My co-worker said that the German radio is announcing the base closures and that our European-based soldiers are not even returning from Iraq, but instead are heading directly back to the States and all family members will follow them and bases will close. For almost a year, we've been hearing that this absolutely will not be happening, and GEN B.B. Bell even made a series of commercials assuring family members that their soldiers would be coming back to Germany. Weird that the Germans are announcing something totally different than what the President said.

Developing, as Drudge says...

MORE:

Just to make sure we're all on the same page: I believe GEN Bell ten thousand times more than I believe the German radio. I think what they're putting out is ridiculous misinformation. I'd love to beat your two weeks for outprocessing, Deskmerc, but I know it ain't gonna happen.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:29 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Another reason why I, as a military wife, don't want to vote Kerry: I want to go home.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:29 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 Some are already 'questioning the timing' of this announcement (that has been in the works for the last three years)... unbelievable!!!

Posted by: Madfish Willie at August 16, 2004 07:58 PM (S/EPF)

2 There are some that would question the timing of a beautiful sunset if it helps Bush.

Posted by: John at August 17, 2004 12:44 PM (+Ysxp)

3 John, Those blasted Republicans at NASA must be messing with the sun! No wonder we're suffering from global warming!

Posted by: Amritas at August 17, 2004 01:17 PM (b8rMZ)

4 Then vote for Bush. Early and often

Posted by: Tom at August 18, 2004 02:03 PM (kmiNS)

5 You know, it's getting just a little bit tiring how everytime Kerry takes a firm stand on an issue, the right-wing attack machine immediately finds something Kerry said ten minutes ago that totally contradicts it. What's the big deal? Just because Kerry tackles an issue as decisively as a woman moving furniture around her living room, it doesn't mean he can't lead. Get off your high horses, people!

Posted by: Liberal Larry at August 19, 2004 02:25 AM (TRrnq)

6 "as decisively as a woman moving furniture around her living room" I'm shocked, Liberal Larry, shocked. How can you be so sexist? I'm calling the PC police. Men can be indecisive about furniture too!

Posted by: Amritas at August 19, 2004 07:27 AM (ZpAcY)

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Chrenkoff also digs up more evidence that Americans don't have a monopoly on dumb, as most of the world would like us to believe.

The other day my German co-worker was talking on the phone with her friend and saying how my other co-worker and I were glued to the computer looking for news about Iraq. "Hrumph," her friend said, "can they even find Iraq on a map?" My co-worker came to our defense and said, "They know their geography of Iraq better than they do of Germany!"

I get so tired of the "Americans can't do geography" junk. Sure, I've met an American who thought that the Ayatollah ruled Liberia, but I've met uninformed people in Europe too. I personally have had to explain where Afghanistan is to a German, and I've also had to teach a Canadian where the Berlin Wall was (she thought Berlin was in Russia). I've even had a fight with a Swede over how many states there are in the US (he kept insisting that we have 51, and the fact that I live there still wouldn't convince him otherwise!)

People all over the world are bad at geography and history, not just us.

MORE TO GROK:

Heh, when I read back over that, it looks like I'm saying Canada is in Europe. I know for a fact it isn't. The Canadian, however, was in Europe when I asked her, "Didn't you watch any TV at all in 1989?"

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According to Justin Vaisse, a French historian:

"Europeans are surprised to hear that John Kerry is talking about America the same way as George W. Bush does," the paper said. "They are amazed that at the Democratic Convention in Boston, he saluted like a soldier, one hand up at his temple. They would prefer not to hear it when Kerry promises that he would never hesitate to use force in case America is under threat. They are disappointed."

QandO has the rest.

Also check out what GEN Tommy Franks says about the Mission Accomplished banner, and how the AP takes Kerry to task for having vague plans on Iraq.

(All hat tips towards the Instapundit)

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Fascinating article via Ambient Irony, Hating America, about how Europe views the US through the lens of caricature. It's really long, and there are a million passages I could quote, but this made me chuckle:

Though fewer than 14% of Frenchmen have visited America, “most have strong views” of it; indeed, “Europeans who have not been in the U.S. . . . have the strongest opinions” about it, and malice toward America is inversely proportional to the amount of time individuals have actually spent there.

Conversely, I loved France and everything French until I actually lived there.

(And if you see the text as a mess of question marks, follow Pixy Misa's advice for changing the encoding.)

(P.S. I finally had enough time to sit down and read Pixy's post on Thought too.)

