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#31
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4th July Independence Day Message to the US
Derek wrote: Now can we please stop this right wing, redneck, American
rhetoric and get back to gliding? Hey dip****, who started this whole thing? Wake the hell up! You need a good old-fashioned, right-wing, redneck boot up your @$$! Practice what you preach, commie boy. Stick to soaring. Again... What a moron. Jack Womack Hammermill wrote: Derek Copeland wrote: Well at least we generally ran the British Empire in a reasonably civilised manner, although I admit there were a few blips in India. Most of our former colonies, with the exception of yourselves, have remained voluntarily in an organisation called the 'British Commonwealth' and accept our Queen as nominal Head of State. These include Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several of the West Indian islands. I would suggest that these are amongst the most civilised countries in the World. The Gents below have only confirmed our view of Americans as being loud, arrogant and rude! OK, I know most of you are very nice. The politics are starting to impinge on my flying, as UK taxation has been significantly increased by stealth (standard 'New Labour' tactic) to pay for armies of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan. The cost of petrol and hence travel has also increased to record levels. Wasn't one of the objectives of the Iraq War to stop this happening? Derek Copeland WASHINGTON -- In the Australian House of Representatives last month, opposition member Julia Gillard interrupted a speech by the minister of health thusly: ``I move that that sniveling grub over there be not further heard.'' For that, the good woman was ordered removed from the House, if only for a day. She might have escaped that little time-out if she had responded to the speaker's demand for an apology with something other than ``If I have offended grubs, I withdraw unconditionally.'' God, I love Australia. Where else do you have a shadow health minister with such, er, starch? Of course I'm prejudiced, having married an Australian, but how not to like a country, in this age of sniveling grubs worldwide, whose treasurer suggests to any person who ``wants to live under sharia law'' to try Saudi Arabia and Iran, ``but not Australia.'' He was elaborating on an earlier suggestion that ``people who ... don't want to live by Australian values and understand them, well then they can basically clear off.'' Contrast this with Canada, historically and culturally Australia's commonwealth twin, where last year Ontario actually gave serious consideration to allowing its Muslims to live under sharia law. Such things don't happen in Australia. This is a place where, when the remains of a fallen soldier are accidentally switched with those of a Bosnian, the enraged widow picks up the phone late at night, calls the prime minister at home in bed and delivers a furious unedited rant -- which he publicly and graciously accepts as fully deserved. Where Americans today sue, Australians slash and skewer. For Americans, Australia engenders nostalgia for our own past, which we gauzily remember as infused with John Wayne plain-spokenness and vigor. Australia evokes an echo of our own frontier, which is why Australia is the only place you can unironically still shoot a Western. It is surely the only place where you hear officials speaking plainly in defense of action. What other foreign minister but Australia's would see through ``multilateralism,'' the fetish of every sniveling foreign policy grub from the Quai d'Orsay to Foggy Bottom, calling it correctly ``a synonym for an ineffective and unfocused policy involving internationalism of the lowest common denominator''? And with action comes bravery, from the transcendent courage of the doomed at Gallipoli to the playful insanity of Australian-rules football. How can you not like a country whose trademark sport has Attila-the-Hun rules, short pants and no padding -- a national passion that makes American football look positively pastoral? That bravery breeds affection in America for another reason as well. Australia is the only country that has fought with the United States in every one of its major conflicts since 1914, the good and the bad, the winning and the losing. Why? Because Australia's geographic and historical isolation has bred a wisdom about the structure of peace -- a wisdom that eludes most other countries. Australia has no illusions about the ``international community'' and its feckless institutions. An island of tranquility in a roiling region, Australia understands that peace and prosperity do not come with the air we breathe, but are maintained by power -- once the power of the British Empire, now the power of the United States. Australia joined the faraway wars of early-20th-century Europe not out of imperial nostalgia, but out of a deep understanding that its fate and the fate of liberty were intimately bound with that of the British Empire as principal underwriter of the international system. Today the underwriter is America, and Australia understands that an American retreat or defeat -- a chastening consummation