Hi everyone,
I welcomed this thread as a way of telling people who clearly care about me the my family and I are OK. I have read the subsequent posts and feel that there needs to be a bit of balance from our side of the pond. I take a close interest in politics and international affairs and thought I would throw my hat into the ring.
I have been lucky and have travelled extensively in the US and Canada. I have met countless people on these visits and never have I been treated with less than good old fashioned courtesy. From Chicago to New Orleans, New York to LA I have been treated with enormous helpfulness and kindness. I have travelled in the deep South and never met a "loud mouth" referred to above. In both Canada and the US I have been impressed with the overt patriotism on display and I have to say that some of the same over here would not go amiss. I have met countless americans during the course of my work in London and again found them without exception to be thoroughly decent and furthermore possessing a deep affection for our country.
We went to war as part of a coalition in Iraq witht he express approval of our legislature. It goes without saying that there was opposition on a massive scale but the democratic process held sway. I happen to believe that we went to war for the wrong reasons. We should have been as honest as the US and gone to war with the specific aim of regime change.
Saddam Hussain was a barbaric despot who murdered his own son in law amongst countless thousand others. He gassed wholly innocent men, women and children, dispossessed the marsh arabs, subjugated tribes and discriminated viciously on the grounds of religious affiliation. Never mind his invasion of Kuwait and the ecological damage he did to that country.
He has been deposed and the Iraqis have held their first ever free elections, formed a government and are feeling their way towards the kind of democracy that we take for granted.
In my opinion there is a europe-wide undercurrent of anti-americanism. This movement is engineered and led by the French with the explicit support of the Germans. The purpose of this is to diminish US economic power and to enable the European Union to challenge the states in every field. To me America is a benevolent force in the world, taking the rational view that an improved world in every way benefits all of its inhabitants but it places US interests first.
In both the US and the United Kingdom, there is no need to keep quiet in order to remain safe, we can do and say whatever we want so long as it is lawful. We can observe any religion we like, marry who we like and have as many children as we want. Go outside of western europe and north america and see how many so called democracies are as free and democratic as ours are.
Oh and by the way, isn't it strange how Gadaffi in Libya and the boy Assad in Syria have come round to a western point of view. Lebanon is free of the Syrians after decades of occupation, the intiffada in Palestine has petered out and the situation on the west bank is being resolved. Terrorist groups around the world, including our own dear sweet IRA can no longer count on Libya as a supplier of semtex and AK47's. How much of this would have happened had the coalition not shown such fortitude I wonder.
As to Guantanamo, if I were a POW in a stalag or in a Burmese death camp, I would have a transfer request in asap.
If only the islamists responsible for the murder of fifty plus Londoners and visitors to our city would treat their targets so humanely. When these savages are caught and brought to trial they will be treated as innocent until convicted. With the shoe on the other foot they would treat us as innocent until murdered.
Enough politics from me
Keep safe and keep voting.
Michael