How did we take the tremendous goodwill from around the world, and turned it into hostility?
How did this happen? Maybe it was because the 'around the world' group had unrealistic expectations of what our proper response should be and/or extrapolated what they 'thought' we were going to do against what we actually did, and then complained against the backdrop of their own strawman.
It's very hard to criticise us for our actions in Afghanistan, the whole operation from inception was brilliant...while these same 'allies' were assuming a massive, unilateralist invasion with lots and lots of civilian casualties and protracted Vietnam-type quagmire, reality was surgical air support and small, effective ground support of local militia who shared the same goal, close, involved support among a small group of allies and hence, the country fell in 5 weeks. Contrast this with these same 'allies' bleating in week #3 that the whole thing was a farce, and a failure.
Our country needs to refocus on Al-Qaeida, and the terrorists cells world wide. In that effort, we will have world wide support
That's the case now, true. Who else recalls a different story on 10/01? I seem to remember a large amount of antipathy for going after Al-Qaeda, as in 'remember what happened to the Soviets, that will happen to you if you foolishly try to go after the Taliban'. Case in point, the flaccid response of France, in particular, that resulted in their 'eager' participation only after Kabul had fallen (bonus points for whoever remembers the National Alliance refusing their entry into Afghanistan at that time).
In addition, the US bashers were already up and going by 9/13.
I would caution against thinking that this knee-jerk US-bashing started only after Saddam became a target. It was there on 9/12/01. More precisely, it was there in December '01, within milliseconds of Bush realizing his election win. The Europeans have never forgiven us for electing him.