devoutly, if secretly, wished by many a Western ally -- would be catastrophic for Australia and for the world. When Australian ambassadors in Washington express support for the U.S., it is heartfelt and unalloyed, never the ``yes, but'' of the other allies, perfunctory support followed by a list of complaints, slights and sage finger-wagging. Australia understands America's role and is sympathetic to its predicament as reluctant hegemon. That understanding has led it to share foxholes with Americans from Korea to Kabul. They fought with us at Tet and now in Baghdad. Not every engagement has ended well. But every one was strenuous, and many quite friendless. Which is why America has such affection for a country whose prime minister said after 9/11, ``This is no time to be an 80 percent ally,'' and actually meant it. Charles Krauthammer |
#32
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4th July Independence Day Message to the US
Jack,
You might like to know that I have received quite a few supportive private e-mails from US citizens who are as appalled as I am with recent US policies. Every Yank I have met in Europe over the last two years has apologised unreservedly for your President and Defence Secretary. It's your sort of 'Screw you, the USA is the best Goddam country in the World' and 'Lets kick the 4rses of anyone who disagrees with us' approach that gets the USA a bad name. I am neither a dipstick (my car engine has one though), a moron, a pinko commie, nor a boy (being 60 years old). Might I suggest that you learn some manners and some humility! Derek Copeland P.S. I am coming to the conclusion that the UK is already the 51st poodle State of American. We have just had 3 British employees of the NatWest bank, who have allegedly committed a fraud entirely within the UK, extradited to the US as part of the Enron proceedings. It is quite likely that they will be imprisoned or required to remain in the US on bail for some considerable period of time, away from their homes and families, until their case comes up. The extradition was carried out under legislation intended for Terrorism offences! I can't somehow imagine the US allowing their city gents to be treated in this way! Some thanks for being your allies. At 00:42 14 July 2006, Jack wrote: Hey dip****, who started this whole thing? Wake the hell up! You need a good old-fashioned, right-wing, redneck boot up your @$$! Practice what you preach, commie boy. Stick to soaring. Again... What a moron. Jack Womack |
#33
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4th July Independence Day Message to the US
Derek,
Why don't you put all your political drivel to bed? If you have something to say about gliders, fine, otherwise please shut up. thank you for your kind consideration, bumper "Derek Copeland" wrote in message ... Jack, You might like to know that I have received quite a few supportive private e-mails from US citizens who are as appalled as I am with recent US policies. Every Yank I have met in Europe over the last two years has apologised unreservedly for your President and Defence Secretary. It's your sort of 'Screw you, the USA is the best Goddam country in the World' and 'Lets kick the 4rses of anyone who disagrees with us' approach that gets the USA a bad name. I am neither a dipstick (my car engine has one though), a moron, a pinko commie, nor a boy (being 60 years old). Might I suggest that you learn some manners and some humility! Derek Copeland P.S. I am coming to the conclusion that the UK is already the 51st poodle State of American. We have just had 3 British employees of the NatWest bank, who have allegedly committed a fraud entirely within the UK, extradited to the US as part of the Enron proceedings. It is quite likely that they will be imprisoned or required to remain in the US on bail for some considerable period of time, away from their homes and families, until their case comes up. The extradition was carried out under legislation intended for Terrorism offences! I can't somehow imagine the US allowing their city gents to be treated in this way! Some thanks for being your allies. At 00:42 14 July 2006, Jack wrote: Hey dip****, who started this whole thing? Wake the hell up! You need a good old-fashioned, right-wing, redneck boot up your @$$! Practice what you preach, commie boy. Stick to soaring. Again... What a moron. Jack Womack |
#34
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4th July Independence Day Message to the US
