My US blogfriends are most important to me and keeping your interest in this blog is one of my main tasks. Visiting you over there is part of that and I enjoy reading and discussing your issues with you, e.g. the Harvard matter.I have but one gripe – unilateralism.
There really is this tendency, at times, to feel you’re going it alone, that it’s only the US out there and then the rest of the world. This attitude ignores your allies Britain, Canada and Australia. These countries have fought alongside you and are happy to be full allies, not so much to implement US policy but to implement a Free-World policy, or so the theory goes. You’re the largest and most powerful of these and so enjoy premier place.
When John Howard said that he was defending Australia’s interests in his comments on the US presidential race, that’s what he meant. The US alliance means that these countries are inextricably interwoven and the leadership of the US very much affects the prospects of its other allies. If you didn’t need those allies, you wouldn’t have kept them on. Therefore there is not only keen interest in your presidential race but a stake in it as well.
To turn round and tell us to ‘butt-out’, as I’ve read today, is illogical because our interests are also involved. To say Britain, Canada and Australia contribute nothing in Iraq, as I’ve read today, is not only blind to the reality but smacks of the unilateralism I was referring to.
It’s also not very friendly.
We do seem to be under a siege mentality, don't we?
ReplyDeleteIt sounds arrogant, too. Interestingly, the umbrage seems to be coming from both sides of the divide.
I was embarrassed when I read some of the reactions. As the kids might say, "hey, dude. Get a grip. Other people are entitled to expresss their opinions."
Really, what a dust up over nothing.
I don't think I expressed it very well but we mustn't fall out, particularly when faced with the dangers we are. We must work together.
ReplyDeleteI totally adore John Howard for his Churchillian steadfastness. He's not bad looking, either. :-)
ReplyDeleteAs for our American Democrat presidential wannabe Barak Obama, his crass political baiting of the great Aussie leader is a measure of his own lack of gravitas by comparison with Howard.