Reach Out To Burma

Reach Out To Burma, originally uploaded by Expatriate Games.

Reach Out To Burma

Over fifty years of civil war have left Burma one of the poorest countries in the world. The military dictatorship attacks its own people, killing thousands, and leaving millions displaced.

Many in opposition are either imprisoned or killed. In most of the country there is a false peace due to the dictators' ability to control dissent, however in some ethnic areas the Regime’s army is still attacking the people. There are over 1 million internally displaced people, and over 1 million refugees who have fled the country. There is continual environmental destruction, an HIV/AIDS epidemic, the ongoing laying of landmines, human trafficking and religious persecution. www.2.free-burma.org/index.php

Uploaded by Expatriate Games on 19 Nov 07, 8.52AM PST.

Peace and Harmony to Burma & the World!!

peace and harmony to burma, originally uploaded by insashi.

This great shot by Insashi, a great artist & member on www.flickr.com

FREE Burma

FREE Burma, originally uploaded by insashi.

FREE Burma

When you try your best, but you don't succeed
When you get what you want, but not what you need
When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse
When the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

High up above or down below
When you're too in love to let it go
If you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Tears stream down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears stream down your face
And I...

Tears stream down on your face
I promise you I will learn from the mistakes
Tears stream down your face
And I...

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you


www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHqcHFkXArk

Uploaded by insashi on 11 Oct 07, 5.22AM PDT.
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This great shot by insashi, a great artist & member on www.flickr.com

Myanmar protest

Myanmar protest, originally uploaded by Burma Friend.

Myanmar protest

Burma army killed more than 500 staged protestor at midnight and arrested over 5000 including Buddhist monks.
Photo: Secret source for Narinjara News

Uploaded by Burma Friend on 4 Oct 07, 8.14PM PDT.

This great shot by Burma Friend, a rising star & member on www.flickr.com

Myanmar protest

Myanmar protest, originally uploaded by Burma Friend.

Myanmar protest

Burma army killed more than 500 staged protestor at midnight and arrested over 5000 including Buddhist monks.
Photo: Secret source for Narinjara News

Uploaded by Burma Friend on 4 Oct 07, 8.14PM PDT.

This great shot by Burma Friend, a rising star & member on www.flickr.com

Monks Are Silenced, and for Now, Internet Is too in Myanmar

Monks Are Silenced, and for Now, Internet Is too in Myanmar, originally uploaded by Luo Shaoyang.

Monks Are Silenced, and for Now, Internet Is too in Myanmar

Oct.3, it was about as simple and uncomplicated as shooting demonstrators in the streets. Embarrassed by smuggled video and photographs that showed their people rising up against them, the generals who run Myanmar simply switched off the Internet.

(Taken on May in Mt. Wutai - the well-know Buddhism mountain in China)

Uploaded by Luo Shaoyang on 4 Oct 07, 12.52AM PDT.
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Luo Shaoyang is a great artist & member on www.flickr.com

monks

monks, originally uploaded by Farl.

monks

Monks are revered in Cambodia, as in any other Buddhist countries. The robes automatically confer a certain level of spirituality to the wearer. Monks of late are becoming politicized as well, and activism, hopefully can bring about the right change.

the Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Kampuchea

Uploaded by Farl on 30 Sep 07, 1.23AM PDT.

This great shot by Farl, a great artist & member on www.flickr.com

free burma in fiery red

free burma in fiery red, originally uploaded by Kris Kros.

free burma in fiery red

Free blank "free burma" template in RED.

You may use this as your template. Thank you.

Get it HERE.

You may post your version on this thread.

Thank you.

Uploaded by Kris Kros on 30 Sep 07, 8.11AM PDT.

Buddhist Monks - Burma

Buddhist Monks - Burma, originally uploaded by Kathleen Andersen.

Buddhist Monks - Burma

One of the Flickr 500 for September 21, 2007.

I never make political comments on Flickr but I'll make an exception today. This photo is in support of the Buddhist monks' protest marches in Rangoon (Yangon) and other parts of Burma this week.

Sept 26th update. Sadly we're now getting news of monks' deaths. Let's hope this situation doesn't get totally out of control with even more deaths.

This photo was taken a few months ago at a Buddhist monastery in Rangoon and has nothing to do with this week's protests. However, the monks are now locked in this monastery, and guarded, along with all the other monks in the city.

