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| Britain |
| What have the Americans ever done for us? |
| 2005-03-04 |
| Opinion by Gerard Baker in the Times Online ONE OF MY favourite cinematic moments is the scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian when Reg, aka John Cleese, the leader of the People's Front of Judea, is trying to whip up anti-Roman sentiment among his team of slightly hesitant commandos. "What have the Romans ever done for us?" he asks...By the time they're finished they're not so sure about the whole insurgency idea after all and an exasperated Reg tries to rally them: "All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?" I can't help but think of that scene as I watch the contortions of the anti-American hordes in Britain, Europe and even in the US itself in response to the remarkable events that are unfolding in the real Middle East today. Confronted with this awkward turn of events, Reg's angry successors are asking their cohorts:..."All right, all right. But apart from liberating 50 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan, undermining dictatorships throughout the Arab world, spreading freedom and self-determination in the broader Middle East and moving the Palestinians and the Israelis towards a real chance of ending their centuries-long war, what have the Americans ever done for us?" It's too early, in fairness, to claim complete victory in the American-led struggle to bring peace through democratic transformation of the region. Despite the temptation to crow, we must remember that this is not Berlin 1989. There will surely be challenging times ahead in Iraq, Iran, in the West Bank and elsewhere. The enemies of democratic revolution — all the terrorists and Baathists, the sheikhs, the mullahs and the monarchs — are not going to give up without a fight. But something very important is happening now, something that will be very hard to stop. And, although not all of it can be directly attributed to the US strategy in the region, can anyone seriously argue that it would have happened without it? Neither is it true, as some have tried to argue, that all of this is merely some unintended consequence of an immoral and misconceived war in Iraq... I doubt that anybody, even the most prescient in the Bush Administration or at 10 Downing Street, thought the progress we are now seeing would come as quickly as it has. As a foreign policy thinker close to the Administration put it to me, in the weeks before the Iraq war two years ago: "Shake it and see. That's what we are going to do." The US couldn't be certain of the outcome, but it could be sure that whatever happened would be better than the status quo. |
| Posted by:Pappy |
| #4 THAT is the "cowboy" attitude that scares the crap out of the left. Because, in an odd flip-flop of roles, the Republicans have become the ones saying "Why Not?" and changing things to better enable individual freedom, and the Democrats are digging in screaming "why" - to preseve the power they have and fight any sort of change counter to their collectivist tradition. If anything, the Conservatives are being seen for acting on their principles of free market capitalism and the free individualsm it requires, whereas the liberals are seen as dragging their heels trying to maintain the status quo and state influence and control - theirs is the status quo circa 1976, with the US in retreat from SE Asia, the military despised and shrinking, the Soviet Union and its client states on a roll, and Democrats in charage of everything. Compare/Contrast to Reagan or W in terms of "shaking things up". Odd world we live in. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2005-03-04 6:38:40 PM |
| #3 THAT is the "cowboy" attitude that scares the crap out of the left. Because, in an odd flip-flop of roles, the Republicans have become the ones saying "Why Not?" and changing things to better enable individual freedom, and the Democrats are digging in screaming "why" - to preseve the power they have and fight any sort of change counter to their collectivist tradition. If anything, the Conservatives are being seen for acting on their principles of free market capitalism and the free individualsm it requires, whereas the liberals are seen as dragging their heels trying to maintain the status quo and state influence and control - theirs is the status quo circa 1976, with the US in retreat from SE Asia, the military despised and shrinking, the Soviet Union and its client states on a roll, and Democrats in charage of everything. Compare/Contrast to Reagan or W in terms of "shaking things up". Odd world we live in. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2005-03-04 6:38:40 PM |
| #2 THAT is the "cowboy" attitude that scares the crap out of the left. Because, in an odd flip-flop of roles, the Republicans have become the ones saying "Why Not?" and changing things to better enable individual freedom, and the Democrats are digging in screaming "why" - to preseve the power they have and fight any sort of change counter to their collectivist tradition. If anything, the Conservatives are being seen for acting on their principles of free market capitalism and the free individualsm it requires, whereas the liberals are seen as dragging their heels trying to maintain the status quo and state influence and control - theirs is the status quo circa 1976, with the US in retreat from SE Asia, the military despised and shrinking, the Soviet Union and its client states on a roll, and Democrats in charage of everything. Compare/Contrast to Reagan or W in terms of "shaking things up". Odd world we live in. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2005-03-04 6:38:40 PM |
| #1 âShake it and see. Thatâs what we are going to do.â Scientific method for $500! |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-03-04 10:18:13 AM |