Between cheese-eating surrender monkeys and fire-eating war junkies
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1813593,00.html
Conservative America celebrated July 4 as a country at war; the July 7
anniversary here reveals a very different attitude
Timothy Garton Ash in Stanford
Thursday July 6, 2006
The Guardian
Having just returned to America after a year's absence, I'm pondering
this question: Why is it that the United States, which has not suffered
a major terrorist attack at home for more than four years, thinks it's
at war, while the United Kingdom, which was hit by a major terrorist
attack just a year ago, does not?
The evocation of war is omnipresent in the US. Turn on Fox News and you
find a war veteran recounting his experiences on Hill 805 in Vietnam.
At one point he says: "I had the privilege of storming the machine
gun". The privilege. Walk into the Stanford University bookstore and
you find a special display marked "Salute Our Heroes. 20% Off Select
Patriotic Titles". Imagine that in your local Waterstone's.
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