Cowboy is often used as an insult by Europeans, they seem to think we would take it that way, they might as well say something like stop acting like a man of character. It makes as much sense to American ears. When we hear the words cowboy or sheriff, this is what we think about, most of us over 30 anyway.

So this is how the lunatic fringe left expresses it's displeasure at our president, and by extension to us as well. They can say that "no, really, we like America, we just want your leader to die" as often as they like and it still comes across exactly as it sounds. It's an insult and beneath the dignity of a world power, You can imagine the reaction of the British left if their man of choice was burned in effigy on the Washington Plaza. They would be offended, insulted and wouldn't really care if every other speaker said we really "love" the UK, but you idiots elected a monster. A backhanded disclaimer is worse than a direct slur.

From even before our founding as a nation, the Brits never understood who we were, or what they were dealing with. With events like this I doubt they ever will.

There were and are exceptions certainly, Churchill understood, and Blair seems too. Various writers at various times have been very perceptive about us, strangely though those resources never seem to be accepted by the British left.

Our symbols tell our story.

Merely symbols yes, but they are uniquely our own. There is no Cockney counterpart to the Duke, no British version of The Shootist. There can't be, because we aren't the same, and they should stop thinking we wish to be just like them, because we don't. We chose a different path over two centuries ago, and haven't looked back.

We fought the greatest army in Europe to a bloody stalemate, then to victory, defeated their best generals. We did this when we were tiny and weak, barely a nation at all. That experience colored much of our history. We have refused limits, denied constraints from outside, and had the stones to make it stick. In all our history the only limit to our power and reach has been the restraints that we have placed on ourselves. When we stepped out from Europe's shadow, they spent a century pretending it was all just a big mistake, a hoax. They expected us to fail, to come crawling back, that we succeeded beyond all expectations was a rather rude shock to them. We are a mongrel race to them, they've said as much. Talented tinkerers and businessmen, but not serious players. We had no nobles, no ruling class, no cultural bias against change. We just didn't conform to their rules of class and culture.

The 20th century saw that dynamic change. The first global war, where we broke a stalemate that had ravaged Europe, a generation later when we emerged from the carnage of another European disaster the most powerfull nation on earth forever switched roles between the US and Europe. They can't seem to forgive us for that. As much as it pains them, the fact is we don't really want the job. We have inherited the position of hyperpower from the failures of the Europeans to succeed and to cope with the new world. The price is too high, and the Honors lacking, we would rather see another benevolent power assume the burden........

Just somebody point one out that could do it.

It becomes a simpler matter in that we just have no one we trust enough, or is strong enough to assume the mantle. There is nobody else.

9/11 came and the dynamic changed again. We were just beginning to lull ourselves into thinking that the big fights were all over, that we could coast for awhile. The smoking craters of New York, Washington and Pennsylvania showed us different. As bad as Pearl Harbour was, it was a military defeat. 9/11 was different, very different. They didn't attack our military, they murdered our citizens, .......men, women, children..........All sacrificed to the delusions of a dead culture based on past glories and blood fueds. A culture of spite and resentment. A culture that very often, finds common ground with the faded Empires of a selfneutered Europe, talking tough, but ashamed at it's lack of global power. The fall of the Soviets added to the mix. Western leftists found themselves cut adrift, cast off as the freed people of the Warsaw Pact soundly rejected their beloved path and came to embrace America as the only real opponent to what had enslaved them for so long. They haven't forgiven us for that either.

In esscense we are facing the bitter remnants of failed regimes, failed cultures. The more astute in Europe percieve that hating America for everything is irrational and short sighted. That success can only come from their own doing, not from our failure, .......and they're being drowned out by clowns with buckets of red paint.

So be it, their blindness to reality just ensures that they will continue to fail. That's their choice.

If they really want to ask a relevant question, it isn't why is America hated? It's why are they so bitter and angry? Why do they insist on trying to succeed by tripping us when they should be trying to run faster instead?

I see it this way, in the end we will succeed because we have no choice. Failure to win the War on Terror, the War in Iraq will put our children at risk, it will damn our people to being targets of oppurtunity by a bastard death cult patted on the head by halwitted losers from the west. We will win because we can't fail and still live our lives. We will win because we don't know how to crawl, won't learn and refuse to be taught. Understand that about us if nothing else.

I'm truely sorry so many in Britain have learned to crawl on their bellies. Have learned to deflect their own prejudices on us. Have learned to turn a blind eye to horror because they won't let go of a failed idea. They were stronger than that once, ...........in the past.........Blair knows what we can accomplish, what we wish too. Is he the only Brit to remember what it is to be proud,.......to do the right thing?

I hope not.

Whatever the outcome we fight on. Our critics will just have to get over it. As to the War on Terror? .......".You called down the thunder".

Be careful what you ask for.