Derek Copeland wrote: Jack, You might like to know that I have received quite a few supportive private e-mails from US citizens who are as appalled as I am with recent US policies. Every Yank I have met in Europe over the last two years has apologised unreservedly for your President and Defence Secretary. It's your sort of 'Screw you, the USA is the best Goddam country in the World' and 'Lets kick the 4rses of anyone who disagrees with us' approach that gets the USA a bad name. Derek Copeland P.S. I am coming to the conclusion that the UK is already the 51st poodle State of American. Arf, Arf. We have just had 3 British employees of the NatWest bank, who have allegedly committed a fraud entirely within the UK, extradited to the US as part of the Enron proceedings. It is quite likely that they will be imprisoned or required to remain in the US on bail for some considerable period of time, away from their homes and families, until their case comes up. The extradition was carried out under legislation intended for Terrorism offences! I can't somehow imagine the US allowing their city gents to be treated in this way! Some thanks for being your allies. July 14, 2006 Has Bush or the World Changed? About "Cowboy Diplomacy." by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online There is as much relief from realists as there is disappointment from neo-Wilsonians over a perceived change in U.S. foreign policy - what Time magazine clumsily dubbed "The End of Cowboy Diplomacy." It is true that there is now a regrettable new quietism about promoting democracy in the Middle East . And the United States also insists on multiparty talks with the ghoulish regimes in North Korea and Iran , in a fashion that purportedly seems much different from the go-it-alone caricature of 2001/2. But think hard: Has George Bush, or the world itself, changed in the last five years? One obvious difference from the first administration is the added nuclear component to the most recent pressing crises. Taking out the Taliban and Saddam Hussein did not involve an immediate threat of nuclear retaliation. Preempting against North Korea does run such risk - and perhaps very soon Iran will too. That requires a different strategy. The second change from the immediate past is oil. For most of the first administration, the price of petroleum was around $20-$30 a barrel. We are now well into the era of $60-$70, and the threat of constant shortages. This energy frailty has had two pernicious effects on U.S. foreign policy. Our allies in Europe and Japan now view almost any American initiative with Russia , the Middle East, or Latin America in terms of the potential fallout on their own energy costs and supplies. In addition, the consuming nations are now providing a windfall of several hundred billion in extra profits to the likes of the House of Saud, the Iranian theocrats, the Gulf Sheikdoms, Hugo Chavez, and Vladimir Putin. Not only are some of these billions recycled in nefarious ways in arms purchases and terrorist subsidies, but also the intrinsic failures of theocracy, autocracy, and neo-Communism are masked by such accidental largess. Worse still, there is now a growing new relativist standard of international behavior for roguish regimes: The degree to which a non-democratic nation has either oil or nukes - or preferably both - determines its perceived legitimacy. Any individual action the United States now undertakes may spike oil prices, and thus endanger the livelihood of its allies or neutrals while further subsidizing our enemies. A third difference is the fading memory of September 11 as we reach the fifth anniversary of that mass murder. As the anger of the American people subsides, weariness with the counter-response grows, and the very human desire not to rock the boat permeates national life - especially when we have not had, as predicted, another 9/11. It is hard to keep reminding the American people for five years that we alone must lead the world against the terrorists and their state sponsors. So part of Mr. Bush's dilemma derives also from his very success. The audacious removal of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban - coupled with the killing of thousands of Islamic terrorists abroad, together with a revolution in security procedures at home - have combined to prevent another jihadist attack. Now in our complacence, we think our recent safety was almost a natural occurrence rather than the result of national sacrifice and an ordeal that must continue. And, again, such a return to normalcy makes the lonely task of prompting reform in the Middle East seem rather unnecessary, if not irrelevant. Fourth, the rock has already been thrown into the Middle East pond, and the ripples are still on the water. One can argue about the effects of the Iraqi democracy on the larger Middle East - the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, the about-face in Libya, democratic peeps in the Gulf, or the end of the career of Dr. Khan - but the worst two governments are now gone, and the Middle East is in flux dealing with the detritus of these fallen regimes. Iraq is messy, but its chaos is no longer novel. And for all the violence, its democratic government just keeps chugging along, its enemies so far unable to derail it. Fifth, the old lie that American bellicosity incited the Islamists has been shattered by a series of events that have had nothing to with Iraq .. The French riots, the threats to Danish and Dutch artists, the plot to behead a Canadian prime minister, the Indian bombings, and on and on, have combined to educate the world. The violence reminds everyone that billions of Christians, Jews, Hindus, secularists, atheists, and modernists are hated for reasons that have almost nothing to do with U.S. efforts in Iraq . Therefore, allies are starting to renew their cooperation with us, realizing that their studied distance from America has brought them no reprieve. Moreover, the daily griping, victimization, scapegoating, and