Europeans and Reality (and my prevous post)
Okay, I've read a lot of the posts here, particularly those after my rant. I would like to clarify a couple of things.
Despite my earlier tirade, I am not anti-European (or anti-Canadian , either, except perhaps for Rather, Jennings, and Shatner). When my grandparents and great-grandparents sent their sons 'over there', it was with the intent of not only securing our own interests and resisting evil, but in preserving the good things in Europe. As was pointed out, our most steadfast allies lie on the continent, and we ARE grateful. Again, as was pointed out earlier- it seems much like a family squabble when we disagree.
I do not beleive that Americans are infallible (I just tried three times to spell that), nor do I believe we are the sole voice of reason, democracy, or wisdom in the universe. I spent a number of years serving along side Marines (I was Navy) and got to see "The Ugly American" first-hand far too often. I never said I couldn't understand why some Europeans think Americans are boorish. Just not all of us.
I do not believe my beef is with the average European on the street (or autobahn), but with the leftists and elitists which seem to make up the talking heads.
The prosperity and social programs of which the socialists in our societies are so proud were built with money that would have been spent on Defense if Americans were not holding the line on your soil. Money you didn't need to spend on guns instead went for butter (and L50 wines).
Yes, free Europe stood watch too, but does anyone really think France, or Germany, or even Britain herself would have been able to resist the Stalinist hordes without the American G.I.?
A sizable percentage of your wealth, prosperity, and comfort have been built secure in the knowledge that there was a cop on the beat. That cop was wearing red, white, and blue.
Now America is targeting an evil man who has proven time and again that he has no qualms about murdering innocent men, women, and children in the most horrific ways imaginable. Remember, you don't need a camp and a shower to gas people. America has decided that for her own sake, for her children and yours, that this evil must be opposed BEFORE it crosses the Maginot line.
The parallels between then and now are clear, but just like in the thirties, the storied elites and the ivory tower intellectuals are wringing their hands and singing the sad opera of appeasement.
Thousands, if not millions died in two World Wars while America stood by, lending only support. It has been rightly pointed out that things might have been different had we gotten involved earlier. Will you now stand by? How many millions will be aboard YOUR Lusitania?
Also, I don't believe England has EVER been conquered. Beaten half to death, bombed into rubble, NEARLY starved into submission, but never conquered.
