I don't think most people really think about the States, anymore than I do unless I'm posting here.
Certainly would guess it doesn't "burn" them.
Does it burn you that China has the fastest growing economy in the world, the largest population, will host the next Olympics, etc etc? Doubt it: you probably don't even register it.
The rest of the world really isn't obsessed with the US. Honest.
France has its own culture and its own politics, enough to keep them busy, except when the French public perceives the US threatening to invade a sovereign state motivated by a desire to obtain oil.
As much as I'm in favour of an invasion on humanitarian grounds, it doesn't change the fact that the Bush administration is clearly and overwhelmingly motivated by a desire to control Iraqi oil fields.
So who is being principled and who is being greedy in all of this? Its a rhetorical question, because for all the intense French bashing in the US and the intense America bashing everywhere else in the world (which I personally am more exposed to), I'm not clear on anyone's motivations.
Whatever the motivation of the French leadership, the French people are opposed to a war because it means American weapons will rain death on innocent civilians. (Most Europeans agree with them.)
The American people are in favour of a war because of a security mentality brought about by 11 Sept. (and the Homeland security alert system, which must drive people nuts), and are bitching because the Europeans don't share the same sense of terror (setting aside the fact that Europeans have been dealing with terrorism much longer than the US).
I don't see the urge to disarm Iraq, but then I didn't have two skyscrapers blown up by terrorists, so I don't share that panic because I'm not in the US. I do clearly see an economic imperative more clearly from the US administration than the French (frankly, international bad debts are rarely recovered).
So overall, I prefer the European view of preservation of life than the American sense of "holy fuck lets do something quickly!" panic.
Obviously, above that, I favour disposing of a tyrant and installing a democracy, but I'm not stupid enough to think that this is not motivated by an oil grab. Watch those fuckers - Bush's friends - from oil companies post-invasion. They'll be like vultures on a fresh corpse.
