Worlds apart

Crikey! And she has the cheek to dub T. Pullicino's well-focused response as a "hyperbolic tirade of xenophobic histrionics" and "diasporic pseudo-jingoistic bombast".

What point is this 54-country travelled, Walmart loyal, Luqa-to-Valletta bus rider, Valletta-to-Valletta taxi enthusiast trying to make anyway? Is it a comparative price analyses or an attempt at political instruction, another urge perhaps for the democratisation of this country? I am befuddled!

Deana Shanely, for the pivotal role this small country played in the last war it got (hurrah!) a cross, as if life does not present us all with enough of these. And it had to be perhaps the greatest negotiator of the last century to stop the obscene abuse of this country and its people. His political strategies are now analysed and studied at US universities (Columbia is one of them). This is not to say that I totally agree with the fallout from that era but the man was certainly one to be reckoned with. Your understanding of local politics is at least 30 years out of date!

And you pontificate that a good chunk of this populace has not even heard that the Cold War is over! Don't we all know Ms Shanley? The de facto tragedy is that the world can now be held to ransom by a country that dishes out so much baloney to reach its global ends - the illegal war in Iraq to rid the place of weapons of mass destruction which the US administration declared publicly it knew where these are sited but which still have not been found! And if President Jacques Chirac gets mischievous, he will be "put in the corner", unlike good boy Tony Blair!

Regretfully, the US has a hammer (its military preponderance) and it views the world as a nail!

I have read, somewhere, that the quasi-global contempt towards the US and its citizens is expertly fuelled by US citizens themselves. Ms Shanley's sustained, destructive "opinions", unashamedly given so much exposure in Malta's leading daily, reinforce this view.