how free is the US?

At this point, as the old diplomat among you folks, returned to Austria
after 7 years service abroad, let me tell you in ernest a true story
(sounding like a joke), told to me by a colleague of mine who served in El
Salvador for a European country. At the residence there were invited all
those Salvadorian generals, and one of them, already totally drunk, began a
debate with the US ambassador, present at the dinner. All of a sudden, this
general, with notorious connections to the death squads, said to the US
ambassador - 

DO YOU KNOW WHY IN THE US THERE DEMOCRACY? and immediately telling to the US
Ambassador the answer:

BECAUSE THERE IS NO US EMBASSY...


Arno Tausch