What the Eurotwits would like George W. Bush to say

[Willem]

Originally posted by Velociryx


So....what's your government doing to enact that?

Yeah right. If we so much as advocate an approach contrary to the US position, your Senators start calling for higher duites on softwood lumber, or slowing things down at the border. Not to mention having your media figures lambasting us, and implying we're perpetrating some evil communist plot. We have no choice but to keep as quiet as we possibly can, thanks to your countries hegemony in ours.

"And they call it democracy!"

[Willem]

Originally posted by Arrian
Willem,

The "removal from within" has been tried and failed. Saddam put it down. We refused to get involved, so it failed.

Well it isn't our problem that they didn't have the guts to see it through. Why should the rest of the world be so eager to fix your own mistakes?

[Demerzel]

Originally posted by Arrian
Willem,

The "removal from within" has been tried and failed. Saddam put it down. We refused to get involved, so it failed.





-Arrian

didn't the US government incite the Kurds to revolt against Saddam with promises of support which failed to materialise once the revolt actually began and Saddam's forces put it down?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Velociryx
And Willem.....just how do you propose to remove him?

If not with guns blazing...what? You gonna ask him nicely?

Com'on Vel, we know that Bush wants to remove Saddam not because he is a dictator or he has CBN weapons. That is just an excuse.

[Velociryx]

Willem….I see what you’re saying, and I partly agree, and partly disagree.

I think that you misinterpret what you are seeing. Most (not all, but most) Americans LIKE new ideas. We thrive on debate (and usually, the louder and rowdier, the better!)

What we DON’T particularly care for is when people (read: other nations) sit around on their duffs, wringing their hands about a problem, acknowledging that it is indeed a problem, and yet, refusing to take a stand or do ANYTHING about it, and then, when WE do something about it, the hand-wringers jump down our throats for not doing it “their” way.

If they want it done “their way,” then to our mindset, perhaps they should have….I dunno….done it themselves?

Since this thread opened, I’ve been thinking about exactly WHY the European mindset is markedly different from the US mindset, and I don’t even pretend to have a complete answer for that, but IMO, part of it lies in the following:

My grandfather moved from Texas to Oklahoma in a covered wagon. In those days, the west really was still “wild.” Untamed. Now, he didn’t have to hack his new home out of the wilderness with a hatchet, but HIS father did. That’s only three generations removed, and it’s still very much in my blood.

From the first day we became a nation (and even before then, really), America has been a land of action.

You don’t like something? You have an idea to make something better? You get in there, roll your sleeves up, and get it done! You make stuff happen.

That’s a very individualistic mindset. The notion that one guy getting in there and working away at something can make a difference.

I don’t see that in the Euro mindset.

The European continent has been tamed for centuries. You’d have to go back LOTS of generations to find ancestors that hacked their homes out of the Euro-Wilderness….I have family pictures of mine!

Also….look at our heroes.

In Europe, the heroes that get all the press all seem to have titles…Lord Such-and-So….King Blah-D-Blah….and so forth. Regal. Aristocratic. Divine-right-of-Kings stuff.

Here, we get Daniel Boon, Davy Crockett, and George Washington. Simple guys. Rugged guys. Guys with every day, practical skills, and again, guys who knew how to roll those sleeves up and DO stuff (as opposed to guys who had their six gazillion servants do stuff for them).

Very different.

Now….it can be fairly said that Americans tend to oversimplify stuff, and this is borne out, even in my post here….but I think it’s illustrative of an important point.

Since our earliest days, in the US, one guy’s hard work and ambition could change the face of the country.

In Europe….no such creature, unless you’re a Lord or King. Regular guys never had a chance, but it’s the regular guys who get in there and do the back breaking work!

America is full of “regular guys.” Mostly, they were guys that the elite in Europe tossed out and threw away.

That’s cool….and I think we’ve done pretty well for ourselves.