This photo was linked to various Yahoo news articles hence the 7,000+ views.

Uploaded by Kathleen Andersen on 21 Sep 07, 2.41PM PDT.
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the shout

the shout, originally uploaded by Kris Kros.

the shout

The Shout of all Freedom Loving People Around the World!
FREE BURMA!!!

Time's An Eye in the Sky on Burma

On Friday Burma began to go dark. After days of the largest street protests since 1988, the ruling military junta cracked down, confronting and firing on civilians, reportedly sealing thousands of monks inside their monasteries. Lines of communication into the country were apparently being cut, with Internet cafes closed and web sites shut down, leaving Burmese exile groups and reporters starving for information.

But while the junta can control the street, the monasteries and even the web, they can't control the sky. On Friday the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), working with Burmese groups, released a new analysis of high-resolution satellite images that pinpointed evidence of human rights violations in the eastern Burma. For the first time in Burma, scientists were able to use orbital satellites to confirm on-the-ground reports of burned villages and forced relocations of civilians by the military. The technique has already been used to document human rights abuses in Zimbabwe and Darfur, but in Burma, a closed country that often seems like a modern-day version of Orwell's 1984, it's almost like turning Big Brother against itself. "We are sending a message to the military junta that we are watching from the sky," said Aung Din, policy director for the U.S. Campaign for Burma.

More from the source

Uploaded by Kris Kros on 29 Sep 07, 11.29AM PDT.

Serving the people？为人民服务？

Serving the people？为人民服务？, originally uploaded by Luo Shaoyang.

Serving the people？为人民服务？

October 1, will be China's 58th National Day! The background of the photo is Dictator Mao Zedong's handwriting five Chinese characters "serving the people"; foreground is the prospect of two soldiers armed with conventional weapons walked into the Xinhua Gate —— the front gate of the Chinese Communist Party’s Headquarter in Beijing.

Mao Zedong's death 30 years, China has also undergone tremendous changes within the last 30 years, but Chinese people are still living under the shadow of the dictator, and China is still a highly centralized authoritarian state. 1.3 billion Chinese citizens still live in the darkness of the "Social Democracy "——a democracy without political rights. However, it has been a long time since Chinese people raised a question: Is the party serving the people, or are the people serving the party?


再过几天就国庆节了，我想到了一件饶有趣的往事：我漫步在红砖绿瓦的西长安街上，路过雕龙绘凤的中南海新华门时，偶然看到政府衙门的卫兵在换岗，我即刻拿出了相机，当卫兵所持的那两把刺刀把“民”挟持在中间时，我往前走了四五米，冲进了门口的“黄线”，并按下了快门。不料一个探子随之走了过来严厉质问我： “你是干什么的？”我只好随机应变，用英语反问了他几句，他摸不着头绪，以为我是外国游客，便指着我身后的黄线意示我离开。

上图照片中的背景是雕刻在新华门前牌坊上毛泽东当年手写的“为人民服务”，前景是两位手持常规武器的军人走入新华门。毛泽东已去世三十年，中国在这三十年里也发生了巨大的变化，但中国人仍然生活在毛的阴影之下，而且中国仍旧是一个高度集权的专制国家。十三亿中国公民至今仍然生活在阴暗之处的“刀光剑影”之中，没有政治上的民主权利，而共产党也没有任何在除去他们量身定做的法律保障之下的群体或机构的监督，这就使一个问题浮出了水面：到底是共产党在为人民服务呢？ 还是人民在为共产党服务呢？

1945年黄炎培访问延安，在窑洞里与毛泽东谈话说：“我生六十多年，耳闻的不说，所亲眼看到的，真所谓其兴也浡焉’，‘其亡也忽焉’，一人，一家，一团体，一地方，乃至一国，不少不少单位都没有能跳出这周期率的支配力。中共诸君从过去到现在，我略略了解的了。就是希望找出一条新路，来跳出这周期率的支配。” 毛泽东听后几乎从座椅上跳了起来，大声嚷道：“我们已经找到新路，我们能跳出这周期率。这条新路，就是民主。只有让人民来监督政府，政府才不敢松懈。只有人人起来负责，才不会人亡政息。”

