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175 lines
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From fork-admin@xent.com Wed Oct 9 22:44:55 2002
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<fork@xent.com>; 9 Oct 2002 19:36:00 -0000
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Subject: RE: The Disappearing Alliance
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From: James Rogers <jamesr@best.com>
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To: fork@spamassassin.taint.org
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Date: 09 Oct 2002 12:58:04 -0700
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On Wed, 2002-10-09 at 06:48, Frank Bergmann wrote:
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>
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> A more reasonable explication of the EU - US differences (according
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> to some American journalist cited in a German magazine, can someone
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> help me?) is that the American public perceives the rest of the world
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> basically as a thread, against which you have to defend yourself using
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> power.
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This is not a correct assessment. The American public couldn't care
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less. However, the US intelligence community correctly perceives a
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threat, and it isn't the third-world. Many European and other developed
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nations aggressively engage in covert operations against American
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interests. Its been going on for years and isn't even news. Things
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have stepped up in recent years and the US DoD is none too pleased. For
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better or worse, the US is relatively good at that game too. As with
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most backwater wars, they are proxies for the interests of the big
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players.
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Find a current list of the top intelligence threats to the US. You'll
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find that half the countries on that list are European. Most people are
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unaware of how aggressive these things have gotten in recent years.
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> On the other hand the Europeans are used to the peace of their cozy
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> post-war system where external security is not an issue. All security
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> threads can be resolved by giving money to the threatening people
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> and to integrate them into the wealthy sphere (Balkan, Palestinians,
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> ...)
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Bullshit. The European governments ruthlessly suppress real opposition,
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obviously some more than others. US SpecOps are often brought in to do
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dirty work inside Europe for European governments (usually with
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government "advisors" along for the mission). I've always wondered what
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the deal was such that we got involved at all. The point being that
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we've acted as assassins for European governments inside their borders
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against their own citizens under the auspices of those governments, and
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in recent years, not ancient history. I know SpecOp guys who left the
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military specifically because of the circumstances of some of these
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missions while they were posted for that duty. I'm certainly glad I was
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never assigned missions in that theater, because there is a lot of
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covert nastiness going on in nominally friendly European democracies.
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Regardless, giving money to people that threaten you has never created
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meaningful peace in the history of civilization. We call it extortion
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under any other guise.
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> A lot of the current EU - US issues can be explained by this difference
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> of perception, such as the current American unilateralism (nobody wants
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> to help us!), the American arrogance towards Europe (they don't want to
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> do anything, so why should we ask them?) and the growing rejection of the
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> American policy in Europe (they want to abolish the law!).
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Europe is looking increasingly like a basket case. Whatever problems
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the US is having these days, Europe looks worse and is going downhill
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faster. Why the US would want to emulate European behavior or the
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European way of doing things is beyond me.
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The US asking for major policy advice from Europe is like asking a quack
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for medical advice. I really don't see what is wrong with "unilateral"
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anyway. Why should anyone join a stampede that is heading for a cliff?
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I hope the incessant knee-jerk conformist screeching that Americans see
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coming from Europe doesn't actually represent the views of Europeans.
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For various reasons I'm not exactly a cheerleader for the US government,
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but the premises of the argument against them here are lame.
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> My personal point is that few Americans (percentage of overall population)
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> have ever left their country, while even German construction workers
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> regularly spend their holidays in Spain. So I'm not surprised that
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> paranoia is growing.
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I'm betting you are underestimating the actual percentage. The vast
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majority of people I know have lived, worked, and traveled outside the
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country at one time or another. And I doubt Europeans have traveled
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anywhere near as much in the Western hemisphere as Americans have.
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Despite the best efforts of France, Europe is *still* not the center of
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the universe. I'll throw you a bone though: most Americans do consider
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Europe to be drifting into irrelevancy and therefore ignore it. But
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from the perspective of an American, how could you NOT look at it this
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way? The impact of Europe on America has diminished greatly over the
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years.
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I love the smell of Euro-chauvinism in the morning.
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First, you assume that the North American continent is ethnically and
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culturally homogenous. Anybody that has actually traveled throughout
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North America knows this isn't true; there are more than five major and
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very distinct cultures and societies in the US alone, never mind the
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hundreds of diverse regional sub-populations, some of which are truly
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foreign. Apparently Europeans confuse speaking the same language with
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having the same culture. That would be like saying Mexico is culturally
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identical to Spain because they nominally speak the same language. A
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Wyoming rancher has almost nothing in common culturally or socially with
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your average person living in San Francisco, despite speaking the same
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language and nominally living in the same country. If I want to visit a
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wildly different culture for the holidays, I'll go to Oakland, New
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Orleans, or similar -- they are far more different from where I live
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than some countries I've traveled to. And a lot of these places are
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farther from where I live than Spain is from Germany.
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Second, the State I live in is the size of Germany. When I travel to a
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neighboring State (which I do regularly), how is this not equivalent?
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In fact, I probably travel much farther for the holidays than your
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German construction workers. If you look at the EU as a single country,
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only then does your analogy become comparable. What kind of ridiculous
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superiority do Europeans get from having (relatively) tiny countries?
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In truth, I find Europe to be about as culturally homogeneous as the
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US. There are a lot of cultural similarities across the EU with
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relatively minor local deviations that vary with distance in ways very
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similar to the US. The only real difference is that Europeans have
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dozens of different languages, which is hardly something I would call an
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advantage. Although there are a couple parts of the US where I can't
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understand a word they are saying either.
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-James Rogers
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jamesr@best.com
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