Bottom line is….if we see something that doesn’t sit right with us, our first inclination is to go do something about it.

In Europe (from this American’s perspective, anyway), the first inclination is to talk about it or pretend it’s not all that bad, in hopes that it’ll go away.

I was born and bred on the former, and I do not understand the latter.

All that to say, yes! Debate and argue and yell at the top of your lungs in wild, lively, democratic debate with us!

But don’t scold us for doing something, when you’re sitting on your duff not doing anything….

-=Vel=-

[HershOstropoler]

Vel:

That sounds like the stereotypes one expects from some nationalist indoctriniation.


"In Europe, the heroes that get all the press all seem to have titles…Lord Such-and-So….King Blah-D-Blah….and so forth. Regal. Aristocratic. Divine-right-of-Kings stuff.

Here, we get Daniel Boon, Davy Crockett, and George Washington. Simple guys. Rugged guys. Guys with every day, practical skills"

Andreas Hofer and a couple others for my part of the woods, the scots have some interesting heros too, Jeanne d'Arc was not exactly nobility, nor was the girl of zaragoza, Robin Hood (most likely a myth, ok) didn't have much of it, and I'm sure I could find more if I could be arsed to think it through.

"Now….it can be fairly said that Americans tend to oversimplify stuff, and this is borne out, even in my post here…."

That's not oversimplified, that's a fantasy.

"In Europe….no such creature, unless you’re a Lord or King. Regular guys never had a chance"

Nogaret, just to go very, very far back. I don't know, what did you learn about social mobility in the middle ages and early modern times?

[Kropotkin]

Originally posted by Velociryx
The European continent has been tamed for centuries. You’d have to go back LOTS of generations to find ancestors that hacked their homes out of the Euro-Wilderness….

While your entire post is just plain stupid this might be the dumbest part. you clearly have no clue at all and lost all credability.

[DuncanK]

Vel,

No disrespect, but Americans would be just as awkward at hacking their homes out of wilderness as Europeans would be. There are differences between Europeans and Americans but I don't think this is one of them.

[Arrian]

didn't the US government incite the Kurds to revolt against Saddam with promises of support which failed to materialise once the revolt actually began and Saddam's forces put it down?

That's exactly what I was referring to. I did not say it was done well. I said that the "take him down from within" route was tried and that it failed due to our refusal to assist from without.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

But don’t scold us for doing something, when you’re sitting on your duff not doing anything….

As much as Willem's post earlier pretty well summed up non-American views on Americans, I think this is a good example of the other side of the coin.

-Arrian

[HolyWarrior]

throwing gasoline on the fire

[quote]Canadian wimps

- Canadian Wimps?
Them vs. U.S.

Star-Telegram ^ | Jan. 19, 2003 | Robert Sibley

The headline in a recent National Review magazine was certainly an attention-grabber: "Bomb Canada: The Case for War." But such rhetoric was perhaps justified by the magazine cover, which showed four red-coated Mounties on horseback above a banner that read "Wimps!"

Naturally, I bought the magazine to find out about "Canada's whiny and weak anti-Americanism."

I didn't take the article too seriously. I took statements such as "nothing would be better for Canada than a rabble-rousing, American-style democracy" and Canada is "not a serious country anymore" for what they were: a sardonic poke at the sanctimoniousness of Canadians who, even as they pretend to be a moral superpower, shelter beneath the U.S. military and economic umbrella. But then along came prime ministerial spokeswoman Francoise Ducros and the "moron affair."

It was not just the intellectual inanity of the Ducros remark that made it so embarrassing, but the intellectual obtuseness it reflected. In calling President Bush a "moron," she implied that the United States is somehow wrong to defend itself as it sees fit against terrorist attacks, and, indeed, that it is somehow at fault for those attacks.

But to hear such an inherently anti-Americanist sentiment at the highest levels of the Canadian government was disturbing not only because of the ignorance it betrayed but because such attitudes can lead to policies harmful to our relationship with the United States.

