 20 years, and we elected those guys.
Even some of the most well known haters of our freedom in reality are more likely to give the U.S. a slap on the back and a "This guy! He's crazy, but he's alright." Unfortunately for purveyors of freedom fries, even the French attitude toward the U.S. has recently shifted from negative to positive (as has the U.K.'s and Canada's). And as for all those claims that the developing world hates us, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and the Phillipines actually have a more positive view of America than Americans do.




Anyways, I thought that it'd be good for some people to read this article. Also, if this thread becomes popular or anything I'd really appreciate if someone could edit this (i.e, putting things in quotes and linking some of the quotes) as I realize it was pretty poorly organized haha.

reply to post by Cobaltic1978

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Only thing I have to say is who are the BBC asking about attitudes towards the U.S? If it's U.K citizens only then you would kind of expect that.

The BBC World Service is the worlds largest international broadcaster, it broadcasts in 27 different languages (their first service outside English was Arabic in 1938) so yes they have the scope and reach to run such a poll.

Research estimates from 2006 points to their Persian service having an audience of approx 20 million (started 1940) Hindi service approx 21 million (started 1940) Arabic service approx 16 million (started 1938) Urdu service approx 12 million (started 1949) etc

www.bbc.co.uk...

reply to post by StopFearMongering

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Love the thread, and love your screen name. S & F friend, hope to see more threads like this sprout up around here.

reply to post by thoughtsfull

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I appreciate what you are saying, seriously, but it doesn't mention the World Service within the text of the article. That is why I raised what I deem to be a genuine question.

Since 2005, the BBC has conducted a poll on world attitudes toward various countries. In 2011, 49 percent of people surveyed said America had a positive influence on the world, while 31 percent held negative views. That's better than most presidential approval ratings from the past 20 years, and we elected those guys.

reply to post by Cobaltic1978

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The BBC use international polling companies to run their yearly country poll for the world service..

Press release from this year, which is an interesting read.

The BBC World Service Country Rating Poll has been tracking opinions about country influence in the world since 2005. The latest results are based on 28,619 in-home or telephone interviews conducted across a total of 27 countries by the international polling firm GlobeScan, together with the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland. GlobeScan co-ordinated fieldwork between 2 December 2010 and 4 February 2011.

www.bbc.co.uk...

more in-depth section of the press release.

As views of the USA continue to improve globally, the upwards trend is also apparent in Muslim countries. For the first time, a majority of Indonesians are now positive about the USA's role in the world (58 per cent, a rise of 22 points over the last year). Negative views of the USA in Turkey have dropped sharply from 70 per cent to 49 per cent, while negative views in Pakistan of the USA have also fallen slightly, from 52 per cent to 46 per cent. Conversely, Egypt, after a lift in 2009 and 2010, has reverted to a predominantly negative view of the USA, with 50 per cent of Egyptians considering that the USA's role in the world is mostly negative.

While I am always dubious about polls and how the data is presented, I was only meaning they (the Beeb) have their fingers in so many pies that I am guessing some of this data is valuable to them.

I am, and will always be sceptical about the motivations behind the scenes to produce such polls, the Beeb can be a force for good, neutral or ill in the world, and I am never fully sure which it is at any given moment.. especially when you know they have dabbled (albeit I am only aware of the war time stuff) in the black arts.

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