Why should WE care?

[minto grubb]

I did not write this, but when it appeared on the internet, it got a lot of response in the UK.
I just want to say thet I agree with absolutely everything. Most of the Americans I know, I like.
Most of the Americans I have met, in person or on the internet, I have found pleasant. However, American foriegn policy sucks boulders. I think that this piece, written by a freind, deserves a wider audience. My thanks to Lj user Brisingamen for her permission to reproduce it here.

This may sound like I'm being un-American, but
you see, the trouble is, I'm not actually American ...

This morning's gem of logic comes from the man who acts as the spokesman for government affairs for the US travel industry.

He explained sweetly on Radio 4 that once visitors to the US understood that being photographed and fingerprinted was to ensure the safety of the American people as well as their own, they'd understand and cooperate. Oh, well, that's okay, now you put it like that. Silly me for not understanding.


But here, in a nutshell, Mr Government Affairs Spokesman, is my problem with this whole thing. Lots of people reading this journal are Americans; I know many of them on a personal basis, love some of them dearly, and certainly bear no malice towards anyone else. But you see, the way my life runs, the security of the American people, even those I know and love, is not a constant and present consideration. I don't get up in the morning and think 'gee, what can I personally do to improve the security of the American people today.' Yes, I think about it from time to time, and seriously, but honestly it figures fairly low on my daily agenda. Consequently, if I'm to be fingerprinted, photographed, iris-scanned, weighed, poked, prodded, stripped naked, denied access to sanitation, handcuffed if I so much as raise my voice to complain, and generally humiliated because of your government's Patriot Act, I do not anticipate that I will be comforting myself with the thought that, hey, it's okay because I'm doing my bit to ensure the security of the American people. No, really, I won't.

I realise this is very unAmerican of me but, you see, I'm not actually American. I'm British, and over here, on the whole, Blair notwithstanding, we mostly tend to work on the assumption that people are innocent until proven guilty. God knows, it's stupid of us to do this, but it does mostly work.The onus is on the prosecuting authority to prove that a person is guilty, rather than on the person to prove that he or she is innocent. It's fine and dandy to say 'if you're innocent, you've nothing to fear' but that doesn't go as far as you might think. What I fear are the people who, for whatever reason, have decided I'm guilty and are looking for me to prove that I'm not, without giving me any hint as to what it is I'm supposed to be refuting, because that would be giving me clues and encouraging me to lie. I don't actually think innocent people work too well when they know they're innocent but are confronted with someone who is determined to regard them as guilty and to treat any response on their part as evidence of guilt, hostility or whatever.

Put it this way, if you were hustled away at an English airport, fingerprinted, photographed, interrogated, bullied, harassed, and slapped in handcuffs for complaining, then told that you shouldn't mind because it's for the safety of your allies, the English people, because one of you Americans might conceivably be a bomber, you wouldn't like it, would you? No, so I'm not quite clear why you think doing this to people coming into your country is not going to damage your tourist and travel industry at all. Oh, of course, silly me, because we're protecting the American people, aren't we?

How can I put this to you, to the Department of Homeland Security, the White House, the Pentagon, et al. Rather as the Sun does not revolve around the Earth, neither does the rest of the world revolve around the USA, or place its welfare first, however much you might like to believe that. Yeah, I know it's a bit of a shock, but hey, hang on in there and you'll get over it. The sun set on the British Empire and we've pretty much managed to deal with it. You'll cope. And you'll cope a lot better if you start remembering that all those people coming into your country are mostly your guests rather than your enemies, and that they've come to visit the Land of the Free, a beacon of fairness and democracy in this benighted world.

And if all else fails, think Disneyland. We've actually got one of those in Europe, you know. It's even possible to get there by road and train. And, you know, in Europe the borders are so permeable, and yet we get along pretty well. Technically, I don't even need a passport to go over there, even though it's Abroad.

But to get serious again for a moment. Yes, vigilance is a good thing – thirty years of IRA bombing campaigns on the mainland has made us Brits very vigilant, but you'll notice that life went on during that time – but vigilance is very different from the measures your administration is currently putting in place. Vigilance is an ongoing low-key kind of thing that involves people quietly observing and doing what needs to be done, not this arm-waving 'we're all going to die if we don't stop every brown-skinned person coming into our country' hysteria. Your country boasts continually about its intelligence gathering, yet from here I can't help thinking that your intelligence gathering isn't very effective if you can't actually find the people you're looking for – the ones who you claim to know about – without harrassing everyone else along the way.

You could, for example, start getting to grips with the fact that most names are not unique,and that there's a good chance that the little old Chinese lady with the same name as the person you're looking for is maybe not the actual person you're looking for. And how many times do you need to stop a flight to deter the person you're after from catching it. Do you not think they might, you know, figure that trying to catch the same flight the next day is foolish? And why, having interrogated each person minutely before letting them board a plane, do you need to interrogate them minutely when they get off – terrorism isn't a virus. You can't catch it from the air conditioning. On the other hand, shoddy procedure seems to be endemic. You guys need to be flexible, use common sense more often, rather than sticking rigorously to a set of rules that are not actually working.

Yours used to be a fine country, Mr Government Affairs Spokesman; I liked the straightforward way most people went about their business, and the 'how can we make things work for you' attitude. It was invigorating and I got a real buzz out of visiting. Now I'm not so sure I want to come and visit. I can stay at home and experience administrative paranoia; I don't need to see that your country can do it bigger and better than anyone else. I feel uncomfortable trying to deal with an administration that feels so threatened, without being able to define what that threat really is, that it has to tell itself bigger, ever more bizarre stories about perceived threats in order to justify its reactions to what are now effectively pieces of fluff moving in the breeze. This is not healthy. The USA is no longer a healthy country, and this is clearly demonstrated in the way it deals with the rest of the world. 9/11 was a terrible thing, in and of itself, but so was bombing Afghanistan and Iraq because your administration thought the perpetrators might be hiding there, even though it had few grounds for thinking so, and even fewer now that weapons of mass destruction are providing elusive.

So, Mr Government Affairs Spokesman, you'll excuse me if I don't get all excited about your conviction that knowing I'm ensuring the security of your people will somehow make everything better, because, actually, it won't.

[pippin]

1. The British are Much Too Sensible

for the Bush lot. What to expect if we are being led by a "blind" president talking to a bunch of "deaf" members of his cabinet? Every move they make defies logic and the only conclusion I reached long ago is that this country and the world is at the mercy of a bunch of lunatics.

[minto grubb]

2. nice of you to say so. but...

Blair seems to be tagging along in the hoe of picking up some of the reflected glory, and maybe the hope of contracts in Iraq going to British firms.
To me, the definition of a good feind is someone who will tell you if you have a bit of spinach stuck in your teeth, or that the jacket you like the look of looks hideous on you. tells you what you need to know, not what you may like to hear, you know...?
I am more worried about the Bush/Blair combo than any supposed 'axis of evil ' to be honest.
however, I have just heard over the internet that Madonna has backed Wes Clark. That is the word, I will check and post , if it's true.