Posted by: Sarah at 08:12 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I just finished reading the gloomy and foreboding article The Terror Web (via LGF). If you can read that article and not think that the terrorist threat is real and frightening, then we have no common ground at all.

One passage from the article struck me in particular:

And yet, according to Spanish police officials, at the time of the Madrid attacks there was not a single Arabic-speaking intelligence agent in the country. Al Qaeda was simply not seen as a threat to Spain. “We never believed we were a real target,” a senior police official said. “That’s the reality.”

Where's the 3/11 commission report in Spain? Where's the Fahrenheit 3/11 movie to expose the ineptitude of Spanish intelligence and law enforcement? Where's the outrage that "The goverment lied; people died!" when Spain continued to blame the attack on the ETA long after they knew it smelled of Islamism?

Oh wait...nevermind.

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My German co-worker has insisted on several occasions that my American co-worker and I are much better off living in Europe than in the US because in Europe we're away from all the crime. Nevermind that my co-worker hails from Phoenix and I from central Illinois and that we've managed to steer pretty clear of crime. Nevermind that her view is skewed because her experience in the US is from living in Detroit. And nevermind that "the US is full of crime" is another one of those lore statements that people toss around. In fact, England is pretty much screwed. (If you just want the money quote, head to Rishon Rishon; the full set of articles can be found at Steyn Online.) And nevermind that the most dangerous place I've ever lived was my neighborhood in France, where kids threatened to rape us in the phone booths and public masturbation was the norm. Creepy stuff.

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My friend saw this here on German television, but I can't find any American news sources that are reporting on it. Apparently this question was posed to Kirsten Dunst:

Gefragt, was sie machen würde, wenn sie Spider-Mans Kräfte hätte, antwortete sie: "Bush töten!"

What would you do if you had Spiderman's powers? Her answer was "Kill Bush." Apparently the fact that Spiderman doesn't really have any "killing powers" is lost on Dunst.

Does this statement come a little close to threatening the president? I honestly don't know what the grey area is with that, but I sure know enough never to make a "kill the president" joke.

MORE TO GROK:

I also think it's funny that many people are lauding Spiderman 2 as a parable for our time and making connections between Parker's dilemma and President Bush's. Irony is so ironic.

Posted by: Sarah at 12:48 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Oh, and what's the deal with the weather? Last summer we had a heat wave that killed thousands of French grannies; this year it's the Ice Age. It's currently 54º in my neck of the woods. I am still wearing sweaters and knee socks. In July.

I told my husband today that it's a shame we can't average his temperature (currently 93º at midnight) with my 54º and have a nice happy medium.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:03 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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GIs and Germany: A long love affair may soon be over was in the Stars and Stripes yesterday.

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You know my interest in all things Swedish, so I found this comment on LGF very interesting. I'd be interesting in hearing Anders' view. Is Swedish "multi-culturalism" actually this rampant and extreme?

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I'm probably the only person who's thinking about Pim Fortuyn today, but something in Between War and Peace got me thinking. In 2002 my Swedish teacher was from the Netherlands, so when Fortuyn was killed it actually registered with me. I didn't follow it closely (this was back when I was fingers-in-ears), but I at least knew the basics of Fortuyn's controversial politics. Today I started trying to find out more about him and what happened. I read lots of stuff on this Pim Fortuyn Forum and also read that -- surprise, surprise -- Van der Graaf killed him "for the sake of The Netherlands' Muslim population". It's no lie that everywhere in the world that there's conflict, Muslims are somehow involved.

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Why didn't Erik and Ray invite me? Now that would be a reason to go back to France.

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Tim found a humdinger of a quote today:

I think all Americans would love their country if they had to live abroad for a while. -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

Amen. While living on a military post in Germany gives us Americans a taste of what Europe is like, there is no substitute for actually living the European life. And getting garbage thrown at you on the public bus. And having young boys threaten to rape you. And having your director of study abroad repeatedly tell you she hates the United States. And being banned from speaking English in the apartment you pay for by the couple who chose to host an exchange student. And being singled out and ridiculed by your teacher for daring to raise your hand and try to participate in class with your ugly American accent. And did I mention the garbage and the rape?

There was no day I loved the United States more than the day I left France.

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You know, I really should read Davids Medienkritik every day. It's a great blog. But the truth is, I can't stand to read it. I can't stand reading the bias and sanctimony that comes out of the country I live in. The country where my country pays rent, hires their citizens, and buys their goods and services. It makes me sick to know that we're still here when I read this and this. We need to go home as soon as possible.

