No more my Brits than your Brits. Pete. Who do you think fought your Revolution, insurgents against the Crown?

Larry, my post encapsulates the idea: the West has reached a juncture where all the king's horses and all the king's men have little or no influence over alien and arbitrary forces capriciously controlling our lives.

The West owes the US. Iraq being a mess of its own making isn't the point. In January Ms Rice was saying the US was imposing a "new reality" on the Middle East. In February she and Mr. Bush were all smiley looking for friends.

We're making it up as we go, Canada no different from Britain and the US.

There must be an attitudinal change, and I said it couldn't happen overnight. Get US troops out of there and send in a multinational force---you name it, from a rejigged NATO or UN---to end sectarian violence.

The West must see the need to buy into it. France, Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand can't be seen as poodles genuflecting to Americans i.e. we’re taking arbitrary action out of US hands and placing it where it belongs.

Peoples respond to things as intangible as an ideal. No one likes the notion of behemoths or cadres of terrorists throwing their weight around. World policeman isn't America's job. Sacrifices in the name of humanity should be shared.

There's nothing new about peoples recognizing a need and changing their countries virtually overnight: FDR with the New Deal and getting behind Britain, the Europeans with the EU, NATO itself, South Africa, the rise of Russia since 1989.

I said earlier, things these days seem to change on a dime. My notion requires leadership, a passion and a plan. Unfortunately change usually doesn't come until we see rock bottom. We're slipping and sliding, close to that now.



Last edited by King Brown; 05/18/07 12:20 AM.