Yankee piss off!

This is an answer to E.B., the belligerent American patriot [E-mail, March 27]. One assumes from the tone of his essay - if you care to call it that - that the initials stand for "Empire Builder." However, as a U.S. citizen opposed to the war, thankful for the principled, legal and sane position of Canada, France and most of the rest of the world (Micronesia and Great Britain excepted) - I do think that sane men everywhere owe a debt of gratitude to E.B. for having so starkly answered America's self-pitying question, "Why do they hate us?"

Apparently because we are bullies. And stupid bullies to boot. Bullies who hurl insults because we have no grip on facts, and become - like the bewildered Donald Rumsfeld this week, faced with realities anyone focused on the real world would have foreseen - confused when facts do not conform to the fantasies of our leading neo-conservative hit-men.

Here are a few: Canadians were dying in the fight against Hitler's Germany while the U.S. was hiding behind the Statue of Liberty's French skirts. The 13 colonies owe their freedom from Britain more to French soldiers and their own thoroughly ungentlemanly guerrilla tactics against an overwhelmingly superior army (tactics we now abhor when Iraqis practice them against our superior army) than to any transcendent bravery or courage. Canada, by not supporting the U.S. in its present mistake, is taking the side of the international rule of law, something that many of us here in the States hope will some day stop the runaway gangsterism of the present American government. And Iraqis will defend their homeland: who'd have thought?

The trail of writings by this administration's most influential advisors ought to cause the whole world to stand up and take notice of America's stated imperial intentions. Only a nation co-opted by U.S. criminality could ignore it. My country has become a rogue nation.

Thank you, Canada, for not having become an accomplice to American violations of international law. Despite E.B's ugly rant, might does not make right, and empires reduced to floating themselves on the rivers of blood they unleash are almost always very shortly shipwrecked.

» LAWRENCE AUSTIN, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

Reading the letter by E.B. reminded me of something. You can spend hour upon hour explaining to people why the United States is held in very low esteem by many on this planet. But in the end, all you have to do is let some Americans speak. The two minutes spent reading E.B. re-affirmed my belief that the U.S. gives imperialism a bad name

» DOMINIQUE REID

I am a United States citizen who spends a great deal of time in Quebec. I also teach college on the other side of the border. I could be wrong, but I don't believe that any U.S. citizen knows enough about Canada to write that letter. They would have had to read your newspapers every day, but they don't even read their own. Americans don't know anything about Quebec and they barely know they "kicked England's ass" ever.

All those things you've done or said about us lately, including your war protests, have not made our newspapers. I wrote a letter to the New York Times telling them how numerous you were when you protested last week, but they don't care either. I'm really sorry, we just don't care about anyone but ourselves.

Thank you for protesting the war, but we're now under the heavy-handed dictatorship and propaganda machine of the Bush administration. Please, come liberate us with words of peace, not hate. No one I meet in my country is for the war. Don't believe those polls. Don't believe that letter.

» SUSAN TRAVIS, PLATTSBURGH, N.Y.

Angry Canadian

Hello, Angry American, meet Angry Canadian. First things first: your country is a festering boil attached to our assholes. And like the venereal-disease-infested cold sore that your country is, just when you think it's finished, it's right back, itchier and pussier than ever before.

It's social cancer like yourself that has been ruining our country up here for years, coming up here and leaching off our superior universities and cheap real estate. We Canadians would be happier and better off if you would stay in that cesspool you call a nation.

And judging by your disrespect and hate for this country, why don't you fuck off back home and don't let the door slap your ass on the way out. You fuckers are hated because you've been ramming your greedy, moralist-conservative, neo-puritan, authoritarian, self-righteous agenda down the throats of the world for far too long.

We are sick of NAFTA, of globalization (synonym for American world domination) and of your fascist Reagan ideologies that have been denying and interfering with our domestic policies for over 20 years. And we are tired of your moral dilemmas - ie. it's clear that you're so conflicted over your blatant homoerotic desires that you have to come up here to enjoy a good ass fuck. Too bad!

We don't need you or your country. You are insignificant and ugly. We enjoy our freedoms and our socialist-leaning system of government (which, I must add, has been almost totally destroyed by over a decade of trying to appease and conform to your government's "agenda"). We also love our freedom of speech - the freedom to call your president a moron! Republican war-mongering, oil-swilling, Jerry-Falwell-sucking puritan scum! You're an asshole! Fuck you and fuck the USA!

» ANDREW SCOTT

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