RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events France

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Originally posted by Dave:
Heh.

I read something interesting the other day, about how to view the anti-French sentiment in the US right now. While the US has been repeatedly vetoing European resolutions on Israel for years, the US is having a temper tantrum because of the threatened French veto on Iraq.

Discuss.

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This was written when Bush's 48 hour countdown was announced, and is worth reading, even if the war is now raging.
I enjoyed it not just because Michael has a few nice things to say about France but because of what he says to and about Bush and his cronies.
Love to you all
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Letter from Michael Moore ( The Big One, Bowling for Colombine etc...) to George W. Bush on the Eve of War

George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC

Dear Governor Bush:

So today is what you call "the moment of truth," the day that "France and the rest of the world have to show their cards on the table." I'm glad to hear that this day has finally arrived. Because, I gotta tell ya, having survived 440 days of your lying and conniving, I wasn't sure if I could take much more. So I'm glad to hear that today is Truth Day, 'cause I got a few truths I would like to share with you:

1. There is virtually NO ONE in America (talk radio nutters and Fox News aside) who is gung-ho to go to war. Trust me on this one. Walk out of the White House and on to any street in America and try to find five people who are PASSIONATE about wanting to kill Iraqis. YOU WON'T FIND THEM! Why? 'Cause NO Iraqis have ever come here and killed any of us! No Iraqi has even threatened to do that. You see, this is how we average Americans think: If a certain so-and-so is not perceived as a threat to our lives, then, believe it or not, we don't want to kill him! Funny how that works!

2. The majority of Americans -- the ones who never elected you -- are not fooled by your weapons of mass distraction. We know what the real issues are that affect our daily lives -- and none of them begin with I or end in Q. Here's what threatens us: two and a half million jobs lost since you took office, the stock market having become a cruel joke, no one knowing if their retirement funds are going to be there, gas now costs almost two dollars -- the list goes on and on. Bombing Iraq will not make any of this go away. Only you need to go away for things to improve.

3. As Bill Maher said last week, how bad do you have to suck to lose a popularity contest with Saddam Hussein? The whole world is against you, Mr. Bush. Count your fellow Americans among them.

4. The Pope has said this war is wrong, that it is a SIN. The Pope! But even worse, the Dixie Chicks have now come out against you! How bad does it have to get before you realize that you are an army of one on this war? Of course, this is a war you personally won't have to fight. Just like when you went AWOL while the poor were shipped to Vietnam in your place.

5. Of the 535 members of Congress, only ONE (Sen. Johnson of South Dakota) has an enlisted son or daughter in the armed forces! If you really want to stand up for America, please send your twin daughters over to Kuwait right now and let them don their chemical warfare suits. And let's see every member of Congress with a child of military age also sacrifice their kids for this war effort. What's that you say? You don't THINK so? Well, hey, guess what -- we don't think so either!

6. Finally, we love France. Yes, they have pulled some royal screw-ups. Yes, some of them can be pretty damn annoying. But have you forgotten we wouldn't even have this country known as America if it weren't for the French? That it was their help in the Revolutionary War that won it for us? That our greatest thinkers and founding fathers -- Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, etc. -- spent many years in Paris where they refined the concepts that led to our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution? That it was France who gave us our Statue of Liberty, a Frenchman who built the Chevrolet, and a pair of French brothers who invented the movies? And now they are doing what only a good friend can do -- tell you the truth about yourself, straight, no b.s. Quit pissing on the French and thank them for getting it right for once. You know, you really should have traveled more (like once) before you took over. Your ignorance of the world has not only made you look stupid, it has painted you into a corner you ca

Well, cheer up -- there IS good news. If you do go through with this war, more than likely it will be over soon because I'm guessing there aren't a lot of Iraqis willing to lay down their lives to protect Saddam Hussein. After you "win" the war, you will enjoy a huge bump in the popularity polls as everyone loves a winner -- and who doesn't like to see a good ass-whoopin' every now and then (especially when it 's some third world ass!). So try your best to ride this victory all the way to next year's election. Of course, that's still a long ways away, so we'll all get to have a good hardy-har-har while we watch the economy sink even further down the toilet!

But, hey, who knows -- maybe you'll find Osama a few days before the election! See, start thinking like THAT! Keep hope alive! Kill Iraqis -- they got our oil!!

