The Cradle of Western Civilization Checks In

I heard today from our foreign correspondent and my great friend Eleni. Her email begins, "I just watched President Bush's (I can't believe those two words are still one phrase!) inauguration speech...I got so pissed off, I found refuge in the blog, which I hadn't visited for a while..."

She wasn't entirely pleased, and asked me to pass on her thoughts.

"I just heard the president talk about "bringing freedom to all the nations that need it"! How? By killing thousands and imposing a pseudo-state of stabilization/peace while making profit on rebuilding the destroyed/free countries? Is that what American democracy dictates? This is not the kind of Democracy our ancestors preached about or fought over...I don't think the American Revolution was fought over who's gonna make more profit, or how much oil will be exploited, or how many countries will be controlled, or who owns more media, or who deprives the public from "public" information...

It's a shame that words like Democracy and Freedom are used so freely these days by people who understand nothing about their historical, political or cultural weight...people who have NEVER felt the absence of Democracy or the agony of an effort to regain it...I guess it's always easier to speak from a safe distance...the kind that only a capitalistic "superpower" can ensure."

So that's the perspective of a European on our nation's foreign policy. Not so good, huh?

Finally, consider this - when my friend refers to the "Democracy our ancestors preached about" she can go back a bit further than most. She's from Athens. Hers invented it.