Yep - Hitler thought this approach was just dandy !!

Arafat's election was free and fair, the problem is that it was over 7 years ago. The PA President simply has too much power, which is the case in all Muslim countries. He's been stalling the election because he know he couldn't possibly win re-election.

Arafat is a coward and a cretin BUT consider who will replace him, Hamas is half a terrorist organization and half a political organization - both of which are VERY popular right now (and wouldn't you like them if an occupation army was forcing you from leaving your home at gunpoint?)

It's not wrong to support Israel but it's VERY wrong to send 5 billion dollars of our taxpayer dollars to them every single year. Nothing can possibly justify that kind of money to a country that is already so much more powerful than all the Arabs combined.

As far as Europe's attitude, they are simply pissed off that they are irrelevant in this day and age. Don't forget that they were a HUGE colonial power which controlled basically the whole globe at one point. They haven't taken their own stagnation very well - but it IS their problem.

Post from DK-Prof -

Well, Rickey needs to do some 'splaining to you, too, Ethel!

There is a considerable difference between some rag-tag Danish/Scandanavian vikings around the turn of the first millennium, and the fathers, grandfathers, husbands, sons, and uncles of folks who are still alive and grieving for there loved ones lying dead in some miserable European cemterery!

And if you don't understand that, [b]DK-Prof[/b], then [u]you[/u] are the one who is historically deficient in his understanding!

Yeah, we're all laughing like hell over your little joke!

No, Sir, you are a guest on a Board where just about EVERYONE CARES about what American soldiers did in WWII, and the sacrifices they made to save your sorry continent!

[u]Not[/u] caring about WWII is a phenomena for Europeans with small minds and limited spirits!

I recall that Winston Churchill, in his 'The Second World War' recalled the evening of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and knowing that America was now involved in the war, wrote that 'for the first time in many years, I slept very well that evening.'

Again, in that same book, he wrote that the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese makes the participation of the United States in the war official, and this is of 'the greatest joy' to Churchill: [b]"How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end no man could tell, nor did I at that moment care. Once again in our long island history we should emerge, however mauled or mutilated, safe and victorious."[/b]

So, Winston Churchill knew precisely what the entry of the United States would mean for Britain and for Europe!

Some of [u]you[/u] guys don't!

Now, just [u]who[/u] is at on this thread that doesn't know history?

Surely [u]not[/u] Churchill, and I agree with him!

Eric The(HistoricalBeyondBelief!)Hun[>]:)]

[b]Quoted:
Hmm - you neither seem to be my Dean or my Chancellor, so I guess I could care less.[/b]

Well son, how about letting us know which pillar of higher education you "work" for so we, the unwashed, can send our kids somewhere else.

BTW, if it's a public school, then you DO work for us. [:D]

You truly have a rather warped sense of history. Perhaps, due to your Country's inability to defend itself, you deem it necessary to demean those countries that can. Let me present you with some facts here. The fact of the matter was, the only reason the Soviet Union was able to carry on its fight with the Nazis was because of [b]11 billion[/b] dollars in monetary aid from the United States. Lets not even get into the amount of supplies, armament, food, and other material we sent over to the Soviet Union.

In addition to that, even after lend-lease was in full swing, Stalin still insisted in a UN speech that, without additional aid, his country would not be able to sustain its efforts against the German onslaught.

Quotes from J. Stalin from a speech conceding that the war against Germany is not going as planned and, without help, the outlook is bleak. Dated 06-Nov-1941:

"There can be no doubt that the absence of a second front in Europe against the Germans makes the position of the German army considerably easier. [b]But neither can there be any doubt that the appearance of a second front on the European continent - and it [size=4]must unquestionably appear in the near future[/size=4] (loud applause) - will materially ease the situation of our army to the detriment of the German army.[/b]"

And another:

"Another reason for the temporary reverses of our army is our lack of an adequate number of tanks and partly of aircraft. In modern warfare it is very hard for infantry to fight without tanks and without adequate aircraft protection."

This, to me does not sound like the Mighty Russian Army that you believe would have been able to beat the Nazis without the US. Stalin himself believed that the war would be lost without the US involvement. We supplied them with all of their needs, Money, arms, tanks, ammunition etc. I can site more facts but its readily apparent to me that it would be a waste of time.