violence of the Islamic Arab world, whether directed against us in Iraq, or the Indians, Europeans, and Russians, for many has had the aggregate effect of tiring people, perhaps best characterized as a feeling like: "Forget them - they are hopeless and not worth another American soldier, dollar, or thought." All these considerations apparently allow - or sometimes force - the Bush administration to assume a supposedly less visible, more multilateral profile. There is one important caveat, however. What progress we have made since 9/11 - thousands of terrorists killed, al Qaeda scattered, Europe galvanized about Islamism and sobered about the consequences of its cheap U.S. rhetoric, Iran's nuclear antics revealed, democracy birthed in the Middle East, Palestinian radicals exposed for their fraud, the United Nations under overdue scrutiny, America much better defended at home - all that came as a result of an often unilateralist posture that risked global alienation by challenging the easy appeasement of the rest of the world. Nothing there to apologize for or change - but much accomplished to be proud of. Of course, it is possible, and perhaps even understandable, to coast for a while and advisable to cool the rhetoric about bringing democratic change through "smoking out" and hunting down terrorists "dead or alive." But we shouldn't forget that the global village gets back to normal only after a Shane or Marshall Will Cane is willing to take on the outlaws alone and save those who can't or won't save themselves. So, remember, when, to everyone's relief, such mavericks put down their six-shooters and ride off into the sunset, the killers often creep back into town. ©2006 Victor Davis Hanson |
#35
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4th July Independence Day Message to the US
Derek,
Please be so kind as to notice that I did not call you a dipstick, rather, a DIP****. Please have the MANNERS to stop politicizing the USA's holidays. I have not come across with your stated message of "Screw you...etc." but since charged...SCREW YOU! All I have done is to try to call attention to your MORONIC behavior. YOU started this attack. YOU started this political BULL****! I am so glad that some Americans have written their sympathies to you. That means they are still free to do so without being censored. With that same freedom, let me assure that you are quite happily on the ease side of the pond. Please stay there and have the MANNERS to stop gouging verbally at the United States on the soaring page. For your information, it is in fact the best country, apparently not damned, but blessed by God, country in th eworld. Jack Womack Hammermill wrote: Derek Copeland wrote: Jack, You might like to know that I have received quite a few supportive private e-mails from US citizens who are as appalled as I am with recent US policies. Every Yank I have met in Europe over the last two years has apologised unreservedly for your President and Defence Secretary. It's your sort of 'Screw you, the USA is the best Goddam country in the World' and 'Lets kick the 4rses of anyone who disagrees with us' approach that gets the USA a bad name. Derek Copeland P.S. I am coming to the conclusion that the UK is already the 51st poodle State of American. Arf, Arf. We have just had 3 British employees of the NatWest bank, who have allegedly committed a fraud entirely within the UK, extradited to the US as part of the Enron proceedings. It is quite likely that they will be imprisoned or required to remain in the US on bail for some considerable period of time, away from their homes and families, until their case comes up. The extradition was carried out under legislation intended for Terrorism offences! I can't somehow imagine the US allowing their city gents to be treated in this way! Some thanks for being your allies. July 14, 2006 Has Bush or the World Changed? About "Cowboy Diplomacy." by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online There is as much relief from realists as there is disappointment from neo-Wilsonians over a perceived change in U.S. foreign policy - what Time magazine clumsily dubbed "The End of Cowboy Diplomacy." It is true that there is now a regrettable new quietism about promoting democracy in the Middle East . And the United States also insists on multiparty talks with the ghoulish regimes in North Korea and Iran , in a fashion that purportedly seems much different from the go-it-alone caricature of 2001/2. But think hard: Has George Bush, or the world itself, changed in the last five years? One obvious difference from the first administration is the added nuclear component to the most recent pressing crises. Taking out the Taliban and Saddam Hussein did not involve an immediate threat of nuclear retaliation. Preempting against North Korea does run such risk - and perhaps very soon Iran will too. That requires a different strategy. The second change from the immediate past is oil. For most of the first administration, the price of petroleum was around $20-$30 a barrel. We are now well into the era of $60-$70, and the threat of constant shortages. This energy frailty has had two pernicious effects on U.S. foreign policy. Our allies in Europe and