Hey Wout,
<br>You're a smart guy, but you think too much, sometimes.
<br>Basics:
<br>1. The last 4 wars/conflicts in which America fought, on foreign soil, were in defense of Muslims. Can you name them? No fair surfing around first!
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<br>2. After we tried in this country for 4 long years to ignore WWII and let the rest of the world alone, the Japanese made that impossible to continue. (I'll admit that our economic policy favored their enemies in their war of conquest; but otherwise, we'd all be speaking Russian today.) So, years and thousands of lives later, we and our allies captured most of the civilized and "uncivilized" world. (You're about to argue, that if Hitler hadn't attacked Russia, you might have won it all. Wrong, Wout. Hitler attacked Russia, which turned on him in consequence and *STILL* met us at Berlin. Churchill and Roosevelt were actively wooing Stalin before Hitler's foolish treachery. Stalin was considering switching sides because he could count to zero real quick, and zero is how much defense he though Hitler had in the east. Even with the surprise attack, Stalin still battled back to take all of east Europe - - think what prize he expected to win by switching sides first! Hitler could count as well as Stalin, knew the three leaders were meeting, and so he took desperate measures.)
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<br>Then we gave the world back, for the most part, to its rightful owners. We gave France back to the French, in spite of Vichy's perfidy. We gave Egypt to the Egyptians, Italy to the Italians, hey, we gave Japan to the Japanese and every inch of the Germany we controlled back to the Germans. Thousands of miles of Northen Africa and the Middle east, all returned to whomever we could find to take it, after we kicked the Axis powers out. Some places, the overlapping and intermingling claims to 'ancestral ownership' made impossible to fairly give back, but give we did anyway, and some of those places are troubled today.
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<br>Yes, one deeply contested bit of land that our allies and we wrenched free from the Axis, we gave to the Jews. (Possibly in guilt over our failure to believe reports of, and go earlier to war in order to remedy the Nazi's horrors against Jews, Romany, Poles and others. What has Germany given to the Jews in the 60 years since that atrocity?) The Palistinians dislodged from this area by the Axis, and by our fight with the Axis, do claim this land. But it was the Axis we took it from, not them. They'd already lost, and, by the reasoning employed by our detractors we would have kept it for ourselves and today enjoy cheap oil. I'm glad we didn't, damn proud we made an effort to return it and go home.
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<br>Then, THEN, Wouter, we spent incalculable sums of money to rebuild the countries that had stolen our peace, our sons and daughters, and our ability to ever relax in our prosperous little TV room in peace again. Wout, if we hadn't, you'd be speaking Russian today… as a national language, rather than, as I suspect, as a charming little affectation. Then we forgave billions in war debts to those nations. I fully expect and hope to spend far larger sums to rebuild the cesspool the Taliban have created in Afghanistan, and to feed the hungry elsewhere in the Moslem world. We face a humanitarian crisis of staggering proportion there, and for 8 years, CNN's fair haired liar would do nothing about it except toss a few very expensive missiles on the day Lewinsky sang to the grand jury about humming to his johnson.
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<br>After all of this, countless American lives and American treasure to redeem a world driven mad by one greedy megalomaniac and a couple of opportunist nations that rode along with him, Wouter, we learned a lesson. The lesson we took from WWII was that if we leave you kids alone in the back yard long enough, you're likely to burn down the whole neighborhood. So now we mix in and break up the fights before they get out of hand. And each time, we debate it amongst ourselves, fiercely. Then somebody says, "This is how Hitler started out, grabbing a little land, killing his internal sub-populations." About half the time, the poor guy is laughed off the national stage and nothing happens for a while. If, and only if, that analysis does in fact prove inescapable, then we tiredly put down the remote, sigh, get up and hand out a whuppin' to whomever seems to be making the most noise. Usually, the little bullies don't like a large taste of their own medicine. So some of them hold a grudge. Bummer. The truly maddening thing is, the Rwandans hate us for not meddling more and sooner, and every tinpot little dictator we cuffed around a little has it in for us for saving his victims. Go figure.
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<br>And if you don't like this state of affairs, that's divine comedy too, bucko, 'cause your wonderful culture spawned the madness which was the only thing sick enough to drive us out of our complacent lotus-eating. Yup, WWII was a big enough pain in the neck to teach even lazy, stupid, selfish Americans that we can't leave you bigoted, genocidal, homicidal kids alone for a minute. And what do we get out of it? Where are our puppet governments running vassal nations, chained in tribute to the great Satan America? Howzabout West Germany, for one example? Yup, guilty as charged; we set up a non-fascist regime that we then allowed to grow into a truly independent state. I wouldn't have it any other way, Wout, but how many times in the last 30 yrs has Wall street worried what the Bundesbank was going to do in complete disinterest of American financial well being? But where else have we had a better chance to "own" a country? Sure we topple dictatorships, try to substitute other forms of goverments; but when has that been so that we could actually subjugate a nation? I can name 10 places it resulted in freer, more prosperous citizens, who have demonstrated their independence in ways mildly or seriously injurious to our self interest. Why do we permit Puerto Rico to choose a very cushy semi-independence-with-lot$-of-the-benefit$-of-$tatehood? The only possible answer, Wout, is that large numbers of Americans want to conduct our international affairs fairly, and therefor we do so.
