US still main threat to stability in European eyes

One is enough. Hayes - my apologies.

Yes, I do.

 

Social and political attitudes toward the US. It's funny how The Economist lectures Americans about arrogance, but European have always looked upon the USA as a crazy uncle. Even during WWII, when Americans were dying to free Europe, the joke in Britain was "Overpaid, oversexed, and over here." We've always been looked down on as nothing more than drunken cowboys - even when we were pulling their nuts out of the fire.

 

I don't consider that a negative thing!

 

Nice.

Likewise then for my comments.

 

Overpaid, oversexed, drunk and cowboys. Well I've been drunk before, so one out of four applies.

 

Exactly! Although, I'd say we've always been ADMIRED as drunken cowboys.

 

halfbreed, I've been there several times, including during the Vietnam War, when Europeans were far more active protesting our foreign policy. Perhaps not the governments as much, but certainly the general population, and I had countless wonderful experiences, in numerous countries, with one hell of a lot of Europeans. (especially the fair sex!) Several years later, I went with my wife, who's mother came to the States from the Netherlands in the late '30's, and we had similar experiences. (except that she was the hottie I was having sex with, lol! still, the girls there are eye candy for the soul)

Did you travel there on a tour? With your parents? Did you try to see 8 countries in 10 days? I just didn't have your experiences at all. I had a fantastic time, every time.



Keep D&D Civil.

 

I have had nothing but wonderful experiences when dealing with Europeans when I have been to Europe. The Parisians have been exceptionally friendly.

To back track a little.

Ummm...(raise my hand) I also think the Bush administration is a threat to global stability. The largest threat?, no but let us look at some things this administration has done:

1. Invaded Iraq because they thought Iraq have WMD's (best case scenario). (Worst case scenario) They invaded a sovereign nation for its natural rescores’, falsified intelligence, lied to the world, the senate and the American people to justify their lies.

2. Have stances like "with us or against us" to the international community which basically means "do what we want or you are against us". That doesn't play well with people of other countries. Imagine if some other country gave us such an ultimatum. It plays well with the ignorant here at home who have a sound bit mentality but does nothing to facilitate multinational cooperation.

3. This administration has shown nothing but contempt with the UN. Primarily because it would not go along with everything this administration wanted. As if the UN was created to just do our bidding. Then because the UN would not just green light every US policy the Republicans let loose their attack dog to create animosity toward the UN (Foxnews, Rush Limbaugh etc.). It appointed John Bolton, a man who before going in stated his distain for the UN.

4. Rather than seeking universal cooperation for dealing with likes of Iraq, Iran, North Korea, this administration has gone off half cocked and done a lot of saber rattling, not the way to operate in a global community.

5. They reactivated our nuclear proliferation with a whole new class of nuclear weapons, which goes against 30 years of American policy (Republican and Democrat).

6. They have brought torture back to the American interrogation process.


I'm scared that these arrogant SOB's who think they know better than anyone else will do something else stupid. I would put nothing past these fools. It makes me nervous

(The deficit is not going down, the economy is slowing, when these things change then we will talk but don't believe campaign nonsense until it happens.)

 

Well seeing as I'm pretty scrawny, rather intelligent and pretty reserved, I'd say no.

 

One what is enough? I was merely responding to your post asking if anyone thought you were wrong in your assessment. I thought you were and thought it would be funny to respond to your "If ___ I'll shutup" comment. Sorry for my lame attempt at humor.

Sad to see you have such a poor view of Americans.

 

Strange, but it seems somewhat arrogant on your part to assume that one is ignorant for not favoring multilaterialism in general or the UN in particular or that the only beef with the UN was that they wouldn't 'do our bidding.' Questioning or disfavoring either is not ignorant.

Also, aside from mass oversimplification on most of these points you are flat out wrong on others such as North Korea where the administration explicitly moved to keep the negotiations multilateral including China, South Korea and Japan (which was not NK's wish). I don't think you need to exaggerate or make up reasons to criticise the administration - there are plenty accurate examples to choose from.

 

Yet, "in your experiences" they pretty much despised you and the rest of us.
Could you, perhaps, relate some of these experiences?

 

Though they were really fun to watch, it is not appropriate to use Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers as educational material.

You know who pulled Europe's nuts out of the fire? The USSR (not that they wanted to). 80% of Soviet males born in 1928 didn't survive WWII. The USSR had 27 million killed or wounded compared to 600,000 for the United States. You know what our prime contributions were? We sold them stuff. We made a profit to help the Europeans. We demanded that England allow us free trade with her Empire before we would discuss entering the war.

The prime American contributions to both WWI and WWII were as arms dealers.

 

you would have had a hard time convincing people back then that was their primary contribution...when they were watcing their husbands, brothers, uncles, friends and sons going off to war.

i understand what you're saying. but it comes off mildly offensive.

 

I hate to post and run (have to run!), but that's just really insulting to the Americans who fought in WWII, as well as WWI. We were in a unique position, when we finally entered the war after Pearl. The Allies were damned lucky that we could produce huge quantities of war materials without serious worry of being attacked, unless the war in Europe and/or the Pacific had been lost. That doesn't take a bit away from the contributions of millions of Americans in uniform. In my opinion, you are so far off base that it's rediculous. No one disputes the horrendous agony the USSR went through. They were far from the only ones.

I truly can't understand a post like that, Ottomaton. Are we keeping a scorecard on war dead? You imply that we were in it for the money. You don't say it, but you imply it.



Keep D&D Civil.

 

Although you are right in noting the Soviet sacrifices, you are far too dismissive of the American sacrifices. Also, the Soviets were invaded and they were fighting to expel an invader. We were fighting a war an ocean away that was arguably none of our business.

 

We have a conscious, so it is absolutely our business.

 

Ottoman,
I dont mean to make u get off your rocker, but thats the American way. Where did you think we got all the fuel to run our war machines? from Rosevelt making the deal with the Saudis to sell us cheap oil. Its about saving money.

 

People in the rest of the world who have to listen to Americans boast about how we saved the world out of the kindness of our hearts aren't particularly fond of the fact that we tend to gloss over their dead in the process.

As with everybody else involved we did what we thought was in our best interests. The fact that financial issues were one of the prime reoccurring themes in the discussions between Roosevelt and Churchill is a truth beyond reproach. I would suggest you find some reference material on their topics of their meetings before the U.S. entered the war.

My real point is that Americans in general (though gwayneco's dismissal of Europe specifically triggered my outburst) need to be disabused of our swagger about how wonderfully altruistic Americans were in WWII, and how the rest of the world doesn't realize how we suffered all the casualties out of a sense of altruism while they sat around drinking pernod.

I don’t doubt that many Americans suffered greatly for the war, but so did others and often to a greater degree. New York wasn't bombed to the ground. There was no door to door street fighting in Baltimore. The United States has no special position in regards to its sacrifices or altruism in WWII and shouldn't act like the **** of the walk.