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douglasroman

Listed below are comments made by douglasroman between Tuesday, 3rd March 2009 and Friday, 23rd October 2009.

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Does Obama blame Britain? 10:56pm on 23 Oct 2009 I think we are missing Justin Webb's understanding of America right now.

Mark like many BBC employees views the world in a Bush-centric, Euro-cetric way. All faults/problems are due to him - even the behavior of thier favorite Obama.

Obama is not showing leadership because there is a conflict between what his left wing wants, what his generals want, what he promised during the election.

The results of the run off election in Afganistan give him some excuss one way or the other. His hemming and hawing have everything to do with this and nothing to do with Tony Blair or anything Britain has done.

If there is a distrust of Britian it has to do with Lockerbee as opposed to anything Bush/Blair have done

Finally Obama is a classic liberal, and as such does not subscribe to the idea that old European allies are more important or significant than any other nation from South America, Asia or Africa. An opinion I disagree with.
Damaged Special Relationship? 12:38pm on 05 Sep 2009 The relationship is dead. I think Ameriocans have this romatic notion of England as a place of heroic pricipled people, which it no longer is. Just French with bad food. There are no more Churchils just Chamberlins.
Time to say goodbye 07:07am on 22 Aug 2009 Thank you Justin for your good work.Your blog was the only place on the BBC website that when reading about America, It actually sounded like the country I live in.
Who has more freedom? 11:38am on 10 May 2009 I thought is was interesting that durring the Bush administration there were a lot of editorials, and news reports that were actually editorials, about how the "Patriot act" infringed on citizens freedoms in non US news outlets. Yet if you look at the the new powers granted to the US Government by the Patriot act, they were already in existance in other countries for years, including Canada and the U.K. The French gonerment has MUCH more ability to investigate citizens.
The real question about waterboarding 04:40am on 22 Apr 2009 All this concern about "torture" is a joke. It is a tool for people who hate the U.S. to justify thier hatred. If it wasn't this they would come up with some other outrage to carry on about.

To the man, the people who go on and an about torture would have left Sadam in power. Sadam put people into industrial paper shedders alive. His sons raped brides on their wedding day and hunted people for sport. Sadam cut the hands off political opponents, imagined or not. And lets not forget 400,000 found in mass graves including Kurdish women holding thier babys. If it was up to these same people who are so concered over waterboarding, these acts would still be going on. The hypocracy.
The awkward relationship 1:47pm on 04 Apr 2009 Mr. Mardell you make wonderful points. But some of what you say regarding the roots of French Anti-Americanism can be said of many nations, but France gives the clearest examples. Every nation likes to view themselves as their own champion. De Gualle could never forgive the U.S. for turning him and his nation into damsels in distress. France has adapted a nation wide fairy tale regarding de Gualle and the French resistance as fact because the truth is more humiliating.
This is not unique to France, It seems the more a nation is in debt to the U.S., the more common Anti-Americanism is. Witness Germany or South Korea.
Another element is the natural tendency toward bigotry. Anti-Americanism is acceptable the way that racism isn't. A bigot will says a minority group is stupid to make himself feel smart. Bigotry is a easy way to make oneself feel superior. Anti-Americanism is socially acceptable bigotry.
The awkward relationship 04:48am on 04 Apr 2009 Mr. Mardell you make wonderful points. But some of what you say regarding the roots of French Anti-Americanism can be said of many nations, but France gives the clearest examples. Every nation likes to view themselves as their own champion. De Gualle could never forgive the U.S. for turning him and his nation into damsels in distress. France has adapted a nation wide fairy tale regarding de Gualle and the French resistance as fact because the truth is more humiliating.
This is not unique to France, It seems the more a nation is in debt to the U.S., the more common Anti-Americanism is. Witness Germany or South Korea.
Another element is the natural tendency toward bigotry. Anti-Americanism is acceptable the way that racism isn't. A bigot will says a minority group is stupid to make himself feel smart. Bigotry is a easy way to make oneself feel superior. Anti-Americanism is nothing more than socially acceptable bigotry.

All this is a shame because although I didn't like Chirac or the knee jerk Anti-Americanism that passed for much of French foreign policy untill Sarkozy, in truth I never met a French man I didn't like.
Stealing money - legally 02:30am on 22 Mar 2009 "wonder whether the use of the tax system to steal money legally paid to individuals might be a dangerous and unpredictable path to tread."

Couldn't agree more Justin. All this smoke and mirrors is an effort to protect Chris Dodd from taking responsibility of his own actions.

Pres. Obama is getting dragged down by the Democrats in Congress. THe sooner he stoppes letting them set the agenda and starts going after the Barney Franks and Chris Dodds of the world with the enthusiasm he goes after Wall Street, the better off he and the U.S. will be.
Is Obama drifting? 04:53am on 16 Mar 2009 Justin

Interesting Post. Camile Paglia referenced on BBC I love it.

Great points and I am amazed to see them being made on a BBC website. I hope you don't get in trouble for pointing out anything but nice things regarding the Chosen One.

Justin you seem to understand the U.S. very well. How come you can do it but it seem so difficult for other reporters on the BBC to get beyond 2 dimentional generalizations of Americans
Iraq and Ozymandias 03:33am on 03 Mar 2009 As an employee of the BBC Justin you probably could never admit it - but the surge worked.

For all its faults, name me a nation in the ME other than Israel that is more democratic than Iraq, or one that has a more tyranical dictator than Sadam was.

To go from having a dictator who throws people into industrial paper shredders, and gasses thousands of Kurds, to a democraticly elected president is not easy. It requires a little more effort than putting a Amnesty International bumper sticker on the back of your car.

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