I will also add that it makes it a little hard to have offered all support we possibly can and be spat at by the likes of damian5. Thankfully his support seems to be dwindeling down to just himself.
It does make me angry when they also tell us that we are the bad guys because a small newspaper prints out an inaccurate story. Even when the facts become clear, "people" like damian5 still want to hate.
As said in the previous forum, my brother was supposed to be in a meeting in the tower except for a missed connecting flight, I have friends who have flown to New York to be beside the bed of a very close relative with 60% burns from being a survivor - her husband was identified by the watch on an unattached arm found in the rubble.
Some of the beef about ANZUS seems to be that we would not allow nuclear ships into our ports. This did indeed have the effect of stopping all US ships to our ports but surprisingly, the US did make a concession to Japan and sent a stated non-nuclear ship to their port when one of theirs had the same policy. We were never an enemy in war, yet the USA preferred enemies to friends.
In the previous forum I also related the instance when we were under terrorist attack and both Britian and the USA put pressure on Australia to release the terrorists as the USA much preferred to deal with France where the terrorists came from, than with it's friends (a full member of ANZUS at the time) New Zealand.
I am wondering why, after doing so much and offering so much, when we are spat at, threatened with nuclear attack and invasion and turned away from, we are even considering the US amongst friendly nations. Except that I can clearly see now that the rhetoric from those such as damian5 are as much as an embarrasement to Americans as Helen Clark (and most of the members of the NZ Parliament) are to most New Zealanders.
Someone else mentioned Timor, so maybe it should be pointed out to our American friends that Australians and New Zealanders wouldn't have their hands full there if the U.S. hadn't given Djakarta's kleptocrats the go-ahead to invade and kill 250,000 people. Now our two countries get to mop up the mess (at great expense) while the US expresses bland but unpenitent gratitude for our help.
As I've said, I lived here in New York for more than half my life. My wife's an An American, and even after all these years the unthinking arogance I get from her still ticks me off. We were in Oz once in late November, and she was genuinely appalled that we didn't celebrate Thanksgiving!
Still love her, and the arrogance is a small thing to put up with in comparison with her mother and brothers (you'd rather roll in dog doo than deal ith my mother-in-law, who isn't arrogant so much as simply toxic), but if Americans could imagine what they sound like to others, more people around the world might hold them in higher esteem. And this comes from somebody who loves this place, whose kid is a American, and who lost friends in the WTC. I want blood as much as the next guy on the subway.
Fights between friends are always the most bitter. Must cut it short, gotta earn some money. Please note, too, how I didn't utter a word of blame about the ansett debacle -- even though Ms. Cluck should be fed feet first into a jet engine. -- bunyip