There is nothing new about Canadians' anti-Americanism, of course. Historically, "not being American" is a cornerstone of our identity. Resenting Americans allows us to feel good about our inadequacies.

Throughout the Cold War, many Canadians were convinced that the United States would be responsible for starting a nuclear war. (Why nobody thought the Soviets equally or even more likely to touch off the nuclear holocaust always puzzled me.)

The anti-Americanism we see now, however, seems particularly virulent and widespread. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that the image of the United States is increasingly tarnished everywhere, but especially in the Middle East and in Central and Southeast Asia. Considering the high Muslim populations in these regions, such hostility is understandable, if misinformed.

But why would someone like British playwright Harold Pinter declare the United States "the greatest source of terrorism on Earth"? How those who know better can regard the United States as an evil empire when the weight of historical evidence shows such views are unwarranted is an intellectual obscenity.

The anti-American intelligentsia conveniently forget it was the United States that stopped the slaughter of Muslims in the Balkans while Europe's politicians dithered. That same intelligentsia warned that the Russians would never accept NATO expansion, yet NATO now includes nearly every former Soviet satellite. All the best minds mocked the anti-communism of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan. And where's the Soviet Union now?

As British journalist Brian Appleyard once observed: "The Americans saved Europe from barbarism in two world wars. After the Second World War, they rebuilt the continent from ashes. They confronted and peacefully defeated Soviet communism, the most murderous system ever devised by man."

Muslims might argue that none of this applies to them, that the United States has always been hostile to Arab countries. But this, too, is a distortion of history.

When Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, the United States intervened to stop Britain, France and Israel from overthrowing the Nasser regime. During the Cold War, the United States supported Islamic regimes such as Saudi Arabia against radical Arab nationalism.

In 1973, the United States came to Egypt's rescue when it forced the Israelis to accept a cease-fire that ended the Yom Kippur War. Today, the Americans supply Egypt with billions in aid, asking only that it keep the peace with Israel.

In 1982, the United States even saved Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from Israel's wrath by arranging to get him safely out of Beirut. When Arafat backed Iraq during the Persian Gulf War, the United States continued to sponsor him as the only one who could negotiate a peace with Israel. Finally, the United States aided Muslims fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

As Middle East specialist Barry Rubin writes in his book Anti-American Terrorism and the Middle East, "Arab anti-American radicals have distorted the record, ignoring all the positive examples and focusing only on U.S. support for Israel."

So why, against all sense and evidence, is anti-Americanism so prevalent? Oddly enough, French intellectuals provide the most credible answer.

Jean-Francois Revel, in his new book L'Obsession anti-americaine, and Philippe Roger, in his book L'Ennemi americain, argue that anti-Americanism is not necessarily connected to anything people fear the United States might do, but rather to their own inadequacies. The inability of Europe to repeat the economic success of the United States, the failure of European social policies, the fracturing of national identity in the face of immigration and a post-imperial malaise born of waning global influence have all engendered an inferiority complex among European intellectuals. For them, the economic and military supremacy of the United States is a discomfiting reproach to Europeans' presumed cultural superiority.

Revel argues that the geopolitical rise of the United States is directly linked to Europe's abandonment of its responsibilities to defend Western values. "American unilateralism," he writes, "is the consequence, not the cause, of the reduction of power in the rest of the world."

Arab leaders also readily adopt anti-American attitudes as a way to divert attention from their own economic and political failings. As Rubin says, "For years now, anti-Americanism has served as means of last resort by which failed political systems and movements in the Middle East try to improve their standing."

However, anti-Americanism also exposes a deep anxiety at the heart of Muslim culture. Throughout the Middle East, modern ideas and practices are perceived as a threat to traditional ways of life. Notions of privatization, equality for women, institutions of civil society and freedom of speech run counter to deeply rooted patterns of social conduct and religious verities.

