"America has long proclaimed this principle, but in the post-Sept. 11 era, it has pursued it with unusual zeal and determination. Much of the world hears America declare the spread of freedom the centerpiece of its foreign policy and insists nonetheless that America's costly sacrifices in Iraq and even Afghanistan are nothing more than classic imperialism in search of dominion, oil, pipelines or whatever such commodity most devalues America's exertions. The overwhelming majority of Americans refuse to believe that.
Whatever their misgivings about the cost and wisdom of these wars, they know how deep and authentic is the American devotion to liberty.
Many around the world find such sentiments and the accompanying declarations hard to credit. Europeans, in particular, with their long tradition of realpolitik, cannot conceive of a Great Power actually believing such hopeless idealism.
The skepticism is misplaced. It is not just that brave Americans soldiers die to permit Iraqis and Afghans to vote for the first time in their lives. There is evidence closer to home and of older pedigree. The skeptics might take a stroll through America's other great capital. Up New York's Sixth Avenue with its series of seven sculptures to Latin American leaders, culminating at Central Park with magnificent statues of Bolivar, Marti and San Martin. To Washington Square Park, where they will find the Italian revolutionary Garibaldi, while his more republican counterpart, Mazzini, resides along West Drive not very far from Lajos Kossuth, now of Riverside Drive, hero of the Hungarian revolution of 1848.
This is not for show. It is from the heart, the heart of a people conceived in liberty and still believing in liberty. How can they not? It is written in stone all around them."
Um, Charles? The statues in NYC? They were erected for and by the various ethnic groups that were allowed to do so because every good politician knows the benefit of something really-really written in stone. The people remember who gave the okay, who herded it through the various committees that take several years and more to decide upon switching to a different sort of parking meter so as not to upset the aesthetics of a particular neighborhood.
Yes indeed, it is to our tribute that we remember the greats of other countries, but let's not forget the REAL reasons these tributes were allowed to happen in the first place.
As a descendant of Garibaldi...my great-grandfather had one of his walking canes...I kinda have heard of this stuff my entire life so it's okay that Charles gets all teary-eyed and doesn't understand the real deal.
It's even better that way. No one is ever happy to learn there is no Santa Claus.
Anyhoot, read all of what Charles has to say, please do.
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