You said it, bro. The following is an e-mail I sent to Anne McElvoy of The Indepedent in response to a saber-rattling column she wrote a couple of weeks ago:
From: Carl Remick To: a.mcelvoy at independent.co.uk Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 10:40 PM Subject: "Easy words can't obscure the choice ahead"
Re your "There is a lavender tinge of self-delusion here. Britain, not to put too fine a point on it, is not in a position to issue cheques, blank or otherwise, to a superpower which has just come under attack in an act of outright warfare."
As an American I would like to concur with and expand on your observation by saying that the US does not require advice from the UK at all -- certainly not from a raving warmonger like yourself.
It's time for reflection in the US, not for precipitate action that will make things worse. The fact is, the terrorists who hit the World Trade Center were monsters of our own creation, the products of misguided policies, prime examples of the much dreaded "blowback."
I just finished an interesting biography of Richard Burton, the prototypical Victorian explorer, and have long been fascinated by the thoroughgoing dementia that British imperialism reflected. Looking at the shambling wreck that UK society is today -- a country filled with illiteracy and bad social services, yet still swaggering around the world striking absurd martial poses -- I hope that the US will yet benefit from your sad example and forswear the global capitalistic adventurism that is fast reducing us to your pathetic state.
Carl
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