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Friday, May 19, 2006

Thank God for America...

...Was the title of the lecture, and seeing how it was in english, free, and with Holland's most famous international correspondant, I decided to check it out. I was curious. "Thank God for America." As a token American I know that we tend to prefer to take all the credit, but if we have to share the spotlight with someone, God is usually our first choice.


Things that bothered me:

1. A figure Groenhuijsen quoted: The world is safer today because genocides are down something like 80% .

Who quotes numbers of genocides in percentages?

2. The world is safer today than it ever has been because fewer countries are in conflict.

Maybe, but I think barring Iran and North Korea, todays dangers are terrorists, and terrorists are not really associated with countries, so while fewer countries may be at war, I'd advise not to kick back an grab a beer.


On the whole actually, I think I agreed/disagreed with what he said about equally, so who knows, maybe he was right on with the American psyche. Most of the discussion tailored to Iraq, and the US as the only country willing to sacrifice its sons, daughters, and tax dollars for bringing democracy and a chance at a decent existance to the middle east.

Quite inspiring. As an American, I really really wanted to believe it. And I know that it is partly true. Kind of, sort of, maybe. It sounds so good. But...see...I remember the events leading up to the Iraq war. I remember being anti-war. I even remember thinking to myself, "Self, if we were going in there because Saddam is a bad guy and these people deserve their own government, I would support war in Iraq. If we wanted to give people a chance at liberty and equality, I say lets go kick ass and take names. Bring on Saudi Arabia, countless African countries, everywhere that is screwing the people."

But that's not why we went to Iraq. And it's really disheartening to see it portrayed that way over and over and over agian. Because Americans are not dumb, yet we keep trying to fool ourselves. Anyone who was paying half attention knows that we went because we thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and in a post 9/11 mentality, we were scared shitless.

Don't get me wrong. Good things have come from our invasion. Saddam is gone. Iraqi people have voted not once not twice but three times. There may be a stable government there yet. Who knows. But we can't keep kidding ourselves. We don't learn from the past if we keep trying to rewrite it.

That's why it's easy for Europeans to attack us (verbally). We went in for our own reasons but tried to twist it into something noble; which it was not. And we made mistakes with troop levels, with Abu Gharib, with Guantanamo Bay, with insurgents, and it does make us look like the bad guy.

It's funny though. They're mad because they expect better of us. Hell, we expect better of us. But Europeans want liberty for all of Iraq, equality for all of its people, with no abuses, with no disrespect to human rights, with life, liberty, and the right to pursue for all.

Ridiculously high standards. Who created those standards anyway? :)

The US. This has been my first trip to Europe. And it's great; it's beautiful, tons of culture, ridiculously high standard of living. But this comes from the fact that straight up, Europe doesn't have the guts to get involved if it has to, and in turn it is raising its standards of living, but it's becoming marginal in the world scene. It's armies are outdated. No money is going to modernizing them. Europe doesn't want to fight because it can't. Peace is good and all, but what if it doesn't work? What if these Iran talks fall through? What then? Or should I ask, who then comes in to take charge?

Europe is making itself obsolte through its social democratic actions. And it's sad, and especially dangerous for the US. Because as much as we clash with Europe, we really don't have anyone else out there. Australia is ok. China we don't trust. Japan isn't militarized. Africa has no means to help us. Israel has it's own problems. South America is somewhat...well I hate to use the word useless.

But we need friends in the world, and Europe is really all we got. I didn't really leave the lecture with a better understanding of europe. But the point was to explain Americans to the Dutch. Right or wrong, for better or worse. Time will tell to see if it worked.

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