14th September 2001
I've put in a request to have this writeup moved to "America: The Good Neighbour" now that lawnjart has removed his writeup. It'll need some editing once it gets there.
The article quoted by
lawnjart above was written by Gordon Sinclair in
1973, shortly after the
USA pulled out of
Vietnam at a time when the whole world seemed, to Mr Sinclair, to be anti-American. Ordinarily I would consider it
unfair to take his comments out of context, but they are listed here in this node, and all over the internet (Often with extra lines at the end such as "
God Bless America!") as though they're still as true today as when they were written. They're not.
Firstly, there's the issues regarding American technological
superiority. Today,
Airbus makes very successful passenger
aircraft.
Russia makes the
Antonov AN124, the largest cargo plane in the world. The
US Marine Corps use a few
Harrier jump jets, which are
certainly not home grown aircraft.
No-one has ever doubted that the
Moon landings
were outstanding achievements (except for the odd
conspiracy theorist) but
how many people believe that the moon would have been touched by man today if it wasn't for the
cold war? Why doesn't Mr Sinclair
mention that
Russia put the first man in space?
The second problem is the idea that the USA
alone runs to the rescue of nations in need. The recent devastating
Earthquake in
Turkey
was met by
assistance from not only the
USA, but also
Austria,
France,
Greece,
Israel,
Sweden,
Switzerland,
UK and
Germany to name just the ones I found in under five minutes. Similarly, the
Gulf war was not left for America to fight alone.
British and
French soldiers joined their US
allies just over a month after the first US
troops were deployed.
The final thing that interests me is the notion that the USA
never gets
anything back from the world. How many times has the USA asked
for international assistance and not received it? Does the USA not have airbases stationed all over the world? Has the
UK not risked upsetting
it's European neighbours by agreeing to host the US
Echelon system? Has
Turkey not risked upsetting
Iraq by allowing such a large US
military presence?
Final thoughts:
I'm constantly in
awe of the US
space program. My
grandfather would have been
amazed that I can look at
satellite photographs of
Mars located on US government computers right from my own
home PC.
I wouldn't be in my current job if it wasn't for
Microsoft
I wouldn't be using this PC if not for
Intel
I wouldn't be driving my current car if
General Motors didn't inject cash and parts into
Vauxhall/
Opel
I'd probably have nothing interesting to watch at the
cinema if not for America. ;-)
I am not anti-American. I AM anti-"You-owe-us-everything"-ian. "You-owe-us-everything"-ians are all ugly.
And as a citizen of a country which has been pulled out of the mud by America in the past, I say
"Thank you, we'd do the same for you if
we could."