可是六十多年过去了，共产党建国到今天又已过了五十八年，老毛及中共所说的“民主”在哪里呢？连个影子都看不见。别说“让人民来监督政府，”就是共产党的干部们少拿人民的纳税钱养几个二奶，少出几个贪污犯；高级官员的王八子孙们不用特权谋取私利，不把国家当自己家，中国的老百姓就谢谢共产党了！


This great shot by Luo Shaoyang, a rising star & member on www.flickr.com

TERRORIST TACTICS, CENSORSHIP ON AN ANTI-CENSOR GROUP!!! GAIL ORENSTEIN BANNED-SHOULD YOU BE ABLE TO BAN PEOPLE FROM AN ANTI-CENSORSHIP GROUP? FREE-SPEECH DOES NOT LIVE ON FLICKR!! IF YOU COME TO MY SITE YOU ARE A PORN MONGER-BEWARE YOU ARE BEING TRACKED

TERRORIST TACTICS, CENSORSHIP ON AN ANTI-CENSOR GROUP!!! GAIL ORENSTEIN BANNED-SHOULD YOU BE ABLE TO BAN PEOPLE FROM AN ANTI-CENSORSHIP GROUP? FREE-SPEECH DOES NOT LIVE ON FLICKR!! IF YOU COME TO MY SITE YOU ARE A PORN MONGER-BEWARE YOU ARE BEING TRACKED, originally uploaded by NICE JEWISH GIRL.

TERRORIST TACTICS, CENSORSHIP ON AN ANTI-CENSOR GROUP!!! GAIL ORENSTEIN BANNED-SHOULD YOU BE ABLE TO BAN PEOPLE FROM AN ANTI-CENSORSHIP GROUP? FREE-SPEECH DOES NOT LIVE ON FLICKR!! IF YOU COME TO MY SITE YOU ARE A PORN MONGER-BEWARE YOU ARE BEING TRACKED

Photo-gail orenstien.

Yahoo! Up on 'Semel Is Out' Rumors

Yahoo! Terry Semel Is Out??

Yahoo! (YHOO-NASDAQ) is trading up about 2% in early trading on market rumors that Terry Semel is either out or on his way out. Is this true? Well, he didn't give this impression just last week and the company would have probably kept him from speaking too much if it was going to force Semel out. We have been pretty vocal about Terry Semel needing to leave. There was actually a point where he was the right guy at the right time, but that was a temporary issue and his value to the company was in the past. Semel came in at a time when the company needed someone with tenure and real world experience.

Can the above be true??

My opinion is that whatever the action of Yahoo! Board of directors took, the current Board member lack the solid credential to take the top job.

It is better for yahoo to find a season boomer Senior executives to run the Business.

In my opinion, there are too many in fighting in Yahoo. As many are eying the $1XXmillions a year job.

Updates On Censorship Issue On flickr

Flickr = Censorship

Flickr = Censorship, originally uploaded by Thomas Hawk.

The following is by Thomas Hawk:

Flickr = Censorship

[I'm CEO of Zooomr]

Well it is with great disappointment that I found myself yet again a victim of censorship on Flickr. Earlier today while engaging in a debate about Flickr's recent censorship in Germany I had over a dozen of my comments permanently deleted out of a debate by Flickr staff.

You can see the references to my involvement in the debate here and here among other places.

It's ironic that of all places that Flickr would choose to censor me would be in a thread protesting their censorship. And without any warning even or explanation.

This is not the first time I've been censored by Flickr.

The points that I was making in my debate about censorship on Flickr had a lot to do with what I see as problems at Yahoo. The fact that their CEO is the highest paid CEO in the United States, the fact that Yahoo 2 days ago rejected an important shareholder proposal denouncing censorship. And yes this most recent issue of censorship where people in Germany can only access Flickr in "safe mode."

Now some might say that it's not right for me as a competitor to Yahoo to be critical of their practices. But let me point you to the screen shot above. It comes from Flickr employee Dunstan Orchard's public zipline on Zooomr. Dunstan and other Flickr employees have been on Zooomr disparaging our site for the past week. So to me it seems a tad hypocritical that when I legitimately object to censorship on Flickr that I would have my words censored, while Flickr staff seems to feel that it's perfectly appropriate to disparage Zooomr over at Zooomr.