Yours,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com

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Originally posted by britneyspearsatemyshorts:


The funniest yet....

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Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
Re: the open letter to G.W. Bush quoted above.

What a snot-nosed raging schmuck. A classic example of how impossible it is to argue with know-it-all liberals who are not open to any possibility but their own rhetoric.

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1. For openers, the economy Moore complains about was one that President G.W. Bush inherited from the Clinton Administration. The recession had lasted about a year prior to the November 2000 election. But the biased liberal press was quick to paint the myth that the economy was great under Clinton, and that Bush ruined it.

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2. G.W. Bush also had no control over September 11th, which caused the decline of an economy that was just rising out of recession (as leading economic indicators were showing) when 9/11/01 occurred.

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3. And again, Bush pursued a hardline against Al Qaida that has so far prevented another attack.

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4. Under a President Gore (whose petty clinging...

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... to the election he lost caused a huge loss in the stock market over a five-week period in November/December 2000, by the way) we would still be debating whether to put economic sanctions on Afghanistan, and Al Qaida would be free to launch numerous attacks on the U.S., that the liberal-condemned invasion of Afghanistan and Al Qaida's bases (under Bush) PREVENTED.

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Lexington

Al Gore discovers himself

Nov 15th 2001
From The Economist print edition

What would it have been like if Al Gore had won last year's election?






THIS has been a truly remarkable week for President Al Gore. The Taliban is in full retreat in Afghanistan. Vladimir Putin has agreed to scrap more than two-thirds of Russia's nuclear weapons, fulfilling a dream that Mr Gore has cherished since he first went into politics. And Congress stands poised to pass a giant stimulus package. No wonder the president's approval rate stands at a stratospheric 87%.

It seems almost churlish at such a time to bring up the little matter of the 2000 vote. But after last November's disputed election a consortium of conservative newspapers, led by the Washington Times, decided to pay for a recount of all the Florida votes. A million dollars of Richard Mellon Scaife's money and thousands of man-hours later, these Republican geniuses have proved what we all knew already: that the election was damn close. If Mr Gore had followed the advice of some of his more cynical advisers and concentrated on counting the votes in just four Democrat-controlled counties, rather than doing the honest thing and calling for a recount of all the votes in the state, he would have lost to George Bush.

Can you imagine it? Mr Bush has gone into semi-retirement in Austin, his limited abilities as Texas's governor taxed by a legislature that meets only every other year. But the mere thought that he might have been president sends shivers down the spine. This is a man whose idea of foreign travel was to visit a barrio or two when he wished to appear “compassionate”, and who would have conducted foreign policy from behind a Maginot Line of missiles. There is every reason to believe that, after September 11th, a President Bush would have struck out blindly at Osama bin Laden, perhaps even using nuclear weapons.

Which all goes to show how sensible the American people were to choose a man with real experience. Mr Gore has brought a remarkable set of skills to the present crisis, honed by a lifetime in politics and eight years in the vice-presidency. His “golden Rolodex”, as one commentator has called it, has been invaluable to his building of a grand alliance against terror. He used his close personal relationship with Mr Putin to bring a reluctant Russia into the war, fundamentally changing the whole pattern of geopolitics. He used his ideological ties to Tony Blair, forged at many a seminar on the Third Way, to turn Britain into a bedrock of support. It is fair to say that Mr Gore has not one secretary of state but two: the indomitable Richard Holbrooke and the ever-loyal British prime minister.

The mention of Mr Holbrooke points to another extraordinary fact about the Gore presidency: the quality of the people he can call on. It is no exaggeration to say that Mr Gore has the entire brainpower of the country, from Washington think-tanks to the Ivy League universities, at his disposal. And there are few brains as acute as the secretary of state's.

Mr Holbrooke is one of the most experienced diplomats in the business. Mr Gore credits him with getting Germany wholeheartedly to join the anti-terrorist campaign, thanks to his time as ambassador there. But in some ways Mr Holbrooke still has to come into his own. The very qualities that make the secretary of state so unpopular in polite circles—his abrasive self-importance, his absolute confidence that he is right on matters big and small—make him a giant when it comes to negotiating with primitive warlords. He knocked heads together with extraordinary success in Bosnia; he will do the same thing in Afghanistan.

Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle
Mr Gore's extraordinary knowledge of Washington has been more of a mixed blessing in two other areas. The first is military strategy. The president has been a military buff ever since he became a congressman back in 1977. But his encyclopedic knowledge of warfare—and his iron belief in his own abilities—have inevitably led to clashes with the Pentagon. The generals grumble that Mr Gore wanted to control where every bomb was dropped, and that the result was a much more hesitant start than necessary to the war.

On the home front, Mr Gore was furious at the way the anthrax outbreak threw his administration into confusion. He could not understand why the Centres for Disease Control did not know more about the illness. He was apoplectic when he discovered that the FBI did not even know which laboratories in the country were licensed to produce the stuff. Yet his decision to put himself in charge of a special task-force has failed to produce results. Even more unsatisfactory has been his handling of the question of airport security. His remarks that those Republicans who oppose federalising security workers are “Neanderthals with the blood of the American people on their hands” is hardly likely to produce compromise.

Mr Gore's habit of micromanaging events is clearly his biggest weakness: a weakness that has been made worse by the decision to put Vice-President Joseph Lieberman (who had aroused much wrath on the Arab street because of his Jewish background) into a permanent secret location. But all this pales into insignificance beside Mr Gore's secret weapon during these dark days: his discovery of his true self.

The strongest criticism of Mr Gore has always been that he does not know who he is. Throughout his career, he reinvented himself to suit the mood of the times. In his first run for the presidency, he presented himself as a champion of the business-minded New Democrats; in his second run, he campaigned for the people against the powerful. All this left the impression that he had no hard centre, but was simply playing at politics in order to appease his father's ghost.

All this changed on September 11th. The collapse of the twin towers gave this extraordinarily restless and energetic man the task he has been seeking all his life: the war against terrorism. Al Gore at last knows what God put him on earth to achieve.

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But sure, whatever, Mr Moore, believe whatever you like. You and the millions of other similar liberals across the U.S., who go beyond dissention and call Bush an idiot and so forth.

There is absolutely nothing civil about this kind of civil disobedience.

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Originally posted by Dave:

Not true. Bush inherited a budget surplus, quickly squandered in tax cuts.

Many people did however describe the presidency after Clinton's as a poisoned chalice, because it was acknowledged that global macro-economic movements would lead to a recession. This has come to pass. This wasn't something Clinton could control (nor should he even if he could in a free market), as it was global in nature.

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4. Under a President Gore (whose petty clinging...

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Originally posted by Dave:

A slightly partisan comment, to say the least. Without going into the intricacies of the election, the matter was resolved with due process: Gore had every right to contest the validity of what happened, and accepted the conclusion with grace.

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• Allowing China to steal missile technology to build leaner/meaner ICBM's to point at the United states
• stretching out lies over his own sexual affair, to take up a huge amount of the National agenda, that stifled public policy and legislation from being conducted, and cost taxpayers 40 million dollars for an investigation his own deceit prolonged.
• refusing to do much to resolve either the Iraqi situation or the Palestinian situation

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The following is from a Washington Post article, written by staff writer, Barton Gellman, December 20, 2001:

"President Bill Clinton and his advisers reached a pivot point in their grasp of the terrorist threat by the end of 1995. In his second term, the president reshaped his government in response. By degrees the national security establishment shifted its view of terrorism from tactical nuisance to strategic challenge, sharpening its focus on bin Laden after the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa.

"By any measure available, Clinton left office having given greater priority to terrorism than any president before him. His government doubled counterterrorist spending across 40 departments and agencies. The FBI and CIA allocated still larger increases in their budgets and personnel assignments. Clinton devoted some of his highest-profile foreign policy speeches to terrorism, including two at the U.N. General Assembly. An interagency panel, the Counterterrorism Strategy Group, took on new weight in policy disputes from the Justice Department to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the foreign policy cabinet, by the time it left office, had been convening every two to three weeks to shape a covert and overt campaign against al Qaeda."

