--- "J. van Baardwijk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm sure the French were quite grateful for being > liberated by (among other > countries) the US. However, you seem to believe that > because the US took > part in the liberation of France over fifty years > ago, the French should > forever accept and support everything the US does. > That's ridiculous. > Jeroen "Make love, not war" van Baardwijk
I let this go the first time I saw it, but (being inspired by a statement of Colin Powell's) I decided it was worth answering, as it's one of those slanders you tend to make a lot, Jeroen. How dare you? Three times in the 20th century the United States sent its best and brightest young men (and, towards the end, women) to Europe to save it from its own folly. The first two times all we asked for was land in which to bury them. The third we asked for nothing at all. For considerably longer than your lifetime the United States has pledged that an attack on Western Europe would be viewed as an attack on the United States - that the use of nuclear weapons on a European country would be met by nuclear retaliation from the United States. We said that Berlin was just as valuable to us as New York, and risked nuclear destruction to guarantee that pledge. When has anyone done the same for us? Now, _we_ have been attacked. Not you. We have decided to defend ourselves. You disagree with our way of doing it? Fine. That's your right. It is precisely because we asked for nothing that we do not demand obedience. But we do expect - and we deserve - that agree or disagree, you not claim that we do what we do out of greed or malice - as you have claimed repeatedly. If we acted in such a way, Jeroen, then you, right now, would be living in part of the American empire. How _dare_ you? You live in a country that _exists_ as a free and independent state because of American courage and American sacrifice. Not once, not twice, but _three_ times. Now you tell us that we are attacking Iraq for its oil? You say that our President has something in common with Hitler? Have you no shame? No sense of decency? You have no obligation to agree with us - we don't ask that. But some sense of elementary morality and history might lead you to respect why we choose to do what we are about to do. Gautam __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more http://taxes.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
