In response to:
"The EU countries avoided conflict"?
Who the hell do you think you are Hansen! Perhaps your too blinkered to have noticed that the UK is also in Iraq and Afghanistan and has lost hundreds of troops like the US?
And while we are on the subject, educate yourself and look up online where the French and Dutch and many other countries troops are also. French troops are currently in Mali trying to put down islamic nutjobs that threaten the free west (that is you and me), and the Brits are there as well. Where are the US?
So how dare you be disengenuous to your allies (though with articles like this I sometimes wonder why we are your friends), our brave troops are dying alongside your to trying to preserve freedom for us all.
Almost a decade ago, Europeans and many progressive Americans were lamenting how the United States was going to miss out on the 21st-century paradigm symbolized by the robust European Union. Neanderthal Americans were importing ever more oil while waging a costly "war on terror" and fighting two conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our budget deficit in 2003 hit $374 billion.
The EU avoided foreign conflicts and embraced soft power. Its declining military budgets and centralized transnational government ensured that it could address global warming and fund ever-expanding entitlements. Even the poorer Mediterranean nations reached new heights of prosperity. The Greek economy...
But you've got to admit that many on the Left have wished that the US would go away, or at least be hamstrung. We were the Problem; so if we could be stopped, everything would be just fine. Well, be careful what you wish for: Now that we are "not the world's policeman", there is no policeman; and the bloody results speak for themselves.