Japan now view almost any American initiative with Russia , the Middle East, or Latin America in terms of the potential fallout on their own energy costs and supplies. In addition, the consuming nations are now providing a windfall of several hundred billion in extra profits to the likes of the House of Saud, the Iranian theocrats, the Gulf Sheikdoms, Hugo Chavez, and Vladimir Putin. Not only are some of these billions recycled in nefarious ways in arms purchases and terrorist subsidies, but also the intrinsic failures of theocracy, autocracy, and neo-Communism are masked by such accidental largess. Worse still, there is now a growing new relativist standard of international behavior for roguish regimes: The degree to which a non-democratic nation has either oil or nukes - or preferably both - determines its perceived legitimacy. Any individual action the United States now undertakes may spike oil prices, and thus endanger the livelihood of its allies or neutrals while further subsidizing our enemies. A third difference is the fading memory of September 11 as we reach the fifth anniversary of that mass murder. As the anger of the American people subsides, weariness with the counter-response grows, and the very human desire not to rock the boat permeates national life - especially when we have not had, as predicted, another 9/11. It is hard to keep reminding the American people for five years that we alone must lead the world against the terrorists and their state sponsors. So part of Mr. Bush's dilemma derives also from his very success. The audacious removal of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban - coupled with the killing of thousands of Islamic terrorists abroad, together with a revolution in security procedures at home - have combined to prevent another jihadist attack. Now in our complacence, we think our recent safety was almost a natural occurrence rather than the result of national sacrifice and an ordeal that must continue. And, again, such a return to normalcy makes the lonely task of prompting reform in the Middle East seem rather unnecessary, if not irrelevant. Fourth, the rock has already been thrown into the Middle East pond, and the ripples are still on the water. One can argue about the effects of the Iraqi democracy on the larger Middle East - the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, the about-face in Libya, democratic peeps in the Gulf, or the end of the career of Dr. Khan - but the worst two governments are now gone, and the Middle East is in flux dealing with the detritus of these fallen regimes. Iraq is messy, but its chaos is no longer novel. And for all the violence, its democratic government just keeps chugging along, its enemies so far unable to derail it. Fifth, the old lie that American bellicosity incited the Islamists has been shattered by a series of events that have had nothing to with Iraq . The French riots, the threats to Danish and Dutch artists, the plot to behead a Canadian prime minister, the Indian bombings, and on and on, have combined to educate the world. The violence reminds everyone that billions of Christians, Jews, Hindus, secularists, atheists, and modernists are hated for reasons that have almost nothing to do with U.S. efforts in Iraq . Therefore, allies are starting to renew their cooperation with us, realizing that their studied distance from America has brought them no reprieve. Moreover, the daily griping, victimization, scapegoating, and violence of the Islamic Arab world, whether directed against us in Iraq, or the Indians, Europeans, and Russians, for many has had the aggregate effect of tiring people, perhaps best characterized as a feeling like: "Forget them - they are hopeless and not worth another American soldier, dollar, or thought." All these considerations apparently allow - or sometimes force - the Bush administration to assume a supposedly less visible, more multilateral profile. There is one important caveat, however. What progress we have made since 9/11 - thousands of terrorists killed, al Qaeda scattered, Europe galvanized about Islamism and sobered about the consequences of its cheap U.S. rhetoric, Iran's nuclear antics revealed, democracy birthed in the Middle East, Palestinian radicals exposed for their fraud, the United Nations under overdue scrutiny, America much better defended at home - all that came as a result of an often unilateralist posture that risked global alienation by challenging the easy appeasement of the rest of the world. Nothing there to apologize for or change - but much accomplished to be proud of. Of course, it is possible, and perhaps even understandable, to coast for a while and advisable to cool the rhetoric about bringing democratic change through "smoking out" and hunting down terrorists "dead or alive." But we shouldn't forget that the global village gets back to normal only after a Shane or Marshall Will Cane is willing to take on the outlaws alone and save those who can't or won't save themselves. So, remember, when, to everyone's relief, such mavericks put down their six-shooters and ride off into the sunset, the killers often creep back into town. ©2006 Victor Davis Hanson |
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