Politics

President Bush, as quoted by the New York Times earlier this week:

Mr. Bush said that there was “total transparency” at the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba and that the International Red Cross was free to inspect the center at any time. To those Europeans skeptical of his claims, Mr. Bush said he would “suggest buying an airplane ticket” and going to “take a look for yourself.”

It’s important, however, that those engaged in terrorism realize that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world.

Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilized nations throughout the world.

– Tony Blair, Prime Minister, The United Kingdom

Finally, I wish to speak directly to those who came to London today to take life.

I know that you personally do not fear giving up your own life in order to take others – that is why you are so dangerous. But I know you fear that you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society and I can show you why you will fail.

In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfill their dreams and achieve their potential.

They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don’t want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.

– London Mayor Ken Livingstone

As usual, Victor Davis Hanson speaks the truth:

America should not gratuitously welcome such dislike; but we should not apologize for it either. Sometimes the caliber of a nation is found not in why it is liked, but rather in why it is not. By January 1, 1941, I suppose a majority on the planet — the Soviet Union, all of Eastern Europe, France, Italy, Spain, and even many elsewhere in occupied Europe, most of Latin America, Japan and its Asian empire, the entire Arab world, many in India — would have professed a marked preference for Hitler’s Germany over Churchill’s England.

Think about it. When Europe orders all American troops out; when Japan claims our textbooks whitewash the Japanese forced internment or Hiroshima; when China cites unfair trade with the United States; when South Korea says get the hell off our DMZ; when India complains that we are dumping outsourced jobs on them; when Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinians refuse cash aid; when Canada complains that we are not carrying our weight in collective North American defense; when the United Nations moves to Damascus; when the Arab Street seethes that we are pushing theocrats and autocrats down its throat; when Mexico builds a fence to keep us out; when Latin America proclaims a boycott of the culturally imperialistic Major Leagues; and when the world ignores American books, films, and popular culture, then perhaps we should be worried. But something tells me none of that is going to happen in this lifetime.

At dinner last night, the sidekick and I were discussing a discussion about gun control over at another blog where we had both commented. After awhile, some Europeans came over and started commenting about America’s fascination with guns and how unsafe our country was, and so on, and so forth.

While I have nothing against Europe as a whole, it’s this holier-than-thou enlightened attitude that some Europeans have that frustrates me. In alot of ways, I’ve lost my desire to debate some of those topics.

The UN? Corrupt, but salvageable.

Iraq, we did the right thing.

Afghanistan, we did the right thing.

Re-electing George W. Bush, we did the right thing.

Gun Control? A firm grip, no more.

Our taxes? Too high.

As our esteemed Secretary of State said recently while in France:

“There cannot be an absence of moral content in American foreign policy. Europeans giggle at this, but we are not European, we are American, and we have different principles.”

I’m quite happy being an American, thanks.