I once asked this question of my readers and now it is being asked all over the world. In today's Times of London Online, Gerard Baker, in different words, asks the same question. He wonders, What have the Americans ever done for us?, and then proceeds to answer it by comparing the question to an old Monty Python skit:
ONE OF MY favourite cinematic moments is the scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian when Reg, aka John Cleese, the leader of the People's Front of Judea, is trying to whip up anti-Roman sentiment among his team of slightly hesitant commandos.
"What have the Romans ever done for us?" he asks.
"Well, there's the aqueduct," somebody says, thoughtfully. "The sanitation," says another. "Public order," offers a third. Reg reluctantly acknowledges that there may have been a couple of benefits. But then steadily, and with increasing enthusiasm, his men reel off a litany of the good things the Romans have wrought with their occupation of the Holy Land.
By the time they’re finished they're not so sure about the whole insurgency idea after all and an exasperated Reg tries to rally them: "All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
That is a brilliant comparison and the rest of the commentary follows along the same lines. America, under teh leadership of George W. Bush has ruffled a lot of feathers and may indeed be seen as the enemy, even by some of it's own people, but the contributions that this nation is making to the pursuit of Democracy around the world can not and must not be ignored.
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