This part of the thread deserves to go into history rather soon, I think.

Yes, Norway benefited enourmously by the Marshal help. To bad that your present government doesn't have the same view on the needing countries of the world.
The relationship between our two states have soured recently. Your ambassodor presented a quite clear threat of further degradetion between us the last time I heard him speak, due to our objections to your foreign policy.

Former Yugoslavia was a disaster nobody wanted to get involved in, and a tragedy followed. The UN can not go into a country unless all combatants wish it, thats why there are no 'blue-troops' in Israel. When UN forces was there, they did not fight becouse politicians did not allow them to. We trained with the danish tank batallion that went down there in 1994, and no doubt the UN had the capacity to take on the agressors. (We learnt the danes winter warfare with heavy cavallery, so I was kind of involved)
NATO should have put the foot down there much earlier, and the UN should have stood their ground (I know the UN forces would have fought, if allowed to by politicians).
In Srebrenica a whole UN brigade was posted, but again politicians refused them to defend themself when the serbians moved in. What ensued was a massacre the UN forces could just watch, while grinding their teeth. There is a very large difference between procrastinating like this and adopting "pre-emptive" strategies tough.
I dont see your point by bringing up this disaster? Looking for errors and faults in the future will bring us nowhere. It's the present and the future one can do something with, while learning what one can from the past.

The Oil for Food scandal is big in the U.S., primarly becouse the U.S. government wants to get rid of the current leadership and replace it with it's own minions. A certain vindicativeness is probably also influencing this, due to the UN's troublesom interference with Washingtons foreign policies.
I am not saying that there have not been a certain level of corruption going on tough.

I think we in Europe have at least the same freedom as you do in the U.S. But we also provide a security net for our fellow citizens trough taxes. Thats one of the pillars of the european socialism. I fear that you have made socialism==communism, which is not true.

A last parthian shot. If we are to meet, it would have to be in Europe. I will not accept the kind of registration your current immigration check requires (fingerprints and biometric data. It was in fact better in october 2001, just after the attacs, when we visited friends in New York, even if the immigration officers was quite thorough and security was plain insane).

I recommend that you read some of Michael Moores work (and website) with an open mind, and then balances it with e.g. Fox News political comments and what else comes out of Washington. The english and german news are also excellent if you want a balanced view on the world. I follow both U.S. and european news, and try to see both sides..