Oct. 12 - One of the biggest lies being promoted by Sen. Kerry is that we were loved before 2000. Its corollary, that we had lots of support after Sept. 11, is equally false. [Commenter Paul points out that Kerry hasn't said we were universally loved which caused me to stop, think and realize that he is indeed correct. I got carried away with my own hyperbole.]

The issue is actually incredibly simple. Which is the better representation of a person's views: the one they say to your face, or the one they say behind your back? (If you need help with that one, stop reading right now because you're too nuanced and I'm probably going to piss you off.)

I received an email from a Canadian who moved to the UK in 1993. He made some extremely pertinent observations from the perspective of a Canadian who was often mistaken for an American. When he would identify himself as a Canadian, sometimes the assumption would be made that he hated Americans too and he would hear what he described as some pretty vile comments. Both he and I heard things that most Americans never heard before Operation Iraqi Freedom (remember that people up here assume I'm a Canadian until I set them straight.) In retrospect, I should have spoken out about it, but back then I didn't recognize the danger it represented so shrugged it off. After all, we were strong and could afford to be tolerant.

My kids have also heard far too many expressions of anti-Americanism up in this bastion of tolerance and diversity, and much of it came from teachers and university professors.

But this nonsense that we were universally loved before GWB became president and before Operation Iraqi Freedom is so false and so dangerous that it must be confronted.

I was not blogging (hadn't even hear of blogs) on Sept. 11, but does anyone else remember a women's forum held in Toronto within a week of Sept. 11 in which a speaker supported the attacks and everyone in the room applauded her? Does anyone else remember Judy Rebick's column on the main CBC web page which applauded the death and destruction of the attacks as America's due desserts? That freaking column stayed up for over six months after the attacks, and I was genuinely shocked at the large number of posts supporting her position.

What I remember as well about those days is how quickly the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, and the TV news media used a lot of ink and air time to recount the errors of US foreign policy and express their hope that the American government would recognize its errors and rectify their approach to the world and the Mid-east (I had never read the Toronto Sun at that point, snob that I was, and am beholden to the person who showed me an editorial supporting the USA.)

Here in Canada, the war in Afghanistan was opposed bitterly by most of the media until Canadian troops were committed, and then they abruptly made an about face. (Principles are such fleeting concepts ...)

Do not tell waste your time lecturing Americans abroad about the sympathy we had after Sept. 11. It stemmed from two entirely different sources: our real friends were genuinely shocked and horrified, and our unfriends were delighted that we had been brought down a peg and irritated when, unchastised, we vowed to fight back. These sentiments were expressed to me until I set them straight as to my nationality. (In retrospect, I should have punched them in the jaw. Oh well.)

The grief was also caused by the large numbers of citizens from countries other than the USA who died in the attacks, including 25 Canadians.

On the first anniversary of Sept 11, the Canadian Prime Minister, then Jean Chretien, expressed his view that the USA had brought the attacks on itself.

I was here. I am a witness. Far too many Canadians hated us before Sept. 11, before NAFTA, and before Ronald Reagan. Even the rescue of American Embassy workers in Tehran is said to have been arranged by the CIA, and although the Canadian government did help, it was begrudgingly done.

Where is Amb. Ken Taylor today?

Have people actually forgotten the image of the "Ugly American" and how typical American tourists were portrayed as unmannered, wore loud shirts, couldn't speak the language but expected everyone to speak English, and complained when they couldn't find a McDonald's near by?

CanCon: Americans who supposedly came to Toronto in August with their skis and ask "Where's the snow?" and presumably thought everyone here lived in igloos (maybe that's why the tourist trade is suffering - an igloo shortage.)

I've lived here for 30 years and gritted my teeth for far too many of them, so don't waste my time with re-written history.

Of course there were Canadians who were genuinely friendly to the USA. Of course we aren't hated by everyone in every country, but the unfortunate fact is that we make far too many of the social democracies look bad because we are a thriving, active and industrious people who exude confidence and determination.

But made no mistake: the elites in Canada and Europe hate us virulently, and their media reflect that hatred. They always have and always will. They hide it when they want something, and bring it out, fully formed, when we're down.

And why? Because our standard of living and way of life shame them. Our technological advances, the fact that Americans are actually happy gives lie to all their deconstructionism and nihilism and what really angers them is that we don't care. That stubborn Yankee independence stands between them and world domination, and they don't like it.

