February 27, 2005
Sunday

Most Americans may be unaware what enormous struggle many of naturalized Americans have to go through in order to come here. Many of us legally, some others less legally. We had to fight the bonds of home, parents, repressive governments where you have to be a deserving upstanding citizen just to get a passport, let alone an exit visa (permission).

Just when you think you got the passport and you re ready to leave you face another set of more immense obstacles. Admittance to the foreign country, learning that foreign language, learning their culture, habits, food, work habits, getting a job, studies, etc. etc.

Coming to the United States was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I was unusually lucky - I got here when I was 22 (just out of college - and my English was decent). Needless to say I had many other obstacles (which I shall not enumerate). After over 30 years, I became a rabid American (in the view of most of my family and friends who knew me as a child). I remain fascinated by the Continental Congress, The Founding Fathers, The life of Thomas Jefferson, the brilliance of Benjamin Franklin, etc. I am aware that any crisis in any remote part of our planet is usually answered first and most generously by America (from the Tsunami in Asia to the earthquakes in Turkey).

This thinking is not INACCURATE, but it does carry a seed of self-aggrandizing. The sprout of that seed is the false idea of invincibility and wrong political moves that were based on some punitive action against some other country.

A little over five years ago, I managed to get through, by telephone, to the Questions to George Schultz (secretary of state), and asked openly: Do you not think that all these Sudans, Panamas, Liberias, Lybias that we have bombed or sent missiles against, will have no feelings of retribution against our posterity at some future date?

His answer was a typical political hogwash: The number of visitors, tourists and other visa seekers to the United States has doubled over the past 10 years. We remain a very popular country and people are doing everything in their power to come here.

Guess what? He too refused to look the truth in the eye. Of course that a child of some Mustafa El Gatar bin Muhammad has remembered that our missiles killed his father, uncle or both and this child has grown up to now join Al-Quaida or some other strongly ANTI-AMERICAN movement. Can you blame them? I can not blame them. I don't like them, but I can't blame them. During the Clinton years we had the Monica Lewinsky incident, shortly thereafter we had an American lead NATO assault on Yugoslavia. Some analysts believe that the Balkan war was necessary to divert the public from the domestic troubles Clinton was having. As a result of that action their country was bombed back into the stone age, while native people hate all things American, and just recently there is strong probability that the Kosovo crisis may have been orchestrated outside of Yugoslavia, while it became absolutely certain that many of the Kosovo Albanian victims who died while being refugees towards Albania were killed by NATO air strikes. Not that I am approving of the anti-American feelings outside of the United States - I am not - this is my home too. But, we must agree that some degree of animosity, envy, retribution mixed all together has shown its ugly face and it is staring us in the eye. Not quite unexpected. There isn t a single human act that can be done with total impunity. We Americans (new and old) are partially guilty for letting our government elect these foolish actions thinking we are the only superpower on Earth and we are invincible . That falsehood may cause us a serious price to pay in the days to come.
 

Iliya Pavlovich
Deerfield Beach, FL - USA

 

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