It's not right. And what Flickr doesn't understand is that by censoring your critic you only make him stronger. I'm sure it's probably only a matter of time before I get kicked off of Flickr entirely. All my photographs destroyed and deleted as well. Over 40,000 comments from many good friends.

This is the difference though between me and Flickr. When Dunstan and other Flickr employees disparaged Zooomr I let their words stand. Rather than censor them, I took the high road and did not. Meanwhile Flickr continues to build a name for itself: Flickr = censorship. Silencing me will not change this and it's a sad state of affairs to see happen to the Flickr that I once loved so much and that even now professes to "love me" on the little icon above my page.

Censorship is borne out of fear and weakness. This is something always to remember.

Uploaded by Thomas Hawk on 14 Jun 07, 3.24AM PDT.
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The following is my comments:


I have been a supporter of flickr like TH all along. Although I have a Zooomr account, but I am not too active.

To me, These events are a history repeated by itself of flickr-Yahoo.

Yahoo - flickr = Yahoo!

TH is a user of flickr. However, flickr have the Supreme God & goddess. Whom decide who should be censored; block or deleted...etc.

I have experience that since Sept 29, 2005 till today.

To me flickr is a great photo management community, but over time the Power - politics seem to be happening in both internal & external which are the "customers".

If the management on the top is assuming the imperialism management or authoritarian style then e-gangsterism or e-hooliganism would born naturally.

TH is good heart by sounding out for flickr to improve. It means well & good. However, that is not really appreciated as my earlier experiences.

Perhaps it is the same as what I have been served & f-team God think that it is a threat to their existence.

Especially, TH have commented at his own flickr. Which they have the power to do what they want. Anytime a violating the TOS can just created. & then they can exercise their power.

flickr junior staffs messing at Zooomr site are totally un-professional in the web2.0 era.

In my opinion, Yahoo CEO Terry Semel should need to come forward to the front to assume the leadership to iron out those censorship issue including Germany, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea & also those blockage, suspensions, deletions, harassments; oppressions; bully to the Yahoo customers..etc. before it is too late.

NICHT MIT UNS!

NICHT MIT UNS!, originally uploaded by HamburgerJung.

NICHT MIT UNS!

flickr sperrt uns aus! Und auch dich!
Seit gestern werden für deutsche Nutzer keine Bilder mehr angezeigt, die als 'moderate' oder 'restricted' markiert sind! Es gibt keine Möglichkeit das umzustellen - das ist eine grobe Unverschämtheit und Frechheit von flickr!

Lade dieses Bild runter und poste es in deinem Account! Lass uns das Bild überall auf flickr verteilen und es in 'Interestingness' heben!! So geht es nicht!

Original Version: farm2.static.flickr.com/1299/543864623_7aadef1e69_o.jpg

Weitere Infos:
- www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/91085
- www.flickr.com/groups/404938@N23/discuss/72157600347681500/
- www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/42597/
- www.flickr.com/groups/keine_zensur/
- www.flickr.com/groups/againstcensorship

If your Yahoo! ID is based in Singapore, Germany, Hong Kong or Korea you will only be able to view safe content based on your local Terms of Service so won’t be able to turn SafeSearch off. In other words, german users can not access photos on flickr that are not flagged "safe" ... only flowers and landscapes for germans ...Copy and upload this picture to your account - show flickr who we are!

Uploaded by HamburgerJung on 13 Jun 07, 10.09AM PDT.

The Wheel That Gengiskhan Used

The Wheel That Gengiskhan Used, originally uploaded by CharlieBrown8989.

My research into the history is that , he bring along the carpenters, Smith; masons; technicians, architects; cooks; animals & birds; weapon & bomb scientists; chicken in his missions. These skill & knowledgeable people are taken from Middle kingdom then the Sung Dynasty.

He have a language adviser from Persia; A business consultant from Italy; the strategies & his Guru of Dao from China; a group of Lama from Tibet.

So all the tools never fall short!!

Gengiskhan rewrite the history of the Mongolian history & assume the leadership of the changing culture.

From my research, Mongolian or the Beijing Ren have trans immigrating in uni-directional to the whole world.

Then with the lack of the science & technology, language & business culture, the early human lost their root of origin.

Weather conditions; water; food; diet terrains further define the difference of the feature of individual & people in the location where they lives.

