U.S. deserves respect (Canada's silent majority: 'God Bless America!')

U.S. deserves respect

By MICHAEL COREN

Toronto Sun
Saturday, January 6, 2007

It was impossible not to see the obvious parallels between the deaths of despot Saddam Hussein and democratic Gerald Ford.

The former was surrounded by insults and hatred, the latter by love and praise. Yet Saddam had decades to make the world a better place, Ford merely a few years.

It's important that we don't merely attribute this to circumstance, accident or country. Because while the hyena of Iraq may have been particularly repugnant, there is hardly a leader anywhere in the Arab world whose death would be mourned beyond the fanatical mob.

Things are hardly any better in Africa. Russia is similarly lacking and even Western Europe tends now to be lead by self-centred mediocrities. These people, whether they are elected or whether they steal power, are not produced in a political vacuum. Countries generally receive the leaders they deserve.

And since its foundation and especially since the beginning of 20th century the United States of America has invariably been on the side of right against wrong, light against darkness, good against evil and moral against immoral. Its warriors, politicians, agents and leaders have stood and, if need be, died for the grand and noble concepts and virtues of the human condition.

President Ford was not great. Nor were John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter. But they spoke for greatness. Not because of, but in spite of their faults, they represented glory. Not in spite of, but because of its roaring magnitude, the United States represents glory.

Which does not, of course, mean that every aspect of the country's foreign and domestic policy is correct or that it hasn't committed crimes in pursuit of its own interests. That's what nation-states do. What Canada does. It would be suburban and small-minded to expect anything else.

But even in its errors the United States tends to be more delicious than most countries in their success. Behind the withdrawal from Vietnam, for example, was an attempt to halt murderous Communism. Vietnam fell but Marxism and its obscene consequences gained little else in the region.

The war in Iraq is not a success, no matter what Washington's strongest supporters claim. But while most of the Arab world condemned Saddam Hussein for a generation, none of them were prepared to spend a dollar or risk a life to remove the tyrant from power.

The same applies to what critics like to see as a quintessentially American loudness or even vulgarity. In fact it's unabashed enthusiasm. Of course it can annoy but at its heart it shows the compelling vulnerability or trusting freshness of the most benign super power in world history.

Greatness inevitably provokes envy and dislike. Yet even here there is testimony to the American triumph. America's greatest critics are almost always American. Foreigners whine, like petulant schoolboys with running noses. Angry Americans have the confidence and liberation of being American.

Nowhere is the misunderstanding of the United States more obvious than in Canada. We scream at mummy and kick daddy in the shins, knowing that it won't hurt them very much and, most importantly, that they'll never get seriously angry with us.

America still stands tall, smiling at the brat but also protecting it from its enemies. As it does most of the world. As for the lack of gratitude, it's used to it by now.