World View of US Continues Slide

The NYT is reporting that the latest Pew Research Center survey of international opinion found that America's standing is in free fall again after a brief upturn following the tsunami aid.

US favorability fell by 18% in Spain and to (to!) 12% in Turkey. More people around the world see the US in Iraq as a greater threat to peace that Iran's nuclear 'ambitions' and in Russia that sentiment prevailed by two to one.

However the most horrifying thing in the entire article was this:

Only 75 percent of Americans had heard reports of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at the American naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, while 90 percent of Western Europeans and Japanese had heard about them.

(Emphasis mine). That right wing noise machine is awfully effective.