Not surprisingly, such modern ideas are associated with the United States. Thus, anti-Americanism is a protest of modernity, a response to the conflicts of a world in which long-established values and concepts no longer protect people from a sense of rootlessness and loss of meaning. As sociologist Paul Hollander explains in a recent essay in The New Criterion, "Much of what people fear or dislike about American society and culture is synonymous with modernity."

So what should the United States do about this? The answer is: nothing. The fact is that nobody likes a hegemon. The city-states of ancient Greece objected to Athens' overlordship. The Roman imperium was hated by subjects even as they enjoyed the security provided by legionnaires fighting on the frontiers. Even the British Empire, which offered the most enlightened imperial rule ever seen, was often resented.

Now it is the turn of Americans to suffer the consequences of resentment and envy. Presumably, they are sufficiently confident in their cause to take the anti-American posturing for what it really reflects: the congenital inability of others to examine their own self-inflicted failings.

In truth, "American imperialism" offers the Arab world a better future than anything available to them from their own leaders. It is well to recall that in the months before the Afghanistan campaign in 2001, the so-called experts warned of an explosion in the "Arab street." What actually happened was that the Arab world went very quiet at the demonstration of U.S. power, while on the streets of Kabul, Afghan women greeted American soldiers as liberators.

Given this, it would a mistake for the United States to fret about its unpopularity. As Middle East analyst Fouad Ajami writes in Foreign Affairs, "It is the fate of great powers that provide order to do so against the background of a world that takes the protection while it bemoans the heavy hand of the protector." What matters in the end is whether the United States, in pursuit of its own valid interests, furthers the cause of global security such that all people ultimately benefit.

Even whiny Canadians. [quote]

Robert Sibley writes for the Ottawa Citizen.rsibley@thecitizen.southam.ca






And Willem--like what was said in 'Die Hard'
"Yippie ki-ay, mutha****er"

[Demerzel]

argh essays like that are hard to read, after line 4210 it all kinda blurs together and I give up

[Velociryx]

Yep....that's even higher octane gas than mine!

-=Vel=-

[Chris 62]

The Euros are complaining THEY are trolled?

They have GOT to be fu*king kidding!

Face it, when the axis of weasel speaks for you, you know your in trouble, don't blame the US for not loving the Paris/Berlin axis.

[Velociryx]

Chris!

I still think Willem said it best. It's YOUR world. You can choose to live in it, or talk about living in it.

You know what gets us jazzed up more than anything on this side of the pond?

Results.

Not talking about results, not mightabeens....just results.

It's not hard to get results, you just gotta go DO something.

:: shrug:: Or...not.

If all you wanna do is talk and wring your hands when the boogy man comes to town...hey! If that's your bag....enjoy.

If you'd rather go the appeasement route...great! It worked so well in WWII, I can certainly see the attraction of trying it again with every other nutball that comes along. We could just cave into the demands of every two-bit dictator with some bombs and see where that gets the world....give 'em money like it's candy. Give 'em sweet business contracts. That'll make the poor, misunderstood dictator come around...surely! (just don't hold your breath waiting for it).

If you'd rather adopt the "not our business, not our problem" then I think it's fair to say that you're not really living "in" the world cos if you were, you'd see it as everybody's problem, but again...that's your gig. Stay home if you wanna. Bury your head in the sand if it suits your fancy.

But don't be overly surprised when somebody else steps in and starts acting like they mean business....starts *doing* something, rather than just talking about it. And odds are good that their plan will differ markedly from the one that you "would have" put into action. Hey....you snooze, you lose. If you wanted to do such-and-so....maybe you shoulda???

Of course, it's easier to sit back and watch the show, criticizing the players from a safe distance....that way, you don't risk anything, and you don't have to really DO anything, and you can keep that smug sense of arrogance that your plan would have been vastly more successful (if you had ever gotten around to actually implementing it).

But there's nothing stopping anybody from "playing the game" as it were.....the will to act is all it takes.

-=Vel=-