America: The Good Neighbor

[Keefe]

This, from a Canadian newspaper, is worth sharing.

America: The Good Neighbor.

Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable
editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television
commentator.  What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as
printed in the Congressional Record: "This Canadian thinks it is time to
speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the east
appreciated people on all the earth.  Germany, Japan and, to a lesser
extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the
Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in
debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its
remaining debts to the United States.  When France was in danger of
collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward
was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw
it.  When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that
hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by
tornadoes.  Nobody helped.  The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped
billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those
countries are writing about the Decadent, warmongering Americans. I'd like
to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the
United States dollar build its own Airplane. Does any other country in the
world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or
the Douglas DC10?  If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the
International lines except Russia fly American Planes?  Why does no other
land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk
about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios.  You talk about German
technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy,
and you find men on the moon - not once, but several times -and safely home
again.  You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the
store window for everybody to look at.  Even their draft-dodgers are not
pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless
they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa
at home to spend here.  When the railways of France, Germany and India were
breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the
Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned
them an old caboose. Both are still broke.  I can name you 5000 times when
the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me
even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't
think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.  Our
neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of
hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their
flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the
lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not
one of those."

I am very sorry for the attack on WTC and Pentagon, but most of the statements made in this post are not completely true, or just plain wrong. to say that no airlines, except eastern european airlines, operates anthing but US aircraft is not true at all. the european Airbus company is a _major_ threat to Boeing, and the Americans did not manage to build SST airliners like the Concorde and the Russian TU 144.
this was just one example of the errors and "only partly true" statements in this post.
So, again, I am sorry for your loss, but please try to understand and know history before making such bold statements and putting other countries down.

Regards
Eivind Lunde
Oslo, Norway

Get your head out of your ass. This statement is years old and the Airbus was not even flying yet. And it says right in it "besides russia".

This statement and your comments go to show how under appreciated America is. You pick out parts that you can dispute - but you can't dispute the fact that Americans have hurried to aid of others over 5000 times - and noone has ever tried to aid them.

You also can't dispute the fact of the billions of dollars other countries owe the Americans - though America even when times are tough will never ask for the money back.

Get your head out of your ass. This statement is years old and the Airbus was not even flying yet. And it says right in it "besides russia".
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yes, I have read that, but it is still not true.
the french firm Sud Aviation sold 20 of their Caravell jet airliner planes to the U.S. United Air Lines in 1960, and the type were operated by many airlines all over the world and several hundred of these planes were made.
the supersonic TU144 and Concorde both flew before 1970, and the Boeing SST project were put on hold, probably because it was too expensive to pursue after the Concorde had beaten them to it.
so to say that the europeans can`t make aeroplanes is just arrogant.
and remember the Soviets leading the way into space in the 50`s and 60`s with Sputnik and Juri Gagarin?
the US of A did everything they could to catch up, and succeeded in the late 60`s. America is a very resourceful country, and if you decide to do something you will eventually succeed, but there`s smart people in every country around the globe, not just USA.

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This statement and your comments go to show how under appreciated America is. You pick out parts that you can dispute - but you can't dispute the fact that Americans have hurried to aid of others over 5000 times - and noone has ever tried to aid them.
----------------------

that many people hate America is obvious after tuesdays tragic event, but most of the western world have very good relations with the U.S. and we thankfully remember the aid we got after WW2. but have you ever stopped to think about why many people dislikes the U.S?
can you understand that people living in Latin America hates the U.S after suffering under U.S backed dictatorships where civillians were being tortured and killed by people trained and equipped in the U.S.A?
Senator Joseph Kennedy said this about the so-called "The School of the Americas ":
"Our country," Kennedy says, "has taught those soldiers how to create suffering amongst the poorest people of Latin America....[The SOA training] manuals taught tactics that come right out of a Soviet gulag and have no place in civilized society."

when you understandably feel anger towards the terrorists who killed all those people in the WTC, can you then understand the anger some people have against the U.S.A?

some people estimate that about 1 million children have died as a result of the sanctions against Iraq, even though you might feel the sanctions justified, don`t you think the parents of a dead child in Iraq will feel the same hatred towards America that you feel now?
is an American life more worth than one in Columbia, England or Egypt?