And we have the finest military in the world. And make no mistake: we've used a lot of tax dollars for that military and thus have sacrificed to have it.

Thank about it. When a country's social democratic programs are bankrupting it, they resent countries that manage to thrive without a huge civil service to oversee those mountains of regulations that stifle economic growth and keep people on the dole. When a country has been paying off terrorists, it makes them look bad when another country chooses to fight back. When a country has pandered to its citizens' notions of entitlement, it's hard for them to persuade their citizens that those policies are not self-sustaining but so long as there is the possibility of channeling resentment away from the failures that produced it and towards a people, like us, that are flourishing because we renounced socialism, they have gained one more term to rule.

And make no mistake about Canada: the Liberal Party rules Canada, and are even referred to openly as the Ruling Party, whereas in the United States, we refer only to that party which holds a majority because the basis of our political tradition is the underlying principle that ultimate power rests with We, the People.

The dislike of Americans has been around ever since our country was conceived. Only 20 years ago, President Reagan was reviled and considered a threat to world peace. Have people actually forgotten that, after the Lockerbie bombing, only the British PM would allow us to fly over her air space when we retaliated against Libya (and forgotten the heat Dame Thatcher took for that in the British House of Commons?) [Commenter Jeff corrects me in that the strike against Libya was in retaliation for the disco bombing in Germany, and a quick Google confirmed that he is right.]

If we want the tired Old Europeans to love us again, it won't happen because they have never loved us. Now, we could be deemed more acceptable if we sink to their level, but at what cost? The cost of our ideals? Our individuality? Our self-esteem? Our beliefs in justice? Our prosperity?

Canadians have been arrested and tortured abroad and left to languish while the Canadian government applies "soft" diplomacy. Zahra Kazemi died in Iran, and Bill Sampson, who holds dual citizenship with the UK and Canada, was released by the Saudis due to American intervention as a favour to the UK. He now makes his home in the UK in recognition of the country which continued to fight for him (and which isn't Canada.)

Is that what Americans want? It would make some Canadians feel better about their own feckless foreign policy, but, again, at what cost?

It's all very nice for Sen. Kerry to promise to form a coalition, but when has he ever done so? He was in the Senate for 20 years and never once put together a coalition of his colleagues to get legislation he proposed passed.

He claims he joined others to get legislation passed. When you think about it, that's a very big danger sign.

Kerry is a joiner, not a leader. He is truly "unfit to command" not only because of his behaviour in the 70's but because of his failure in the Senate.

I was an anti-war activist in the 60's and 70's, and even I didn't believe his claims about US soldiers all being war criminals as he testified. Like many other of my generation, I knew men who were serving and had served in Vietnam. They were decent, honourable men (although they were boys when they left) and one effect of Kerry's testimony was that my opposition to the war was actually shaken, not strengthened. I knew he was exaggerating, but I was too damned stupid (and young) to recognize the full calumny of his testimony.

Note to Swift Boat Vets: Keep. It. Up.

Sen. Kerry talks about how our allies picked up a portion of the bill for Gulf War I. How much of the bill for the Kosovo campaigns have they picked up? (We're still in Kosovo, if you need a quagmire to oppose.) How about Macedonia, Liberia and Haiti (Parts 1 and 2)? How much of the bill for Somalia have they picked up?

Exactly what country pays the largest portion to maintain the U.N.? (and now that the UN Oil-for-Food program is defunct, they'll need more cash!)

The sad reality is that, should the U.N. decide to pick up the bill for Iraq, we would still have to give it to the U.N. in order for them to pay it back to the USA (less the fees the U.N. will charge as the middle-man.)

[I realize that all the pundits said "Irony was Dead" after Sept. 11, it's in the same file as the harsh Afghan winters, the cruelly hot Iraq summers, the thousands of US casualties we would sustain fighting house to house to take Baghdad, the fierce Arab street, the humanitarian crisis that would be created in Iraq, ad infinitum. Yes, it's a big file.]

Who pays to station troops in South Korea, and Germany? The Germans and South Koreans hate us but don't want us to leave because our troops represent income in the former case and the front line of defense in the latter. (By a strange coincidence, Sen. Kerry wants us to stay in Germany too. He hasn't offered a sound, military reason why we should stay, though.)

Of course, bashing the Germans is almost unkind. I wondered what those Germans who carried Bush=Hitler signs thought as openly neo-Nazis were elected to the German Parliament. They were so self-righteous that they failed to see the fascist danger in their own backyard.