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<br>And furthermore, to blame CNN for our "bias" is to reveal your utter ignorance of the true meaning of the word. CNN is in fact owned by Ted Turner, husband to Hanoi Jane Fonda, and his network is only this year finally realizing that the rest of us gave up that hip student cultural self-hatred years ago. Turner's CNN has made an art form of showcasing anti-American points of view, not as counterpoint, but as assumed fact.
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<br>Trouble is, Wout, you try to understand us by asking yourself, "What would I be up to if I did what they're doing right now." The thing is, we're not you. If we were the world class international predators you imply by your fatuous dissection of our country's current efforts, we'd have kept the Rumillah oil fields for ourselves after Desert Storm. English would be the national language in Germany, (nevermind we can't even make it the national language here). And the minute the Soviet Union crumbled, we would have bitch-slapped that arrogant little pissant in Cuba, and nuked China till the rubble glowed from orbit (they only have 20 or so missiles, to our 2000 - you do the math, while you're suckin' down lungfulls of glowing loess.) (Loess, for your info, smart guy, is the top hundred feet of very fertile soil on the plains of China) (You're downwind of China) Lucky for you, we ain't like our detractors paint us.
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<br>Okay, now that I've vented, and feel just a little bit better, I'll spend one pointless minute on your ridiculous argument. Wout, if you're standing on the beach next to me, and some jacka$$ walks up to you and assaults you; under 'natural law' I'd think you'd defend yourself vigorously, and call for help. But even as misguided as I think you are, I still wouldn't wait for you to ask. I'd jump the jerk, and shrug off your thanks later, instead of asking for deals and payments first, as your EU neighbors are doing now. And I wouldn't stand around, debating the marquis of Queensbury rules for fisticuffs either. If you kicked his nuts up to his sternum, I wouldn't hesitate to choke the attitude out of him from behind while you were doing it. And if he had 3 friends, well I'd face that when I found out about it, because I live in America dammit, and around here, I think I can count on a few guys like me too even up the odds a little if that happened. Too bad the EU isn't like that.
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<br>Don't you get it, Wout? Over here, even A$$holes are worth defending, when unfairly attacked. We like our backyard to be free of such behavior, so we oppose it at every turn.
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<br>Case in point. American flight 93. When the passengers learned their hijackers were flying them to a close encounter with other innocent lives, they took a vote (a VOTE, Wout, get it, DEMOCRACY) and decided, in mere minutes, to go and do something about it. They didn't call up the government, ask for a deal for their families, weasel and whine about "what's in it for us, we die either way, why should we save other folks' lives on the ground?" They acted, Wout. Among the front of the charge was a 6'5" (almost 2 meters, to you) homosexual Rugby player. (A man subject to execution under Taliban rule, by the way, does the symmetry appeal, Wout? We more than tolerate 'his kind' - - we celebrate 'them' because 'they' is 'us' in this country)
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<br> We know all this from at least 3 different cell phone calls placed by different passengers. The most informative one was from a passenger who could only reach the cellular operator, giving her messages for his wife, describing their intentions, then, calmly informing her that it was time to stand up and do the job. He left the line open, and his last audible words, before the screaming and the plane cash, were,
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<br>"Let's Roll"
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<br>If you don't have the vision or the courage to see the world that way… don't worry, we'll take care of the boogey men for you. But at least, if you won't lead or follow or even get out of the way, please have the decency to stop braying while we make the big sacrifice so that the world is free for mediocre boat designers to shoot off their opinionated mouths about virtually everything later.
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<br>And just because maybe your people's secret desire was once to conquer the world, don't worry that we'll come close to big opportunities in the near future. I'm damn proud to say that, given the last 50 years to judge by, most of the new economies we'll be creating will reward us with indiference, at best... but they'll eventually buy Mercedes and BMW and Daimler, using money we forgive them in loans and guarantees. I wouldn't have that any other way either. You see, Wouter, that'll be this century's proof we're not the bad guys.
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<br>And to anyone who has enough courage, vision, or simple decency to heed the call, I say,
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<br>"Let's Roll."<br><br>