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You also can't dispute the fact of the billions of dollars other countries owe the Americans - though America even when times are tough will never ask for the money back.
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I have never said that this is untrue, but America is not alone in doing this.
most, if not all, industrialized country`s give aid to the underdeveloped ones without asking for their money back. many countries give a bigger percentage of their National Income than the U.S does. and America also own the U.N about one billion dollars.

To conclude this long posting: I am not saying America is a worthless country of idiots, but please be a bit more polite towards other countries, because if you go behind the headlines you`ll see that things are not as black and white as they may seem...

Regards
Eivind Lunde

"and America also own the U.N about one billion dollars."

We will pay them when they pay us back for the billions in military aid we alone offer.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-304es.html

We will pay them when they pay us back for the billions in military aid we alone offer.
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I would say you get quite good value for money as you get to veto any thing you don`t agree with, and it seems the income generated by U.N in the U.S is not that bad  either.

here are some numbers:

The USA's share of the UN's regular budget for 1999 is $298 million -- the equivalent of $1.11 per American. Tiny San Marino, by comparison, pays $4.26 per citizen to the UN.

The total cost of all UN peacekeeping operations in 1998 was some $907 million -- the equivalent of less than .5 per cent of the US military budget, and less than 0.2 per cent of global military spending.

The top seven contributors to the UN are the USA (25%); Japan (17.98%); Germany (9.63%); France (6.49%); Italy (5.39%); the United Kingdom (5.07%); and Russia (2.87%). Collectively, they account for more than 72% of the regular UN budget.

The United States -- whose citizens hold more UN Secretariat jobs than any other Member State, as well as the top posts at UNICEF, the World Bank, the World Food Programme, the International Court of Justice and the Universal Postal Union -- owes more in unpaid assessments, both past and current, than any other Member State: $1.6 billion.

Of the $318 million in procurements approved by the UN Secretariat in New York in 1998, American companies got 31 per cent of the business, or $98.8 million. Of the $2.9 billion in goods and services purchased by the entire UN system in 1997, US companies received $404 million, or 14 per cent, of the business, nearly three times as much as any other country.

The UN, its agencies and the diplomatic and consular corps contribute $3.2 billion a year to the economy of the New York City area alone, according to Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. That has generated 30,600 jobs, yielding $1.2 billion in annual earnings.

and this is interesting news:

U.S.: Washington Expected To Pay U.N. Dues After Attacks; More
Following Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the United States, U.S. Representative Tom DeLay yesterday dropped his opposition to a $582 million U.S. payment of back dues to the United Nations.  DeLay, the House of Representatives' Republican whip, said he "is not going to be obstructionist" to President George W. Bush as Bush seeks foreign support after the attacks, adding that the payment question will be "taken care of next week."

Regards

Eivind Lunde

cranky man....

"Claims that the United States owes the United Nations more than $1 billion are false. No legal debt exists or can exist. The UN Charter does not empower the organization to compel payment from any member state.

Even the notion that the United States owes money in the sense of a moral obligation is fallacious. It ignores the military and other assistance that the Clinton administration has provided the UN and for which the United States has not been properly credited or reimbursed. Over the past five years, that assistance has amounted to at least $11 billion, and perhaps as much as $15 billion. The administration has been diverting funds from federal agencies, especially the Department of Defense, to the United Nations.

Allegations of debt have distracted attention from a disturbing administration policy of providing resources, personnel, and equipment to the UN without the advance approval of Congress. In effect, the administration and the UN have been conducting important elements of U.S. foreign and military policy and bypassing Congress's power of the purse. That tendency raises grave constitutional concerns.

Because of the work of Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) on the debt issue, Congress is now aware of the situation and has an opportunity to reassert its constitutional authority. Bartlett has authored legislation to prevent payment of any alleged debt to the United Nations until all U.S. assistance to that organization is factored into the financial relationship. That approach would help restore the constitutional balance between the executive and legislative branches and put the United Nations on notice that it does not have an automatic claim on resources of the U.S. Treasury."

Looks more like they owe us 14 billion. hmm?