I have several online friends from Denmark. Nice group people. Europe is the producer of many fine products. I am particularly fond of HK, Sig, and Braun.

My Father, Grandfathers, and all my Uncles spent a rather unpleasant period in their lives helping to solve Europe's inability to manage it's affairs.

The opinions of Europeans on US global policy are irrelevant.

Btw: "Which part of Europe are you from? The part whose ass the above mentioned relatives helped save? Or was it the part whose ass they assisting in kicking? [}:D]  

Yeah, didn't the British prime minister that precede Churchill (Chamberlin??)sign some kind of non-aggression pact with Germany ??

I know the Russians did & look what it got them!

Thes morons can't seem to learn from history!

What are we in denial about ??

Can you refute any of my points in my initial post ???

I am impressed & commend you for your service during the early 90's in eastern Europe!

P.S.  Don't forget the Berlin Airlift!!

What he said!

Excuse me! You really have big balls to say something like that. Were you one of the European peace keepers that the Bosnian Serbs tied to a tree? [:D] AHAHAHA Poor little Europe. If that's the case I can understand why you'd be pissed, but save it for your own governments.

Listen, don't blame the US for ANY of Europe's current Balkan problems. There is absolutely no reason we should have been there in the first place. France, Britain, Italy, Germany, Spain, Benelux, and even little Denmark all together couldn't do anything against the Serbs without the USA. Do you realize how patently ridiculous that is?

"USA where were you!" you just whined.

We put an end to that mess by bombing the Serbs back to the stone age (something I am not proud of). Naturally Europe complained then too. It's always too much or too little for you; never just right.

The reality is that you can do these things yourselves, you just don't want to. Why? $MONEY$ Why allocate money to the military when the USA is there. We have spent an ungodly amount defending Europe over the past half century (a sizable portion going into the European economy). The result is that we are inneffect subsidizing your social spending for things we do not ourselves have - like universal health care - and then have to take your complaints as well (even about how uncivilized we are to not have universal health care!).

It's always been about about what we can do for you. I have noticed that the less Europe has felt it needed us (Cold war, Balkan war now over) the more complaints are forthcoming.

"What, us go to Iraq with you!? Well, you better make a VERY persuasive case or we're just not going to send that hospital ship!"

Well, you guys aren't exactly what I would call a bargain either.

This is all moot.Who knows if Stalingrad would have even happened?

If the US hadn't supplied and supported Britain,They would have been starved out by the U-boats.They simply would not have had the resources to continue to resist.With Britain outta the war,the Italians have a free hand in Africa.No distractions for the Germans on the Channel, in the Med,Africa,the Balkans,ect.No bailing out the Italians.None of these things would be a drain on German resources.Not to mention the absence of British based air assaults on German industry.


The Nazi's would be able to focus there entire attention,energy and resources on the Russians without worring about there backdoor or rescheduling operations around failed Italian adventures.

IMO game over for the Soviets.(without US equipment supplied early in the war even more so)Of course,any German success depends on the absence of corporal hitlers military expertise.[:)]

My point being,before WE were actually fighting,we enabled everyone else to stay in the fight.


I believe the UN was created after the war.

shooter69,

I love the irony that we have to pay for the freedom of the world,while simultaniously being considered"barbarians"for our lack of social entitlements.All because we have to make the hard choices with our dollars.

Nice point.

Thank you Byron. I try. [:)]

I don't think Keld realized just how weak he portrayed Europe as being when he made that comment.

Weak, perhaps compared to the US. But think about this:
The US is geographically far away from Europe. It's big, the only real superpower left. It started on it's own, policing the world, playing global policeman. I believe that the geographic distances has something to do with this. If you were the neighbor of several of the countries, in which you have bombed or invaded, I dont think you would have been so fast on the trigger, but would have tried talking it out a bit longer like Europe did. Decision process is considerably faster in the US than in Europe, because of, what I believe the following things. A President, that can almsot do whatever he likes to, congress can cut funding for a operation, but rarely does from my understanding, better support the president.