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I don't know exactly why reading this at Medienkritik triggered something in my mind, but it did. Back when I was in my Swedish class, our teacher was trying to briefly explain the Swedish political parties to us. She drew a sort of spectrum line on the board and put the various parties along the line from left to right. Someone in our class asked where our American Republican and Democrats would fall on the Swedish spectrum; our teacher put the Democrats on the far right edge of the spectrum and said that the Republicans would be located in the next room. We all laughed.

But it's something to keep in mind. There's no such thing as my sort of thinking in Europe. Well, there are some Americans Born Elsewhere, but for the most part, everyone is to the left of me. My Swedish friend just this year met the very first Swedish person in her life who supports the death penalty. The very first one she's ever met. She's 25. In contrast, we were making a sample outline in my ENGL class the other day, using the generic topic of the death penalty as a sample, and when I asked if they wanted to make the sample as for or against, they shouted For! in unison. No question in their minds. On questions of the government's role in health care and social programs, no one can touch how far right I go. There's just no such thing over here, at least not that I understand (correct me if I'm wrong.)

On a related tangent, Tim wrote the other day about patriotism and flag-pride in other countries. While living in France, we bought the same Swedish friend a Swedish flag patch to sew onto her bookbag. She wore it while she was in France, but she said that it was a little weird to sport it in Sweden. I can't say if she's representative of other Europeans, but I can't think of any other country -- besides flag-drenched Canada -- where the flag means so much.

Our flag means so much that people everywhere burn it. That says something.

MORE TO GROK:

Awesome. A blog in Sweden! With links to other blogs in Sweden. Fantastic -- now I have a way to prevent my Swedish from being completely eaten up by my pathetic German. I'm having tons of fun going through his posts -- did you know that Hans Blix participated in a WMD joke on a Swedish talk show that sounds quite similar to the scenario that Bush got ripped a new one for? Dude, he's so blogrolled.

By the way, he says that there are right-leaning folks in Sweden, but they are even deeper in the closet than I am.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:31 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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So the first quote that I pull from Mexifornia has nothing to do with either Mexico or California. But it relates to something that happened here yesterday:

Europeans who drive their safe government cars to the beach, work seven hours a day, enjoy six to eight weeks off yearly, and have nearly all their medical problems, tuition, natal care and rest home worries taken care of by a maternal government see us as impoverished. Yet Americans find Europeans' tiny homes, solitary small cars, single televisions, and outrageously expensive food, clothes, entertainment and gasoline a real poverty that restricts the individual's ability to satisfy his cravings.

I honestly don't have that much interaction with Germans. I go to restaurants occasionally, but usually to the same ones over and over, and I have some German friends, but they're pretty Americanized (it's hysterical to be with a group of German women who are trashing Germany mercilessly.) I have never really had any run-ins with Germans, so I'm fascinated by the stories the Conflicted Reservist tells. He started working for the Germans about two years ago and has thus lost his support from the US military. He is engaged to a German and owns a house here and for all intents and purposes is living the German life. And he faces deep troubles with Germany and her citizens.

His neighbors won't let their kids play with his daughter because she's American. He tried to help a neighbor jump start his car once, and the neighbor refused his help, saying, "You're an American." Two weeks ago he had his motorcycle tires slashed by a German biker who growled "American" in his face. This Reservist is trying to fit in to the German world, and he's facing shocking opposition.

When we first moved here, my husband went to get his haircut and had to listen to the German barber go on about how the US doesn't have any real freedom because once she was at Walmart and wanted to try on bras in the middle of the store; security wouldn't let her, thus we have no freedom. Europeans might have more freedom to take their clothes off whenever they want, but there are other realms I'd rather have freedom in.

The Reservist's fiancee just had a baby last week. They went to get their new daughter's birth certificate, and they were told they cannot name their child what they want. First of all, the Germans wouldn't let them give the child the Reservist's last name since they're not yet married. Second of all, they won't let them name their daughter Haley Amber because it's not German-sounding. So their child doesn't have a name yet. Legally, the Germans can tell you what to name your children -- an appalling governmental control, in my opinion.

Just as we define poverty differently, as Mexifornia shows, we seem to cherish different expressions of freedom. The Germans may look at our inability to tolerate boobs in the Walmart as being one step away from a police state, but I see the inability to choose a child's name as a more important freedom that's being denied to this Reservist.

