Posted on 11/19/2003 8:29:29 AM PST by quidnunc
Why are so many thousands on the streets of London so furious at an American President and the ongoing war in Iraq? Let us examine their misguided reasons, before getting to the truth.
The animus cannot be over the demise of Saddam Hussein. His regime killed more than two million citizens in three decades of state-sponsored murder and wars. For liberal Westerners the end of the Baathists, despite the current chaos of reconstruction, means no more attacks against neighbouring countries. The destruction of the Marsh Arabs and their fragile habitat has ended. British and American pilots are no longer engaged in a 12-year, 350,000-sortie effort to patrol Iraqi airspace to prevent further genocide. A brutal UN embargo that punished Iraqi citizens for the crimes of the Baathists is over.
Is it that protesters are angry at America's purportedly cavalier treatment of Muslims? Are they ignoring that over 20 years we have helped to expel Stalinists from Islamic Afghanistan, led the effort to restore Muslim Kuwait, fed Muslims in Somalia and bombed Christians to preserve Muslims in Kosovo and Bosnia? We give more than $3 billion a year to the Palestinians, Jordanians and Egyptians to match our aid to Israel.
Do they think it a bad thing that Noriega, Milosevic and the Taleban are gone? Whatever the endemic cynicism over US aims, the "national liberation" mantra of the 1960s seems close to realisation, if the nascent democratic movements in Panama, Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq are any indication. The demonstrators should at least harbour no sympathy for our enemy's agenda: the fundamentalists' treatment of women, homosexuals, religious dissidents and ethnic minorities is from the Dark Ages.
Are the protesters repulsed at a "new" American preemption? If so, we in America do not remember that Hitler first sent V2s to our shores or that Milosevic cleansed Americans before we sent planes over their skies to stop the butchery. In the recent Balkan conflict Americans thought European omission, not American commission, allowed the loss of 250,000 lives a few hours from Berlin and Paris.
Mr Bush's Christianity, cowboy metaphors, and drawl might grate on European sensitivities. But he sought approval of the US Senate and went to the UN before attacking Saddam, unlike a lip-biting Bill Clinton, who bombed the Balkans, Africa and Iraq without either national or multinational sanction. And, by the terrible arithmetic of war, the Anglo-American effort to defeat the worst regime in the Middle East has been remarkable in its efforts to minimise casualties, both ours and Iraqi.
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(Excerpt) Read more at benadorassociates.com ...
America reads daily about this growing anti-American sentiment and I wonder whether those abroad stop to ponder the effect of all this easy invective on those of us who live here. Americans as never before are re-examining all the old alliances and friendships, from troops in Europe and bases in the Mediterranean to peacekeepers in the Balkans and ships in the Gulf. If privileged Western protesters cannot tell the difference between what Saddam did and what America is trying to do in Iraq, if they think that tomorrow's Saddams, Milosevics and Kim Jong Ils will be awed by Nobel Prize awards, barristers in The Hague and EU resolutions rather than aircraft carriers, or if they assume in their end-of-history world that their worship of reason is equally shared by all those outside the West, we may be soon entering a far scarier world, when America in exasperation — as it did for most of its history before the European wars — will simply shrug and say: "Good luck to you all."
Such an eventuality would be unfortunate, but not unthinkable.
Earlier today I heard the U.S. correspondent for The Telegraph say that the British, and especially the Europeans, are of the opinion that Americans are taking 9/11 much too seriously — that it wasn't nearly such a big deal as we are making it out to be.
What I don't understand is why this intelligent and honorable man continues to consider himself a Democrat.
Bad enough that they are cowards..........but soooooooo stupid too!
Or "So long, and Thanks for all the fish."
I'm sure the Euros would have fun dealing with those pesky Muslims.
In tens years the Muslims will control Europe more so than at any time since the Moors....or was that the Moops?
If I knew he was on at a particular time I'd give up watching Emerald . BAM!
BTW Did you see his show last night? It was awesome!
My godfather lives in Paris, as he has for about 30 years. He says that when the Muslim terrorists almost pulled off that terrorist attack where they wanted to fly a plane into the Eiffel Tower, Parisians, including the police, were pulling Arabs out of cars and cafes, whether male or female, and beating the hell out of them all over the city. The French media basically ignored the beatings, calling them disturbances or whatnot.
The level of hatred felt by the average Frenchman towards the muslims in their country is stunning. I went out to dinner with my godfather and some of his friends the last time I was there- these were all middle-class, college-educated folks. One of my dinner-mates said, that if it was up to him, he would do to the Muslims in France what Hitler did to the Jews. The French politcal and media elite do a good job of covering it up and/or ignoring it, but it's there.
Wonder what will happen if the European elites keep ignoring their people? Remember what happened in 1939-1945?
I believe France was well paid for that little bit of help, I am sure you don't really believe France did that out of the good of their own hearts do you? If so, might I suggest a few historical references to the contrary?.
France is as they always will be, a back stabbing bunch of cowards. On the other hand I can count many,many instances where American blood paid for France's freedom, and we did not do it because we were being paid in cold hard cash. Thus is the difference between us and them. Pleased note, I realize that most of the English population likes America and Americans and vice versa, it's just the communistic/Muslim crowd in England that do not, and are the most vocal.
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