Europe, is comprised of several countries, all with seperate governments, seperate interests, and with our parliament systems, a slower decision process in most cases. We dont particular like war, why? Well we had several of them going on here for the last couple of centuries, with all that they brought with them.

Yes, the US was a major player in the last couple of wars here, but it wasnt American homes bombed, ethnically cleansed etc. It was ours, which might explain why were are reluctant to start engageing in wars and would like to talk it out instead.
You gave a lot of soldiers, and for that we europeans are grateful, make no mistake about it. Without them, we would either be speaking German or Russian today. So thank you very much. But, if everything went tits up, you could always pull out and live in your own little hemisphere and be nice and cozy. We cant, no matter how we resolve these things, we have to live together side by side for the next many millions of years. And it would be better not having families loosing relatives all the time, because we just see different on some subjects.

Weak compared to the US maybe, compared to military power and a fast decision process, but much stronger in culture, democracy, and history. For better or worse, I wouldnt trade with you, as you wouldnt trade with us.
We see different on these subjects, well, I can agree to disagree on it. And unlike some others, I dont automatically start calling all Americans for American-trash and fly off with rhetoric, with doesnt help my argumentation, other than show me as an arrogant person, not open minded enough to see problems from other sides than the one right before my eyes.

Whatever you say now, wont get me to reply in this thread again, for me this is over and done with. I agree to disagree on some points of view.

Edited to add:
Shooter69, Im not whining about lack of US involvement in the Balkans in the early 90's. I was making a point with regards to a comment made earlier, about where were we?
And let me tell you this:
Denmark, fought the Serbs with tanks on the ground in Bosnia long before the US arrived on the scene.
We are perhaps the most active country compared to our size in sending out troops to troublespots around the world. I know, I have done six 6 month tours in these spots in the last ten years. And no, I wasnt one of the unlucky UN Military Observers, that got cuffed to a lamp post. Those were officers, and Im definately(sp?) not an officer.
Denmark, has been very active in Afghanistan helping you guys out in the fight against terrorism, with SOF and regular peacekeepers.
And when you will go to Iraq, we will most likely be there with you.
Because however this may look, we have most of the same views as you, but sometimes just different ways trying to solve problems.

And have a good morning.

It is exactly what I said in my post, if you read carefully. While Europe was born on the ruins of Roman Empire and came out from the fog of Middle Ages, USA was born on the wave of post-illuminism movement, with all the inheritage of will for freedom and equality. Here in Eu this issue is nominal, but on practical way our politicians are still believeing they are a sort of "elected by G-d" people, instead of "elected by we-the-people".



I think that as now Saddam is willing to negotiate (read "fool us and take time..."), the moment he will really have mass destruction weapon, the attitude will be of no more negotiation... so better strike now than later!

This is by far, I think, the most futile argument I have ever witnessed.

The irresistible force has met the immovable object

[puke]

And that is a good thing too -- for your statements are indefensible.

Keld,

As you said nothing to detract from my thesis I will take it that you agree with me that Europe could meet it's own defense needs, but simply has no desire to in light of our contribution. Of course the endless bitching and second guessing comes with the territory I guess.



Sometimes that works, but in the case of Hitler at Munich it gave away the store and led Europe to the brink of disaster. A half century later that insistance on talking things out got a lot more people killed in Yugoslavia than had to be. The final result was the same anyway so it cannot be said that it was a good policy in that case either.



A silly arguement. The US has always been for European integration (even German reunification) and we all have a clear understanding of the endless wars of European history [img]http://www.rapidforum.at/smilies/y129.gif[/img]. That has absolutely nothing to do with how Europe deals with small rogue nations in their most intimate sphere of influence, or their overall defense outlook.

The bottom line is that you don't want to take complete responsibility for your own security, instead prefering to bitch at us [u]when we have to do things for our own[/u].



You had me on the culture and history part, but that middle part is not well taken. If you have any understanding of the history of European democracy and the role of the United States as a model of such, in Europe and the world, you wouldn't say that.



I'll take that as the Danish view, and just say "thanks." Please don't pretend to speak for all Europeans, for that would include the French; and to say that they just go about different paths to the same destination is insulting. They pulled out of NATO at the height of the cold war, encouraging the Soviet Union. You may remember those fun times: machinegunning fleeing Berliners; crackdowns/invasions in Eastern Europe.