What did Instapundit Glenn Reynolds say? Something like fascism is always supposed to be hovering over America, but it always lands in Europe.

Anti-Americanism serves a lot of purposes, not the least of which is to divert citizens from observing the actions of their own governments. But the places that matter, as in being on the front lines, like Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia, are electing leaders who are committed to fighting terrorism. What does that tell us?

More CanCon: did anyone else feel a moment of recognition when President Bush described national health care as "rationed" health care? It sent a chilll down my back.

Back to the two-faced bastards our good allies.

We may never really know the content of the conversation when Chirac flew to meet with Presdident Bush shortly after Sept. 11, but I do remember that shortly afterwards, President Bush invoked the tradition of the Barbary Pirates in describing how we would fight back. I don't know if others got the point but I certainly did: we were not going to pay tribute, despite the best advice of our European friends, any more today than we did back in the early 1800's when they gave the same advice. (Yes, I know what the historical record actually says about us negotiating a better deal with the Pirates. So does the President; hence the word "tradition." Heck, I don't even know if Lt. Stephen Decatur really pulled out a pistol at the last moment and shot a cutlass-waving pirate to avoid being skewered. But I want to think he did, and it added some delicious flavour when I lived in Decatur county back in Georgia.)

Students of American history will also recall the infamous "XYZ Affair", which gave birth to the meme "Millions for defense, not one cent for tribute."

It is probable that few people outside the USA even know about those confrontations of our early years as a nation (I'm not touching the sad fact that probably a lot of Americans lack "historical perspective" as do much the MSM - main stream media, Dad) but I for one got the President's point loudly and clearly.

Bottom Line: We stood up to the the tribute-demanding pirates and didn't take the advice of European leaders back then. We had some colourful naval skirmishes. It is even credited with improving our Navy.

That's the tradition President Bush invoked, and those of us alert enough to make the connection understood immediately our strategy in the war on terror.

It wouldn't be over in a day. We would have to find them, harry them and keep them guessing as to where we would strike at them next. And it would take years, if not decades, to finish the job. And our European allies would think we were foolish to fight when we could just pay up and carry on about our business.

And you know what? We succeeded. The reign of the Barbary Pirates ended. We fought them all the way to the shores of Tripoli, folks. And where are they today? Languishing in the dust bin of history and of interest only to weird history lovers like me. Until now.

The history of the USA, from our first vow of "No taxation without representation" to today's dilemma of paying ransom is laden with examples of refusal to bribe our way out of difficulties. (Don't bother to point out times that we have violated that tenet; the point is what we've striven to achieve; whenever anyone reaches for the stars they often fall short but hey! try again. It doesn't hurt half as much as putting your tail between your legs and accepting defeat.)

I woke up this morning with two phrases running through my head. The first was a recollection when I first heard the "Yes, but" conditional sentence. It was "I'm not a racist, but ..." back in the early 60's. Funny how I had forgotten that. It was rightfully reviled back then by liberals. Today, that formulation is on most liberals' lips.

The other was something from a (good grief) Space: Above and Beyond episode:

Mean as hell
All the time
Rough and ready
In the mud
Never quit
Ever faithful
Semper fi!

The terrorist attacks and the passengers and crew of Flight 93 taught us that we are all on the front line of this war, and we'd better think more like Marines than flower children. It may not be nice, but it is reality.

This rant has been brought to you coutesey of my BALLOT ARRIVING IN TODAY'S MAIL and I'm off to send it back, properly marked with a vote for our Cowboy President and our Kick-Ass Vice-President.

I voted for Nader in 2000 (it was a protest vote) and, in a strange way, my vote today is also a protest vote. I'm protesting stupidity, cynicism, cowardice, avarice, lies, delusions, hypocrisy, and most of all, appeasers of fascism.

Ain't life grand?

20:06: Holy cow, it seems I'm not the only ex-pat speaking up. After reading this account by playwright Carol Gould of her life in England(via Daimnation,) I'm ashamed that I let comparatively mild events in Toronto get to me.

Also, I should hasten to add that, as I live in Toronto, my face-to-face experiences and encounters with strident anti-Americanism are limited to Toronto. But as governments interact with governments, not people, the Canadian government is what the American government has to work with and the actions of the government of Canada hardly stands up in comparison to that of Australia, another Commonwealth nation.

Posted by: Debbye at 01:39 PM | Comments (25) | Add Comment
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