I have a lengthy timeline of the terrorist attacks and Clinton's response - too long for this forum. To very briefly summarize: the first attack on the World Trade Center occurred on Feb. 23, 1993 (6 killed) - hard to blame Clinton on this one since he had been in office for a month. A subsequent attack occurred in Saudi Arabia in 1996 (19 US soldiers killed); US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed in 1998 (223 killed); and the USS Cole was bombed in October 12, 2000 (17 soldiers were killed).

In the 80s - terrorist attacks included the Lebanon Marine barracks, the Lebanon embassy, hijackings, the Achille Lauro and Pan Am 103.

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Many LIBERALS described it that way !

Again, the recession began under Clinton, after the prime rate was raised five quarters in a row, before the effect of the first few raisings could be seen, and this excessively slowed growth.
Again, the recession had begun a year before G.W. Bush was inaugurated.

It's pure and simple biased propaganda to blame the recession on Bush.
Up until 9-11-01, indicators were that the economy was beginning to move out of recession.

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The National Bureau of Economic Research which officially defines the peaks and troughs of economic cycles, concluded later that a recession had begun that very month. The Fed soon began cutting interest rates, but the slowdown persisted and contributed mightily to the defeat of President George Bush in the 1992 election.

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I found the article from the Economist (although obviously fictitious and satirical) to be clearly written by a liberal hand, the clear mark of which is the writer's inability to resist a few cheap digs at Bush. And although interesting, his high praise of Gore (while fliply trashing Bush) clearly likewise reflects his biases.

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Originally posted by britneyspearsatemyshorts:
im very anti-clinton but i will say he got Isreal to compromise greatly in order for peace, and Arafat dropped the ball...

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Originally posted by Dave:
As for Clinton's security record, here is a post from someone else, elsewhere:

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The following is from a Washington Post article, written by staff writer, Barton Gellman, December 20, 2001:

"President Bill Clinton and his advisers reached a pivot point in their grasp of the terrorist threat by the end of 1995. In his second term, the president reshaped his government in response. By degrees the national security establishment shifted its view of terrorism from tactical nuisance to strategic challenge, sharpening its focus on bin Laden after the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa.

"By any measure available, Clinton left office having given greater priority to terrorism than any president before him. His government doubled counterterrorist spending across 40 departments and agencies. The FBI and CIA allocated still larger increases in their budgets and personnel assignments. Clinton devoted some of his highest-profile foreign policy speeches to terrorism, including two at the U.N. General Assembly. An interagency panel, the Counterterrorism Strategy Group, took on new weight in policy disputes from the Justice Department to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the foreign policy cabinet, by the time it left office, had been convening every two to three weeks to shape a covert and overt campaign against al Qaeda."

I have a lengthy timeline of the terrorist attacks and Clinton's response - too long for this forum. To very briefly summarize: the first attack on the World Trade Center occurred on Feb. 23, 1993 (6 killed) - hard to blame Clinton on this one since he had been in office for a month. A subsequent attack occurred in Saudi Arabia in 1996 (19 US soldiers killed); US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed in 1998 (223 killed); and the USS Cole was bombed in October 12, 2000 (17 soldiers were killed).

In the 80s - terrorist attacks included the Lebanon Marine barracks, the Lebanon embassy, hijackings, the Achille Lauro and Pan Am 103.

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________________________________________

FREEDOM ARRIVES WITH U.S. MARINES
Posted: April 10, 2003

by Hal Lindsey

The images were stunning – U.S. Marines rolled into Baghdad virtually unopposed.
While U.S. Marines mingled with jubilant Iraqis, another group of Iraqis set about trying to topple a massive statue of Saddam Hussein.

They set up a ladder, climbed the 30 or so feet to the base of the massive pedestal as the crowd below set up a rope.

The cameras captured the highly symbolic scene of Saddam Hussein, with a noose around his neck, with hordes of freshly liberated Baghdad residents pulling on the other end.

As the coalition rumbled across Iraq, the media pointed to the unexpectedly fierce resistance put up by Iraqi forces as proof the United States was being greeted as the ruthless invading crusaders the media said it was, rather than the liberating force Washington repeatedly said it was.

But as each town fell, the resistance evaporated. Many of the battlefield survivors joined the crowds cheering the columns of Marines before surrendering to the troops bringing up the rear.

