. . . . the U.S. always has been and still is the MOST generous country on the entire planet.
The U.S. has the biggest economy on the planet and one of the largest populations, so of course anything we do is going to be huge in scale.
If you calculate your generosity statistic on a per capita basis, you'll probably find that some of the smaller countries post higher numbers. The Scandinavians usually come out on top in contests like that. Their governments don't spend a lot on military programs so they have more tax money to devote to positive causes. Nonetheless, that's hair-splitting and the fact remains that by any measure the U.S. is indeed a top player in the international charity arena.
The problem is that we're also a top player in the arena of evil. We devote more money to military expenditures than any other country. And also more money per capita--with the possible exception of some of the despotic leaders in the Third World who don't care if their people starve.
Our military budget used to be regarded with cautious gratitude by our allies, because we said we were protecting them from the Red Menace, and after seeing us go to war in Korea and Vietnam to hold back the spread of communism, they believed us. Even though the results of those two endeavors were not exactly stunning successes--out of two countries we only saved one-half of one--well hey, at least we tried, right?
But now the menace of a monstrously huge, nuclear-armed Soviet Union is gone. The Russians aren't anybody's allies but they're also not looking for
Lebensraum and gobbling up every country on their border. The menace of a monstrously huge, nuclear-armed China has simply evaporated, as they have managed to hybridize communism with the Dao and Confucianism and gone back to what they do best: making money, gobs and gobs and gobs of money.
The menace now comes in smaller packages like Congo and Darfur, and we've been noticeably ineffective in helping resolve those crises. The only large package of menace is from terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, and our oh-so-twentieth-century military strategy has been a dismal failure in the Middle East. We've destroyed the only secular, pro-Western country in the entire region (Iraq), and we've given unconditional support to Israel, the region's only nuclear power, which by the way is run by wacked-out zealots. Our crowning achievement so far is pushing Al Qaeda into Pakistan, so they are now a hundred miles or so from a huge nuclear arsenal in a country with a spotty record of effective and responsible government.
Add to this our long history of supporting dictators throughout the world who ally with us militarily but are despots to their own people--or even installing them, like the Shah of Iran--and it's easy to see why from a military perspective the U.S. is no longer as beloved as it used to be. We're not really protecting anybody and it's difficult to counter the argument that we're actually making the world
less safe for everybody by pissing off its huge Muslim population.
So if you look at our country through the eyes of a foreigner, despite our impressive charity, it doesn't necessarily look so great.
At least electing Obama was a step in the right direction. Images count, and the majority of the world's citizens can no longer complain about "one more old white guy telling us all that he's going to help us eventually." If he could undo some of the worst atrocities of the Bush Dynasty it would help. Unfortunately he's a beginner in Washington and doesn't have the connections or the personal aura to change the system; the poor guy can't even shut down Guantánamo. He's also stuck in 20th-century thinking so he's sending even more troops into Afghanistan, a place even the Huns and the Mongols could not conquer.
