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Politics : The Palestinian Hoax -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (801)	7/6/2002 8:24:23 PM
From: Ish	Respond to of 3467

You're spamming again. Against the TOU.

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (801)	7/6/2002 8:27:01 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3467

You cut the best part off. Yet we should be proud of the American flag. After September 11, they didn't whinge. Nor did President Bush go galloping around the world, guns smouldering. We all continue to shelter beneath their military umbrella. Thousands of American soldiers are involved in peace-keeping operations around the world (look at the fuss when they suggested leaving Bosnia); billions of dollars keep aid agencies running. Recent criticism of Mr Bush, tacitly supported by Downing Street, has been unfair. He has shown himself a moral world leader. He negotiated with Yasser Arafat until incontrovertible evidence demonstrated that the latter was siphoning off much of the aid destined for the Palestinians. The President opposed the International Criminal Court because he wouldn't expose his soldiers to arbitrary international justice. And since we're all so concerned about immigration, it's worth remembering that the American capitalist system has absorbed one million immigrants a year without real difficulty or complaint. Nor is Continental capitalism entirely problem-free: witness the troubles at French media giant Vivendi-Universal, whose chief executive has just been forced out. There is only one area where the Americans have behaved badly: free trade. Mr Patten should love America. So should the Guardian. America is increasingly practising what they preach - protectionism and subsidy. It's not only tariffs on imported steel; farm subsidies are set to rise by 80 per cent over the next 10 years. When Mr Bush went to the G8 summit, he wore a white cowboy hat and talked about aid. But what Africa needs is trade, as does the rest of the world. The White House says it thinks so, too. On its website, it talks about a new relationship between America and Africa that is based on "shared values and shared responsibilities in a world of free trade, free people and free ideas". This isn't happening. The journalist Janine di Giovanni, writing from Burkina Faso yesterday, explained how the former Upper Volta had developed a flourishing trade in cotton, accounting for more than 60 per cent of this tiny country's exports and helping it to become almost self-sufficient. Now America has torn down the mud huts by boosting subsidies to its own cotton growers from 35 cents to 72 cents a pound. The Republicans may get votes in the South, but, in this pocket of west Africa, two million people may lose their livelihood. Mr Bush is devoted to political freedom, but he's forgotten the value of economic freedom. Farmers are right to complain. The rest of us should celebrate the fact that America hasn't been suffocated by the dust from September 11. If the Queen can play the Star-Spangled Banner at the Changing of the Guard, we can wear the Stars and Stripes alongside the St George's Cross. telegraph.co.uk