That's when we learned the reason for the resistance. Saddam's forces rounded up wives and children of Iraqi men conscripted to the battle. They were told that if they surrendered or were captured, their families would be killed. U.S. forces were baffled by waves of suicide attacks in which men driving Toyota pickups would simply drive into the sides of Bradley fighting vehicles, knowing they could not possibly damage them.

Those "defenders" were not "attacking" the Americans – they were simply dying in battle to save their families. Once the Marines liberated their families, so ended the resistance.

Still, opposition to the war continues, but it grows increasingly obvious that the opposition isn't to the war itself, but to the United States. Nobody is going to march under banners decrying the "invasion of Iraq" anymore.

On Fox News, on Wednesday, cameras caught Iraqis carrying a banner of their own, reading, "Human Shields Go Home."

They can't argue "no blood for oil" anymore. It is obvious to any thinking person that this war was conducted with the least amount of unnecessary bloodshed of any war in human history.

U.S. weapons designers developed a precision guided 2,000-pound block of cement that it used to take out tanks and armored vehicles in urban areas in order to prevent collateral damage.

Blood? Not much, apart from that of the enemy during combat.

The anti-war argument, that Washington waged this war to benefit its economic allies, is pitifully transparent. America is the richest nation in the world. If all we wanted was cheaper oil, we could have simply lifted restrictions on Iraq's oil exports until it was as cheap as we wanted it to be.

The French, German and Russian argument that America abandoned diplomacy just when the inspections were starting to work collapsed as soon as the war began.

U.S. and British forces have uncovered more evidence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction in three weeks than the U.N. inspection regimes have in 13 years.

Thousands of chemical suits and atropine injectors of German manufacture. Thousands of French radios at Iraqi command posts like the one in the hospital where Pfc. Lynch was rescued. Huge caches of French, Russian and Jordanian weapons discovered at a huge PLO training camp inside Iraq.

Diplomacy and inspections would not have worked, but it would have allowed Saddam to stay in power – and for the lucrative black-market trade to continue.
This war wasn't about benefiting George Bush's economic friends. Continuing U.N. sanctions and allowing the woefully incompetent Hans Blix to oversee weapons inspections were all about benefiting Saddam's Russian, French and German friends – not about the Iraqis.

The real beneficiaries of the war were seen flocking to downtown Baghdad tugging on the noose around the neck of Saddam's statue.

______________________________________

Hal Lindsey is the best-selling author of 20 books, including Late Great Planet Earth. He writes this weekly column exclusively for WorldNetDaily.

Be sure to visit his website where he provides up-to-the-minute analysis of today's world events in the light of biblical prophecies.

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U.S. MULLS FRANCE's PUNISHMENT

by Barry Schweid, The Associated Press


WASHINGTON (April 25) - Bush administration officials are reviewing U.S. relations with France with an eye to punishing the nation for opposing the war with Iraq.

The United States is considering excluding France from some NATO decisions as well as other U.S. meetings with allies.

Warned by Secretary of State Colin Powell that France faced consequences for its stand on Iraq, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin vowed his country would stick to its principles.

``It will continue to do so in all circumstances,'' de Villepin said.

At the same time, the White House on Thursday quashed speculation that President Bush would not stay overnight in France during his trip in early June to the Group of Eight economic summit.

``The president will be overnighting in France. There were never plans for him to overnight anywhere else,'' presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters aboard Air Force One.

The annual meeting of the world's seven wealthiest democracies and Russia will be held in Evian in the French alps, near the border with Switzerland. Tensions between the United States and France had given rise to rumors that Bush might spend the nights in Geneva.

France opposed the war with Iraq and blocked a U.N. resolution sanctioning the war sought by the United States and Britain. France, along with Russia, took the position that there should be more U.N. searches for illegal weapons before considering the use of force.

Germany, which opposed war with Iraq under all conditions, is not targeted for punitive measures, a senior U.S. official told The Associated Press.

Every country has the right to its own opinions, the official said. The difference between France and Germany is that France energetically tried to organize other countries against the United States, the official said on condition of anonymity.

For the most part, much that the United States does with France works well, the official said. For instance, cooperation in countering terrorism and on law enforcement is very good, he said.

``No one in the administration is saying stop all things with France,'' the official said. ``People are saying if there are places where we give special deference to France that we should review that.''

