Happy Independence Day

Happy independence day, everyone. To show that there's no hard feelings, here's a couple of thoughts relating to Great Britain.

The first is truly a celebration of freedom. Alan Johnston, the BBC reporter who has done some of the best work in the world from the West Bank has been freed. He is truly one of the good guys and through the efforts of Hamas, he has been released. We rarely get good news from that part of the world, so this is truly something to celebrate.

My younger asked what independence day celebrated. I explained that at one time this country belonged to England and they told us what to do. He said that didn't seem nice. Then I told him that there were a group of people who decided to make this land its own country that made its own decisions. He thought about it and asked whether we now tell England what to do. I replied, "Not exactly." He then asked, "Do we tell other countries what to do?" My response was, "Sometimes, but it usually doesn't turn out so well."

Hanno with a similar sentiment:

The Bush administration has argued over the last several years (as a last resort) that fighting the war in Iraq was keeping the war on terror away from our shores. It is better to fight in Baghdad, than in New York. I have always been suspicious of this claim. For years, I could not see how creating the Iraqi Proving Grounds for terrorist techniques, allowing for on the job training, exacerbating violent opposition to the US and fulfilling the war rhetoric of Muslim extremists were making us safer. But the notion that if we were not fighting the terrorists there, they would be fighting us here seemed almost silly. Why cannot they do both?

I now admit I was wrong. What I did not see that the Bush Master Plan actually had Great Britain in mind all along. We fight the war in Iraq, and get the UK to help, so that the terrorists would attack the UK instead of us! They are keeping the good ol' US of A safe after all! We need to keep fighting the war in Iraq so the terrorists will attack London, not New York.

Have a happy and safe holiday everyone.