We All Are Americans

I first became aware of Dominic Hilton's article on openDemocracy forum, "Fashionable anti-Americanism," via dogblogger. Having given it ample thought, I decided not to deal with it; I am providing the link so anybody who cares can read it and smile a bitter smile. I can't even bother to laugh. In the meantime, my thinking about writing a paragraph or two against the thesis that George W. can be safely compared to Hitler was intercepted by the discovery (via Loxias) of that awesome site with US soldiers' Iraqi memories: I was speechless for several hours. And the essence of what I was thinking was not the same afterwards.

Today, the President of the Free World, protected by at least 150 special agents flown in from the US, thousands of Belgian police and undercover agents, whole brigades of NATO troops, AWACS, radar stations, satellites, nuclear submarines, countless squadrons of military jets patroling European skies and, last but not least, specially trained police dogs, is visiting His European subjects. The twenty-five "leaders" of the European non-Federation States have been summoned to their quasi-capital, Brussels, to play their part in this Hollywood-inspired and State Department executed multi-million dollar production.

High on the President's agenda(s) are topics such as the Middle East (this is a diplomatic way of saying 'Israel' without saying it), Iran and Ukraine. Kyoto appears to be a word outside the President's vocabulary; already this morning, in a short chat He had with Hotel Brussels' chef (the guy bears the pompous title "Prime Minister of Belgium"), the President dismissed mention of Kyoto and repeated His faith in the cutting-edge US technology which takes care of such matters irrespective and outside international law (well, it's not certain that He used the word 'law' as Gonzalez was not reported among the team of near-500 advisors accompanying the President, not to mention a plane-load of journalists).

The subjects' priorities slightly differ: they plan to touch upon such insignificant topics as the Dollar, the Balkans, China and the arms embargo, and diplomatic initiatives to defuel potential crises, such as in Iran. Some of these topics are highly offensive to the President; one could well doubt the simoultaneous interpreters would bother translate from the French or German as the President clearly couln't care less. Indeed, one could wonder whether anything translated would be comprehensible, as the new rules of American English proper pronunciation have not been mastered by European interpreters yet. Most likely, this will be the reason the Round Tables will resemble the Tower of Babel. At least the American journalists (who are definitely not gay, much less gay-whores) will get the opportunity to network with some nice, fresh Eurocrats from Latvia, Poland or the Czech Republic.

Nonetheless, the historic city of Brussels will provide a beautiful, quiet backdrop to all the ceremonial festivities: it is snowing (how romantic), all EU employees have been given a couple of days off (for security reasons), most of the city is off-limits to traffic (including public means). The President needs all the serenity He can get in order to keep His composition and deliver appropriate speeches to his subjects' representatives. Depending on the audience, He will address them as "allies" or "partners" or "friends from time immemorial". The underlying motto will surely be "We are All in This together" -- 'this' receiving no further elaboration.

Oh, we Europeans love it when our President pays a visit to the old lands.

Illustration "Tweedledum" by naomi pie, without permission (I lost the link) but with thanks!