Strutting Through Failure

I recently had a run of exceptionally rude comments from Navigator, a Brit who has a decidedly anti-American POV, which is fine if it's well articulated, but this is the kind of revisionist junk he spewed:

News flash - America didnt [sic] join WW1 and 2 out of any sort of altruistic inclination.

Remember Japan? India and Burma is on the other side of that front. British Indian troops fought on the other front in Indo- China to help rescue you guys or have you forgotten that part of the story?

No, I hadn't really forgotten and I can give credit, not sneering abuse. Neither had I forgotten the truly decisive battles we waged Island-hopping the Pacific. Midway, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima. Rescue us? Interesting way of looking at it.

I answered his claims that America is swill in world opinion by asking why Italy and France moved towards us in their last elections, and he answered in part:

[Y]ou're showing your ignorance and arrogance by thinking the world revolves around the US once again. Naples (thats in Italy) is buried in garbage, unemplyment [sic] is high and economic growth in Italy is restricted to the cities. In short, domestic crisis. Berlesconi is a businessman so for dosmestic interests he has been re-elected.

All I'd said is the Berlesconi is more aligned with Bush than he is with England's pathetic government, which is hardly grounds for accusing me of thinking the world revolves around the US. But tell me a nation it revolves around more. The failure of the Italian economy is emblematic of the failure of the Euro-Socialist mega-state, a government model England has embraced and America, thank God, has thus far been able to reject.

I could go on, but why subject you? I only bring Navigator up because I thought of him when I read this in the Times of London (a name, by the way, he insulted me for using, claiming it was the Times of Great Britain):

Young women are daring to wear jeans, soldiers listen to pop music on their mobile phones and bands are performing at wedding parties again.

All across Iraq’s second city life is improving, a month after Iraqi troops began a surprise crackdown on the black-clad gangs who were allowed to flourish under the British military.

That was not written by an American reporter who thinks the world revolves around the US. It was written by a Brit about a country a big chunk of the world (including us) used to revolve around.

I have a small idea what happened in Basra and why the British command failed to adapt to the situation as well as we did, but I have a much better understanding of why the British crown failed here: arrogance, inflexibility, greed and outmoded military tactics.

I love Great Britain. I have enjoyed my visits there immensely, we love Incredible Wife's Aston, and their culture and history are indelibly intertwined with ours. It's a shame they also have a rude, bull-headed leftist minority full of bile and anger -- but hey, that's just another similarity between our two great nations.

Navigator would do his nation a much greater service if he would redirect his rancor against the EU, because that is the real threat to his country, not us. It threatens to homogenize Europe into a tasteless, over-regulated, PC shell of what it once was.

In closing, the Brits have re-engaged in Basra, and we all thank them for their improved effort and assistance in the recent fighting. But the victory there is the Iraqis' -- and if people like Navigator would remove their blinders and see the results of victory, perhaps they would understand that what we are fighting for is worth it.

(A note to Navigator: As a service to my readers, who prefer discourse to barroom brawls, I have blocked you from posting comments [I think I have, anyway]. You are free to send me any comments via email; my address is near the top of the right column.)