We Denounce Your Denouncement!
For reasons that are unclear to me, the House's Foreign Affairs Committee has agreed that the Ottoman Empire's treatment of Armenians after Dubya Dubya The First was genocide. Well, close enough to actual (?) genocide so as to be tantamount to genocide. I think.
I'm not sure why this discussion even has to take place today, as opposed to anytime in the intervening 80 years between the events described and, say, the third Sunday in March, but that's where we are with it.
Predictably, the Turks are annoyed by this vote; Turkish PM Gul going so far as to call the decision "unacceptable" and their ambassador saying something about it damaging the Turkish psyche. Now that's pretty good stuff, but I will save discussion of the apparent ease with which a minor foreign government committee can send the entirety of the fragile Turkish consciousness into existential crisis another day.
What I keyed in on was the word "unacceptable", which got me thinking about other things that They have found "unacceptable" about Us. I'll start; feel free to add your own:
-Russia, and our complete Bill of Rights
-France, and our cheeseburgers
-The Entire Muslim World, and our sense of humor
-China, and our hippies
-Canada, and our everything
-England, and our iced tea
-Yemen, and our hot chicks
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Mexico, and our factories…
Mexico, and our factories
France, and our preeminent place in world politics
France, and the inexplicable yearning of its youth to watch our movies, smoke our cigarettes, wear our clothes, and listen to our music.
Israel, and our unwillingness to give them all our military technology for free.
Japan, and our nukes
You know, that's a funny thing about Israel. To call their domestic arms industry robust would be something of an understatement, especially when we include all aspects of R&D, be they gubmint or private efforts. Pretty impressive for a little splinter of scrubby desert.
Sure Israel gets alot of American military hardware and tech support. So does Egypt. A major difference though is that I think the latter would be hard-pressed to domestically produce a modern, viable weapons system. In other words, it's the Egyptians, or the Saudis, or the (insert state here) who arguably need the help; or, put another way, makes them perpetual customers in the international arms market.
Maybe that's one of the big complaints- the Joooz, strictly speaking, don't need the help.
And is it Israel's fault that the muslim world can't turn out a Merkava, Galil, or piece of martial equipment that's worth a f*ck?
Erm...what were we talking about again...?
To listen to the Muslims,…
To listen to the Muslims, the answer would be, "yes."
Part of our problem, vis a vis the entire rest of the world, is that we are so diverse. (Never mind that some complain about our lack of diversity - they're wrong.)
We are puritanical and lewd, violent and risk-averse, brilliant scientist and oafish redneck, etc. We contain multitudes, and one or more of them is sure to piss the hell out of someone, somewhere. We are offensive to everyone, and thanks to our world-spanning media, vivid color images of whatever offends thee will be broadcast right into your home.
Hell, before I cancelled the cable, America pissed me off almost daily.
Just this morning I was pissed off by a multiude of mouthbreathing asshole drivers.
The diversity of the drivers was noticeable, but their lack of diversity moreso- they were all drivers. And drivers, seemingly, united in their single purpose of thwarting me getting from A to B.
No reason in the world it should take a guy a half a goddamn hour to drive about 4 miles.
Erm...so, yeah. Whatever that has to do with furriners and whatnot, there you go.