With the earth axis have change for about 5 times & the recent era of the earth plate formation. that further define the early man lives in the present world.

50,000 years before the present civilization in China, India, Egypt, Greece; Babylon there already have the early men culture. These also applied to the Mayan race in central & South America.

Gengiskhan have recruited the Chinese & Indian; physicians; mathematicians, astrologers; teachers; I believes that he also have a teacher from Babylon a jewish to work on the Mongolian characters.

He also bring in the Buddhism from as the national religion of Mongolia.

The leadership of Gengiskhan was quoted in my paper on the

"Creating Excellence New Philips Corporate Culture!!"

One of the first signs that marked the end of Colonialism

One of the first signs that marked the end of Colonialism, originally uploaded by *Hurricane Hilda*.

This is the Statue of the Late Stamford Raffles, The British colony official who signed the lease agreement with Temengong the then King of Johor in Malaya.

He is a visionerist that who foresee the strategic position of Singapore geographical location.



This great shot by *Hurricane Hilda, a rising star & member on www.flickr.com

Oxford University Debate! 'Regret the Founding of America'? A raucous debate in front of a packed house, the motion - "this House regrets the Founding of America" - overwhelmingly squashed. "Its easy to find those who disagree with its current direction"

Oxford University Debate! 'Regret the Founding of America'? A raucous debate in front of a packed house, the motion - "this House regrets the Founding of America" - overwhelmingly squashed. "Its easy to find those who disagree with its current direction", originally uploaded by gailorenstein.

It is no point to regret on already happening.

Looking at the falls of Imperialism of the European kingdom & The falls of the Asian Kingdoms.

That is folloing the:



CharlieBrown8989 says:

In according to Dao of Nature.

Union & Independence is Nature!!

Just Like Yin & Yang!!


According to the Gotama:

Every Seeing & Un-Seeing beings have & will have the following Noble Truth :

Birth

Growth

Decay

Death!!

Oxford University Debate! 'Regret the Founding of America'? A raucous

Oxford University Debate! 'Regret the Founding of America'? A raucous debate in front of a packed house, the motion - "this House regrets the Founding of America" - overwhelmingly squashed. "Its easy to find those who disagree with its current direction", originally uploaded by gailorenstein.

This is a interesting report.

I suggest that you read over.

Then I shall futhre comments later!!

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Posted 7 hours ago. ( permalink )
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CharlieBrown8989 says: name reply / icon reply

I regret dumping of prisoners; imperism-opponents; convicts .....in New Foundlands!!

I regret Sign-off the Independance Rights for the British Colonies!!

I regret declaration on the Fall of The B. Empire!!


The list would be endless.......


Oxford University Debate! 'Regret the Founding of America'? A raucous debate in front of a packed house, the motion - "this House regrets the Founding of America" - overwhelmingly squashed. "Its easy to find those who disagree with its current direction"

Photo-Gail orenstein.

BBC- Last Updated: Wednesday, 2 May 2007, 11:40 GMT 12:40 UK

How many ideas has the US allowed to flourish that would otherwise have withered on the vine?

I am happy to report to you that the Oxford Union, in its infinite wisdom, has allowed America to continue existing.

After a raucous debate in front of a packed house, the motion - "this House regrets the Founding of America" - was overwhelmingly squashed.

My colleague Jonah Goldberg, from the National Review, made a witty and punchy case for the birthright of America, lambasting the Union for a motion that "sounded like a bad joke".

Peter Rodman, a former US assistant secretary of defence, entered the fray with patrician aplomb and, for what it's worth, this was some of my contribution to joust for the country where I keep my toothbrush and pay my taxes:

It is very easy to find Americans who disagree with its current direction. But you'll be hard pressed to come across those who regret its very existence in a fit of collective self-annihilation. The confusion of one with the other strikes me as the fundamental flaw of this motion.

Let's say you didn't need to regret the founding of America, because it had never been founded. How different might our lives look? We would not be listening to George Bush's fluent Texan. We would never have had the benefit of Donald Rumsfeld one-liners or clogged our arteries on a Big Mac.

But what music would we be listening to on our iPods? Would it be German marching songs or Russian ballads? Would we even have an iPod?

