Knew I'd forgotten something.

> * I don't understand the idea that France "owes us."

Along with this, I'd like to try and clarify why Europe may seem "ungrateful." It's true that the United States was a major force in ending World War II for the Allies (how the war would've turned out without us is a source of much speculation, some interesting, but all inconclusive). We also helped rebuild Europe after the war, and we shouldered much of the cost of the military build-up against the USSR. This has allowed Europe to thrive economically, since the United States has paid a disproportionate amount of the West's defense bill for the past half-century, so to speak.

At the same time, this has not come without some losses for Europeans. First and foremost must be a sense of loss of autonomy. Fifty years of having American military bases abroad and our soldiers stationed in foreign countries is likely to do that. While I imagine that many Europeans are grateful for our support, it is not difficult to understand why they might also resent our presence. How many Americans would be entirely happy if Canada was allowed to establish a military base on American soil, even if it was to help protect us?

Beyond this, American foreign policy has not been particularly cohesive. Since control of foreign policy is so heavily invested in our president, who changes at least every eight years, the United States tends to seem contradictory in some of our policies. Every democratic country is prone to this, but when our foreign policy is so visible (since we have much more influence than any other country), I think we get burned by it more. Particularly, our choices as to when to get involved militarily in internal struggles abroad seem rather random sometimes.

It's also a problem when presidents change foreign policies. Look at how the U.S. has handled Iraq since the '70s and how incredibly inconsistent it's been. Part of it has been changing regimes in Iraq and Iran, but our different presidents have played a role in it. Heck, the differences between Bush I, Clinton and Bush II are like night-and-day. While there are explanations for our actions (not all of them good), they require a lot of knowledge about U.S. politics to understand. I can only imagine that abroad the U.S. could be perceived as a sort of lumbering giant that applies military force seemingly at random.

To confuse things further, much of our domestic economic policy is controlled by congresspeople who serve individual states and interest groups. This has led to a very interesting dichotomy that, I think, makes us look awful. Theoretically, we are a country very big on international trade freed from artifical, government-imposed restraints. We encouraged the development of organizations like the World Trade Organization for this reason. We got really upset during the late '70s and the '80s when Japan kept American exports out of their markets. Yet... we continue to play a weird tarrif game ourselves because it benefits powerful interest groups abroad. Just last year we passed a fairly big tarrif on foreign steel to satisfy the American steel workers. I don't entirely understand how this jives with our stated goals with the WTO, and I rather doubt the rest of the world does either.

I'm not trying to villify the United States. I'm just trying to show that the country is far from perfect and its citizens probably don't have the right to take the moral high ground we so often do (myself included). I believe, fundamentally, that we have a good system of government and we try to do our best. So, too, does most of Europe and the free world. I think it's important to keep this in mind when passing judgments on players in the game of international politics.

Stephen