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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JULY 12, 1985
loved 'Dallas,'" recalls Clinton Suggs, 29, a Navy diver, "They'd
lie on our mattresses with us and watch it."•••
Around much of the globe, the U.S. is prized for loyalty to its
allies--at a cost of some 520,000 American dead since the start
of World War II. No less appreciated is the country's generosity
in times of severe economic stress--a total of about 238 billion
dollars in assistance over the last four decades, not counting
millions more in public and private help for victims of the cur
rent African famine••••
Like it or not, there is no escaping U.S. influence. America
exports 218 billion dollars' worth of goods a year--12 percent of
the world's total--and imports 341 billion dollars' worth, or 16
percent of global shipments. U.S. corporations employ--or ex
ploit, depending 2!! the viewpoI'iit=--more than
l
million foreI'gn
nationals overseas. � 339,000 foreign students attend college
in America.
Nearly 524,000 American military personnel are
posted in at least 25 nations.
For all the resentment fueled by American wealth, millions abroad
seek to live the American dream. In the streets of Moscow, it
might be a pair of blue jeans; in Haiti, the latest Michael
Jackson tape; in Paris, a fashionable cowboy hat•••• Evidence of
the way America is esteemed abroad: Millions of people are lined
up to come to the United States. Waiting lists for immigrant
visas exceed 336,000 in the Philippines; 329,000 in Mexico;
155,000 in India, and 123,000 in South Korea.
Millions· of Moslems accept the portrait painted by Iran's
Khomeini, depicting America as the "great Satan" responsible for
all the woes afflicting the Middle East•••• While they may not
support extremist terrorism, most people in the Arab world bit
terly resent American support of Israel and reflect that resent
ment in endless burnings of American flags in street demonstra
tions••••
Says James Roach, a professor of government at the University of
Texas in Austin: "There are now two generations of Palestinians
who have grown up in refugee camps or communities where a child
hood litany has centered on how they were driven out and how
America helped Israel. If people are barraged every day with the
Ayatollah and Qadhafi telling them what Satans we are, a lot of
people grow up believing that."•••
Even some Israelis are critical. Yitzhak Zeller, assistant dir
ector of a Jerusalem youth hostel who left the U.S. two years ago
to find his roots in Israel, says: "America today is vile and
corrupt. It's� new Roman Empire, at its peak of greatness from
which it will collapse."•••
For impoverished millions eking out survival in the developing
world, the United States towers as a prosperous giant locked in a
wasteful arms race while they languish in misery•••• Still, in
the Third World, many envy America's opportunity. Syed Mushtaw
Murshed, a civil servant in New Delhi, has seen his chauffeur's