Fayjay, I won't have time to post much for the next few weeks. Until then, you officially speak for me, only much more concisely..

Later? Don't you think it's awfully short-sighted not to include those with the most experience on the ground in planning for such a major event? We've seen how difficult large scale transport is there. Planning where resources go and timetables and all those things needs to be happening now. And if it is--they haven't been consulted.

What does NGO stand for?

non-governmental organization

moved from Natter:

Unsettling conversation with my brother today. He says that the animosity towards Americans in Russia is unbelievable, and from his perspective, it's not going to go away any time soon. Meaning in the next twenty years. He's been advised by a number of people to conceal the fact that he's American and just tell them he's Canadian (which he is, dual citizen). He's going with that, both for personal safety reasons and because he's so appalled to be associated with what's going on.

He's been advised by a number of people to conceal the fact that he's American and just tell them he's Canadian (which he is, dual citizen).

I really think this is wrong - not so much in your brother's case as in general. Nice Americans should travel, tell everyone who asks that they're American and thereby prove that Americans are nice people.

Yeah, that's a nice sentiment. But it doesn't go over real well when he's just been shouted at for ten minutes by his taxi driver. (Who was one of the people who advised him, after the tirade, not to tell anyone else.)

Who was one of the people who advised him, after the tirade, not to tell anyone else.

Oh. How incredibly helpful of them. I hope your brother finds people who realize how silly it is to conflate a people with their government. Do they want to be judged by Putin?

(edit) Man, I've had to edit everything today, usually for mistakes that my ESL students would ridicule.

I hope your brother finds people who realize how silly it is to conflate a people with their government.

Of course there are. But from his perspective, the level of anger at the U.S. has grown so much that many people don't or no longer can make this distinction. His take is that the Bush administration has flipped off the world one (or seven) too many times, culminating in an invasion that much of the world vigorously opposed, and he's starting to experience the price for that.

As to conflating a people and their government, well, this is nominally a democracy. Doesn't mean people should be accosted in the streets, but I get where some of the world is coming from.

Americans, alone in the world, had the power to prevent this from coming to pass. Not necessarily the war - that could well have happened anyway. But the spectre of the U.S. running rampant over the world, unstoppable, deaf to other ears, is in large part a function of the current administration. And that's what has people so scared and angry. The animosity is no more in defense of Iraq than the war is to liberate it. Which is to say, related, but not the key issue.