Andrea Matranga's Blog

Much ink has been spilled over the publication of "No Easy Day" , the book authored by a former Navy Seal detailing how Bin Laden was killed. The Department of Defense is obviously  quite upset  with information coming out which was supposed to remain in. To me the story is mainly a reaffirmation of why I don't believe in conspiracy theories of the "We never went to the moon" or "CIA planned 9-11" varieties. If it involves the intelligence community, and there isn't a tell all book on the Amazon best-seller list authored by one of the main participants, I say it never happened.

Most Europeans will go through a series of swings in their attitudes towards the US. As children, they will get their information from movies and TV shows, and particularly the sort of simplistic adventure/action fare that appeals to their agegroup, and therefore conclude that all that is good in the world happens in the US, and all that happens there is good. Later they might learn a bit more and get a more nuanced impression, perhaps occasionally swinging the other way due to the inertias involved in finding out the promised land has problems as well. It is in fact perfectly true that the US has many serious problems: a foreign position requiring constant upkeep, a healthcare system which leaves millions with little or no care, school quality which varies wildly across the country and even across school districts in the same urban area. More fundamentally, the country is divided into opposing camps, with widely divergent views on a slew of issues, which has threatened to paralyze th...