Europe's Disappointment

Once again champing at the bit to influence the 2008 Presidential election:

Many Britons will feel it would be rather nice to have a vote, too. Well, maybe not a whole vote: I would settle for one worth 50 per cent of those cast by American citizens.

After all, since we are a strategic colony of the US, it would be nice to have even a marginal say in how the empire chooses to dispose our goodwill and our blood and treasure. Such considerations were explicit in the founding of the US, and what's sauce for the goose...

We addressed this issue over 200 years ago; we aren't going to revisit it.

The author makes this comment after reviewing the list of candidates and attempting to discern their relative approaches to foreign policy:

Or, along with an American people still wildly uninterested in what happens abroad, we may be in the dark even then.

I guess I didn't care what happened abroad until I moved either. Common shock among all expats whether they are living in Europe, Asia or South America is that no one back at home cares about what is going on outside of America. We are largely self-sufficient in America. We don't have to care.

So to those of you who think upon your return you will be showered with requests for stories about living in Burma or Peru or India, think again. No one cares. Save your stories for other expats. They'll love to hear what it is like living in Japan and India.

I have a close friend who lived in Saudi Arabia for 15 years and in Iraq for a few years. He has produced some of the best stories I've heard. Living in China you tend to be pro-Chinese, in Saudi Arabia you tend to be pro-Arab but you can still appreciate the not so subtle cultural nuances.