Tracy,

>Fair play to you Fernando. :o) To be honest, MANY of your points are valid and wholeheartedly agreed upon by many Americans (myself included--while I disagree with much of what you state, I agree with much also). However, it gets difficult to filter out the facts from what appears to be continuous bashing. When that happens, people stop listening and the 'truth' gets lost in the 'negativity' and its easy to become defensive instead of honestly looking for truth in the words. However, you have demonstrated yourself to be a compassionate and highly intelligent person in many posts.

I'm motivated, in my posts, mainly by fear of what could happen to us, 3rd world countries, with an eminent threat called U.S.A.! Please, believe me, I'm being very honest with you. This scares many people in Brazil.

What about Bush deciding to invade Brazil and taking the Amazon? He may present dozens of reasons for doing so. He can say that the Amazon is an "asset of humanity" and just take it! It may sound weird or insane, but many people (including myself) think that U.S. one day may come with this idea. He have been acting in such a way that justifies this thoughts.

If you ask people from countries like Brazil, they'll tell you that they don't believe in what your governments say, and they don't trust then. Even you may agree that a big threat to americans is the shadow and hidden intentions some US politicians have. And they have the power.

Wouldn't you (Tracy) be passionate if such an issue came to your mind?

I'm not bashing, I'm showing my fear with the disrespect US distiles from their actions. Not respecting UN and going to war just fuelled this fear even more.

I'm sad that, having many latin americans here in UT, with the exception of Hilmar (sorry if I forget someone else) I'm the only one to express what seems to me a latin american comon sense. I'm not judging or blaming anybody, of course I respect their way to behave, but you could see that I'm not the only one to think like this.

Fernando