March 14, 2002 -- HARTFORD (New Mass Media) -- Paul Kennedy, an astute Anglo-American and Yale professor, has spent his distinguished career looking beyond our borders. In his writings, which include The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Kennedy has proven prophetic on issues ranging from overpopulation to globalization to religious fundamentalism.

In recent travels, Kennedy has been forced to face tough questions from citizens in other countries. In England, for example, he was asked, "By what right do Americans place such a heavy footprint upon God's Earth?"

Kennedy was taken aback at first, then realized the question had merit and it came from someone not unsympathetic to America. After all, by his reckoning, the U.S. has 5 percent of the world's population, yet uses 27 percent of the world's oil and 30 percent of the Gross World Product. It also, with Congress's latest ejaculation of $48 billion, spends more on defense than the next nine largest defense-spending nations on the planet combined.

Perhaps these statistics offer perspective on why George Bush, and by association all Americans, are once again disliked beyond our borders. The sad truth is that we've squandered a remarkable moment in our history. We had the bubble ripped off of our self-hypnosis on Sept. 11. It hurt like hell and made us angry. Having just returned from ground zero myself, I confess that my most powerful emotion was anger, and I fantasized all sorts of delightful torture for al Qaeda operatives. Nonetheless, I still believe that Sept. 11 has ultimately not provoked a response worthy of the epoch-changing gauntlet tossed within our grasp.

The bubble is back in place. Once again, only America matters.

After showing admirable restraint and patching together an alliance for the Afghan war, Bush then wheeled out his "Axis of Evil." Not only did this infantile phrase instantly alienate us from the rest of the world, the damage will, according to former President Jimmy Carter, take years to undo.

All it took after that was for Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to browbeat delegates to the World Economic Forum and Secretary of State Colin Powell to turn his back on the Palestinians, a strategy that only escalated violence. Meanwhile, Bush continued to block money allotted to the UN Population Fund and boycott the Kyoto Protocol. And now, he has appointed hard-liners to handle Cuba even though relations were thawing, sent troops into Georgia (provoking his pal Putin to support a Georgian separatist movement and move closer to Iraq), and imposed tariffs on imported steel, which will only invite trade retaliation. Finally, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, reporters discovered, now has plans for waging nuclear war against seven nations, including China and Russia.

Every day there's another sign that the world grows more uneasy about George W. Bush and, by association, the rest of us.

If one needs a metaphor as to how others view us, think of America as that gated high-rise condominium at the beach, the one with a fittingly hubristic name, like Le Titanique, that not only blocks public access to the best stretch of sand, but it blocks a view of the ocean from the highway. While the rest of us bunk down in a flyblown motel on the bypass, the chosen few in the high-rise have the best of everything -- and the power (but not the right) to bar us from enjoying even a glimpse of it.

After 17 years of combing America's beaches and co-authoring six guidebooks to same, I can attest to the accuracy of the above metaphor. Those who've been blocked from the beach have little choice but to collectively loathe the people in the high-rises. There may be some fine people in those high-rises, but we'll never get to know them.

As Paul Kennedy put it in London's Guardian:

     "The sympathy of non-Americans for the horrors of September
     11 was genuine enough, but that was sympathy for innocent
     victims and for those who lost loved ones -- workers at the
     World Trade Center, policemen, firemen. But this did not
     imply unconditional love and support for Uncle Sam."

Indeed. Why should it? What if China was attacked by terrorists who destroyed The Great Wall and the Chinese leadership used this as a pretext to escalate its military to 10 times the strength of America's, then to dictate policy to the rest of the world or else? Would we be sitting around, six months later, feeling mushy about The Great Wall?

While all of us are frustrated by the hostile words aimed at the U.S. by foreigners, we all, deep down, know that some of what they say is justified. We also know that there is more to us, as Americans, than what their simplistic perceptions tell them: All Americans are like George W. Bush.

I can't help but think of what Bush said to a journalist last summer. The journalist went up after a speech and, while shaking Bush's hand, told him how disappointed he was in his policies and the extremist tone of his administration. Bush told him, "Who cares what you think?"

Bush is saying the same thing to the rest of the world.

It is my contention that it matters greatly what the rest of the world thinks. If nothing else, think of it this way: We comprise only 5 percent of the world's population.