Potential punishment was discussed Monday at a meeting of top assistants to Powell, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser.

Actions could include excluding France from some meetings with U.S. allies and bypassing the North Atlantic Council, of which France is a member.

Bypassing the council, NATO's governing body, could mean excluding France from U.S. deliberations with European and Canadian allies because France is not a member of NATO's Defense Planning Committee, where the talks would be shifted.

To avert potential French opposition to using NATO peacekeepers in Iraq and having them search for hidden weapons of mass destruction, deliberations may be turned over to the defense group, said a State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Powell, in a PBS interview Tuesday night, said there would be consequences for France's opposing the United States in the United Nations. He described it as ``a very difficult period,'' but did not say what the administration had in mind.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Wednesday: ``It's more than philosophical. Potentially, it will affect how some decisions are made in the future.''

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said France's opposition to the war ``has put a strain on the relationship and that's a consequence that was paid.''

In the end, Bush believes the two countries and two people have common values and that the alliance will continue, Fleischer said.

De Villepin telephoned Powell Wednesday while traveling in the Middle East, Boucher said. Among the issues they discussed were sanctions against Iraq.

The United States proposes eliminating them as an unnecessary burden on Iraq's people now that Saddam Hussein and his government have been toppled. France favors suspending the sanctions, which Boucher said implies the possibility of their return.

``Sanctions should be lifted,'' Boucher said. ``The president said that. It should be ended. And we need to get together and talk about how to do that.''

On the overall relationship, Boucher said, ``Having had disagreements like this in our relationship doesn't change the fact that we are allies.''

De Villepin, en route to Iran, said France would continue to uphold its principles. ``Throughout the Iraq crisis, France, along with a very large majority of the international community, acted in conformity with its convictions and its principles to defend international law,'' he said.

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Scientists will finally isolate the ingredient that separates French Vanilla from regular vanilla:

Cowardice !

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Originally posted by britneyspearsatemyshorts:
Jealousy.

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Originally posted by Dave:
Of what?

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Of being the global and economic power that France used to be.

I think for many decades, France's attitude toward the U.S., and attempts to frustrate U.S. foreign policy at every turn, comes from France's being upstaged by the U.S., and their bitterly biting back to make the U.S. pay a price for it.

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Originally posted by Dave:
Maybe its the lack of exposre to other cultures which brings about such conclusions. Europeans and Asians are constantly exposed to other languages and cultures. Americans are not.

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Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
Yes, our media tell us that Americans are stupid. (Jay Leno routinely goes in the streets and asks people such basic questions as who the President and Vice President are, and usually gets answers that embarass me as an American.)

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I hate that - I mean, I reallyreallyreally hate that part of Leno's show. He asks the most basic questions and picks the most idiotic people to try to answer them. Really, its utterly embarrassing that the world thinks that these total schmucks represent the "average American."

Moving on... Dennis Miller once said that America is simultaneously the most hated/ loved, feared/admired country in the world and I tend to agree with his analysis for too many reasons to get into right now. However, I did want to just mention something in response to Dave's original question re: why Americans have such a bad rep. This is on a more local level, but I've been fortunate enough to travel a lot and time and again I have witnessed the "ugly American" everywhere. Generally speaking, we expect people everywhere to accommodate us and speak English without even attempting to speak the language of the host country (and if you at least try, you'd be amazed at much friendlier people become); have a McDonalds on every corner; and a lot of travelling Americans walk around with a sense of entitlement; etc.

Here's a story: I spent a summer in Israel volunteering in the army and on the occassional free weekend a bunch of us would backpack and stay in hostels. In one hostel I handed my passport to the woman behind the counter and when she took it to put it away for me I thanked her. She turned around in shock - seriously, she had such a look on her face I thought maybe I did something wrong - and she asked me if I was American. I said "yes" and she told me that she had been working in that hostel for years and in all that time I was the first American to ever say "thank you" to her.

I think that's kinda sad.

True, this is just one story, but I think it gives a very small glimpse behind the reasons the rest of the world isn't too keen on us - we expect things to come to us easily and I think that is the image that alot of people have of us - right or wrong. And that's not getting into politics (which is everywhere - have you guys read what is going on between Italy and Germany lately? ) and economics and a slew of other reasons which have already been mentioned.