There is an article entitled "What is an American" that has been making the rounds on the Internet for the last three years or so. This article was supposedly written by an American professor (the link incorrectly attributes this to an Australian dentist, BTW) in response to an advertisement placed in a Pakistani newspaper that offered a reward to anyone who kills an American.

I generally agree with this article, except for the following points:

1. It is a bit disingenuous to think that America poured arms and supplies into Afghanistan to help the Afghans to win their freedom.

2. The fact that people from developed (read white) countries are admitted freely into America with minimal immigration restrictions while people from third-world countries are not puts to the lie the claim that America is ready to open its arms wide to the "....tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, the tempest tossed.." This may have been true some fifty years ago, but not today.

3. The point that is being missed is that, to the rest of the world, Americans are synonymous with the American government. The sooner Americans wake up to the fact that, as Van Halen put it, their government is right now doing things that they think only other governments do, the better for everyone.