Decades later and nothing changes. America is attacked the first time since pearl harbor and Germany, Italy, Spain, Britain pledge support. What do the French do? The French President went running around Europe yelling "it's not a war, it's not a war!" trying to break it up. Remember that?

Hey Guys,

Let's take it easy on the Danes.  True enough, they played footsie with the Nazi occuppiers early in WW2 (Churchill called Denmark "Hitler's Canary" at one point), when the Germans started to bring "The Final Solution" to Denmark, the entire country rose up and out of the Danes outrage at a part of their population being singled out for deportation came out of the most effective resistance movements in Europe.  With the advantage of having neutral Sweeden next door, they smuggled most of the Danish Jews over there, and they raised such hell with the Germans over the Jews that were rounded up, that nearly all of the Danish Jews survived the camps and came home.

While all this was going on, the Danish resistance movement started doing everything from blowing up German troop and supply trains headed for Norway, to walking up to Germans in the street and blowing them away.  There are home movies of Resistance operations in Denmark that rival Hollywood for drama.

That having been said, while I recognize the right of the Danes or anyone else to express their opinions about the United States policies and actions, I count on my country to do what is best for us.  If others don't like it, they're free to try and persuade us otherwise, and we're free to either listen or ignore.

hun,u can suck my dick,i'm from new zealand,my wife is from nc,most euro ppl i know fully support the us ,and i was glad to say i can move to a place where i can play with my toys,and get a chance to kick some rag head ass,as for the jews,the us can learn from them in the way u deal with ragheads,really,i'm i'm one person who likes to live free,no matter what,as long as i'm protecting me and my family.

Post from gunner

Sorry, [b]gunnermark[/b], but I choke on [b]small bones![/b] [:D]

Sorry, again, [b]gunnermark[/b], but your anecdotal evidence of what European folks think about the US and its foreign policy is not supported by polls by the Europeans themselves, or by its media.

I'm glad you're free to defend yourself and your North Carolinian wife, but that's only because you're not living in socialist anti-gun Europe!

Be sure and come back to visit us with more exciting and informative posts such as this in the future.

Oh, and about your first offer? If your wife won't do it, what makes you think anyone else would want to? [:D]

Eric The(SassyAsHellAsUsual)Hun[>]:)]

i think we should use bioweapons on the european union



fear the USA empire

Very nice statement from you.

I am Italian...

If everyone hates us, why do they move to our country and take our money?

A select few will get an antidote

btw, i'm not serious

Jealousy is perhaps the ugliest of emotions.

This question bears repeating.

You all need to read this:
[url]http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/aol/2002/0821/p01s01-uspo.html[/url]

After some carefull thought, judicious meditation, and several rough drafts of an editorial  missive, I have ellected to respond with the following:

F@#$ 'Um!

Komrade Keld it appears as though you are an asshole . As an asshole you will probably have little assholes. You really should kommitt suicide. You EU dicks are bigger hypocites than any American!! You all spread your liberal socialistic views all over the world.I think we should just cut off funds from everyone and see how far the EU will get.

B.T.W. where can I get one of those "Kill Whitey tee shirts"[sniper]

Perhaps agtm will follow in Chimbo's footsteps with his own line of clothing. We can hope, right... [img]http://www.rapidforum.at/smilies/b20.gif[/img]

Well, Eric, I don't know what your original intention was but, quoting of some hack's newspaper column sure resulted in one of the most divisive and acromonious threads I seen lately. Quoting European opinion polls as denounciing the U.S., rather than the U.S. Gov's Foreign Policies, was particulartly effective.

To those who scampered out of the woodwork to beat their chests screaming "Fuck 'Em" as an appropriate slogan for the State Department:

Throughout history, there have been many, many nations that enjoyed the status that the U.S. currently holds. And I'll bet everyone of them had arseholes in the streets screaming exactly the same crap as you, and for exactly the same reasons. Especially when they were wound-up by someone exactly like Eric!

Yeah, you guys certainly have a government to envy down there! [rolleyes]