Yes, the beloved iPod was designed by a British citizen, Jonathan Ive, a son of Chingford, Essex. But would his design have changed the world of music if it hadn't been for Apple, an American company, based in Cupertino, California?

Freedom to dream

So much for iPods... what about ideas? How different would the world be without the Bill of Rights? What about Thomas Jefferson?


It's hard to imagine life without TV series like the Sopranos

The Declaration of Independence was the quintessential treatise of self-determination. If America had never been founded it would have remained unwritten. And who can imagine life without the Dumb Waiter, another Jefferson innovation?

The list goes on and on (and I apologise for any omissions): Thomas Edison, who had 1,093 patents for inventions in his name; Henry Ford; the Wright brothers; Bill Gates; the Boeing corporation; Desperate Housewives; The Sopranos and, of course, SpongeBob SquarePants.

As a TV correspondent, I would be out of a job. The television was invented over decades by a German, a Brit and a Russian but their ideas all came together in the middle of Middle America.

The United States created an environment in which inventive minds had access to easy credit, a willing market and the freedom to dream and create without fear of prosecution or recrimination.

As the writer and poet John Ciardi put it: "The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself"!

Europe's offspring

If we regret the founding of the US we regret a thoroughly European creation. If George III hadn't been as mad as a hatter, if the Redcoats had been more in touch with the feelings of His Majesty's subjects in the colonies, the English colony of Jamestown might never have given way to Yorktown, where 174 years later the English crown was finally defeated in the War of Independence.


There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America

Bill Clinton

To be against the founding of America is not to be original but to continue a long line of misguided bigots who always resented the birth of the US. In the late 18th Century, the eminent Dutch scientist Cornelius De Pauw wrote that everything from America was "either degenerate or monstrous". He was considered the foremost expert on the New World of his time and, like many critics of America, he never went there once.

Then there's the Oscar Wilde quip, plagiarised by former French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau: "America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilisation". Anti-Americanism is as old as America and it continues to miss the point.

America did not come from nowhere. It was an offspring of Europe, the step-child of a corrupt, moribund post-feudal system. America encapsulated the principles of the Enlightenment - Liberty, Equality, Fraternity - wrapped them in the pursuit of happiness, underpinned them with an inalienable right and turned an IDEA into a country.

It took the missteps of the French and the English revolutions and it made them work.

Yes, there were terrible mistakes - the gross hypocrisy of slavery, segregation and McCarthyism, to name a few. But America found and keeps finding the solutions to its mistakes. It is a giant, rolling social experiment in constant pursuit of self-correction. As Bill Clinton once said: "There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America."

In America the idea was ragged, rough and imperfect but it kept growing, it kept evolving and, if this isn't a vote of confidence, it kept attracting people, millions of them - Dutch pilgrims, Russian Jews, persecuted Egyptians, hungry Mexicans, uprooted Kurds, homeless Armenians, unloved and underpaid British film stars, now luxuriating in Hollywood. Ask them if they regret the founding of America!

Real promise

The US is a nation built not on ethnicity, not on religion, not even on history but on an idea.


Many Americans see Guantanamo detentions as a big mistake

Not only does this make America different, I would argue it also makes it ideally suited for the 21st Century. We live in a globalised world in which national boundaries are less and less relevant and the citizenship of ideas is more and more defining.

Al-Qaeda also strives for a world without borders, a trans-national entity based on ideas, which a majority of Muslims find as unpalatable as we do. So, ask yourself and be honest: where would you rather live - the Caliphate or California?

We Europeans created America and to regret this is to engage in a colossal act of self-denial verging on self-mutilation. We have a stake in its survival and its success and we ought to nurture it, not bring it to its knees or delight in its misfortunes. We can criticise its leaders without regretting its existence.

The reality of America may be vexing, frustrating, infuriating and puzzling but its promise is no less real and, given the right voice, should be no less inspiring.

Guantanamo Bay, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and yes, so many aspects of the war in Iraq, were big mistakes. But these are aspects of current foreign policy, not part of the nation's DNA. They are lamented as much inside the US as outside. And that too speaks for America!

To quote the Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington: "America is not a lie; it is a disappointment." But what is worse than being disappointed? It is not even to know what you're missing.


Source- news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6613861.stm

Uploaded by gailorenstein on 2 May '07, 10.47pm PDT.


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