Not many years ago, if you expressed your political views in Holland you would have been killed or sent to a concentration camp. The Nazi's overran Holland in 1940 just because it was in the way and they wanted it for themselves. Holland and the Dutch people did nothing to warrant this. That, unfortunately is the way of despots and tyrants, and WWII did not end their reign on Earth.
It was the British and Americans who fought for your Freedom. Dutchmen died too, but they never would have loosened the binds of the Nazis on their own.
For the next 50 years, a vast military power, the Soviet Union, stood not far from your borders eager to do again to Holland what the Germans did earlier. This would have happened had it not been for the USA. I served in the USAF for 22 of those 50 years as part of the armada that was opposed to the Soviets. While you and your countrymen used your taxes to ensure a very nice social system, the USA spent an enormous amount of her wealth (read taxes) on defense; not only of herself, but all of Western Europe and indeed the World. Therefore, spare me from hearing about how much better your social system is. Had the USA turned from you like we turned from Europe in the 1920s, we could have had a much better system. I will grant that the lessons of Isolationism on our part was that if you turn away the trouble would just catch up again, so we stayed in our own self interest. Still, we spent 100's of billions of $$$ over the years ensuring Dutchmen could join the Green party.
However, having said all that, as I said when I started the despots and tyrants are always with us. Today they take the form of radical, fundamentalist Islam. They care as little for the Dutch as the Nazis or Soviets did. In fact, even less. Because according to them, unless you are a fellow Muslim, you are an infidel who God has cursed, and the Jihadists are commanded to convert or slay you.
And once again, the only thing that stands between your freedom and this fate is the USA.
Saddam Hussein's Iraq was no friend of fundamentalist Islam, but he was a useful ally to those such as Bin Laden that saw the USA as the impediment to their plans of conquest. For 12 long years he had been under UN sanctions and a ceasefire agreement with the USA over weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Now I cannot say why we haven't yet found these WMD, but we know for sure that he had them at one time. Like my President, I feared these weapons falling into the hands of fundamentalist Islam and Bin Laden and his hordes. Face it, the continued pressure from the UN against Iraq HAD failed. The next level was the "dire consequences" that the UN had PROMISED him. The die was cast and he is gone. The world is a better place for it.
Oh, and spare me the stories of Cheney and Rumsfeld giving arms to Saddam in the 1980s. Check the facts. About 0.5 percent of all the military arms the Iraqis had came from the USA. 99 percent of his weaponry came from from Europe!!! Soviet Russia, France, and Germany being his main supplier, along with an increasing supply, toward the end, from North Korea.
It's laughable how you Europeans sneer at Cheney and Haliburton when almost all of the Islamic and African dictators keep armed from mostly your dear manufacturers from Europe!!!!! Like Jesus warning us to not to show concern for the speck in someones eye when you have a LOG in your own. Where is your outrage for France and Russia, who arm far more dictators and tyrants than the USA? Even now, they are supplying nuclear technology to Iran. Iran!!!! You Europeans, not us, are the ones selling your enemy the rope to hang you with. For it will be far more easier for Iran to strike Europe with nuclear missiles than the USA.
You should fear a Kerry election. He will abandon the War against Terrorism (WAT) and in the end, this will lead to more attacks and more innocents will die. He has publicly stated the WAT is overblown hype. He thinks that most of the violent jihadists can be hunted down and brought to trial, not as a matter of war but as a matter of law enforcement. This is exactly what Bill Clinton did in the 1990s and led directly to September 11th, Bali, and Spain.
Anyway, I hope you fare well. I have been to your lovely country and found the Dutch to be a very hospitable, beautiful people. I only hope if you get your way, and Bush is gone after November, that you meet God peaceably when the sword of Islam shines over your land.
Nicely put!!!
That has got to be one of the best FreeRepublic posts ever. Well said, and thank you for your service to our country!