America leaves such a large global footprint that we have always suggested, a bit apocryphally, that non-Americans should be allowed to vote in US elections.

After all, less than half the eligible voters even bother to cast their ballots in US federal elections every four years. If Americans don't care who governs them, then why not give the vote to the rest of us who do? US foreign, economic, trade and environmental policy affects the whole world, and yet we don't have a say in who the next occupant of the White House will be. Not fair.

From America's unilateral global war on terror to global warming, we all end up paying for its greed, thirst, self-indulgence and supremacy. Why is it that powers, whether global or regional, are so ham-handed? There is a serious lack of subtlety, a chronic reliance on arm-twisting, to get things done. Bullying is counter-productive, even to ultimately get your own way. Yet they never learn from mistakes and bamboozle their way with petty-minded insensitivity, alienating even friends.

Ever since George W Bush won unconvincingly in 2000 and became president, distaste for America around the world has grown by leaps and bounds. After 9/11 when the world said "We are all Americans", instead of being smart about it Bush's neocon advisers rushed headlong into war. First they needlessly bombed Afghanistan into smithereens, then they lied about Saddam's WMDs and links to al Qaeda to invade Iraq in an ill-concealed plan to distribute war booties to cronies and secure oil supplies.

We in Nepal have always felt insulated from the rest of the world. But in a globalised economy, who rules in Washington has a direct impact on our tourism, on how fast our glaciers melt, whether our garments get tariff-free entry into markets, and it becomes a matter of life or death for our citizens when they are slaughtered in Iraq to punish America.

Bush has been a disastrous president for the US and to the rest of the world. A recent GlobeScan and University of Maryland poll in 35 countries showed that if the rest of the world could vote, Kerry would win 46 percent to Bush's 20 percent.

Given the alternative, on November Second our vote also goes to Kerry.