So the Reservist is fed up; he's moving to Spain.

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I had other things I wanted to write about this morning, but then I saw the results of voting in Spain. Via LGF I went over to Daily Kos and found this:

While I very much agree with Meteor Blades, that Stirling is providing the best stuff on the web about Madrid, I do disagree that this is a potential pattern for the U.S. In Spain, 90% of the populace opposed the war in Iraq as they, like the majority of Europeans, thought it would increase terrorism not decrease it, and the bombings confirmed this interpretation. In the US, alas, the majority still see Iraq as part of the war on terror and if a similar event happenened before the US election - god forbid - I think the response would be just the opposite, the need to intensify the fight and rally around the flag and vote Bush. Look what happened to Dean when he told the truth about Saddam's arrest not making America safer.

This commenter sees this as a bad thing, but I see it as the fundamental difference between Europe and America. Europe believes in appeasement and collectivist internationalism; the US believes in kicking ass and taking names. The Lefties at Daily Kos and many people my age are horrified by the US's "get 'er done" attitude, but I see it as the only way this fight will ever end.

I'm saddened to see one of our strong allies disappear. I'm sad that if they leave us out to dry in Iraq, I won't be visiting their country, and I'm a huge fan of southern Spain. But Spaniards have shown their priorities, and they don't jive with mine. Though, as Belmont Club said today, "Although many commentators have excoriated the Spanish electorate for its capitulation to terror, we must never forget that the slightly smaller half decisively rejected it. These we honor and the rest we pity."

Any future-Americans among that slightly smaller half?

MORE TO GROK:

Read Nelson Ascher.

And Porphyrogenitus and I have a cyclical back-patting going on. He's right, if I may paraphrase, that some Americans grok 3/11 like some Europeans grokked 9/11, but the vast majority just don't care.

Tom reminds us that this is what the electoral college is for.

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Bunker links to an article called "Why we still don't get it, one year on" by Mark Hertsgaard. He pulls out the more pertinent quote:

But the world doesn't hate us, the American people. It is our government, our military, and our corporations that are resented. To anyone living outside the US, this may seem an obvious point.

But to many people living inside the US, especially those who are proud to be American, this is not obvious. This ticks us off.

Being American is a choice, in a way that being French or Chinese or Norwegian never could be. It is a state of mind, an espousing of an ideology, and a label that defies race and ancestry. There are many people with US citizenship that aren't truly American in their thinking, and many people in other countries who are Americans waiting to happen. Being American has nothing to do with being born in a certain country, which is why Hertsgaard's quote makes no sense to me. In my mind, being American means wanting to be American and wanting to represent what our country stands for.

I know a woman here of Turkish descent who is the third generation in her family to be born on German soil. Her grandparents and parents all lived here in Germany. She's probably close to 30 years old. She just got her German citizenship. Third generation, finally recognized.

I also know a soldier from Paraguay who moved to NYC in 2002. He arrived knowing no English whatsoever and enlisted in the Army one year later. After Basic and AIT, he headed to Germany where he enrolled in our American History course at the education center. His desire to get an education and become an American has brought him headaches and tears, trying to read a chapter in the history book when he's taught himself English in 18 short months, but he works hard at it nonetheless.

Is this woman a German? She's known nothing but Germany her whole life, but she's obviously not been accepted as a citizen until quite recently. Is this soldier an American? You bet your ass he is. He might not have all the paperwork done yet, but he wears her flag on his right shoulder and he carries her spirit in his heart.

I've met soldiers with all sorts of accents; off the top of my head I can recall South American, African, Portuguese, Haitian, Polish, and Algerian. They've all made the choice to defend America and all she stands for, to proudly wear her uniform, and to accelerate their application for citizenship so that they can live and work in her cities. Would they bother to do this if being American had nothing to do with "our government, our military, and our corporations"?

When I was young and naive, I used to try to reason with people like Mark Hertsgaard. I tried to understand why the Swiss guy hated the USA when I was the first American he'd ever met. I tried to placate the Croatian who said he didn't want to speak to me anymore because we were bombing his hometown. I tried to understand how other Europeans could talk such trash about my country and not expect me to get offended. "Hey, it's not you we hate, it's your country; can't you see that?"

If you can look at these soldiers and not see how precious the USA is, then you don't grok. If you can't see that being American means making the choice to work with all different walks of life to make the best country we can be, then you don't grok. And if you can't see that Americans are who they are because of "our government, our military, and our corporations", then you truly don't grok.

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