America and Europe Part II: How Europe sees US

My experiences are the same as far as the people go. I part ways with you on the fact that the US started a war that for no good reason. I leave it there. I also agree that the Europeans criticism for Bush is high. Again, I really don't care about that.
What I care about is that their gov'ts are leaving their Countries open for erosion. In culture, religion, business. The towns that I am a frequent visitor to have become populated by non-natives, mosques and non-assimilation. They don't learn German, or Italian. They keep to themselves and speak more English than local language. Every street corner seems to have a Kabob stand as opposed to an Imbiss. I am much more afraid of a terror attack while there than I am here. There are no extra measures of safety at all, save for the airports.
In general, Europeans don't believe it will happen to them because they have mostly "stayed out of it". Do I give them a pass? No way. Am I saying thye owe us, nope. I am saying theostrich menatlity will be their downfall.
And, if France does move toward prgression, maybe Merkel can do the same. This is precisely my point. Protectionism gets nothing. Standing up and being counted will move these Countries forward politcally, economically and then people begin to feel their stake matters. This might also lead to a more "patriotic nature" and move them to fight for the culture and livelihood of their respective places and set some parameters for who comes in and out. Too, they might begin to understand that whatever policies they set forth are not going to make everybody happy, but it is for THEIR COUNTRY. Period. Just like in the US.

As I said, we are bashed because people would rather keep to the status quo. The US has never been about that, and I believe this is what frosts people. The US shouldn't always be the one to rescue, but then, we are. Do we keep tabs, sort of. But the payback would be to wake up and move forward...sadly this has not been the case for much of Europe that was not communist. The former communist Countries are really moving along.

"where an incredible diversity of opinions are expressed" - sure, but not as diverse as in the US, I feel quite safe saying that. In fact, most published opinion is awfully monotone unless you know where to go and what to read.

"do not approve of the way that the Bush administration has carried out its foreign policy, nor the way that the US has conducted itself in ongoing conflicts in the Middle East." - which is pretty rich, given that European policy has been the acme of cynicism there.

Look, I followed the pre-war debate in Germany, such as it was. Back then most European governments did not deny that Iraq was close to having nuclear weapons or was a dangerously aggressive regime that threatened the region. They simply did not want to face it, just as they simply hope for the best with regard to Iran now. They did not advance a single credible alternative to the war. Containment or sanctions would have been entirely up to the US. Almost all talk shows and editorials dealt with the need to stop the US, not with adressing the problem at hand.

When France stopped enforcing the no-fly zones in 1996 - was that serious? When reporting about the oil-for-foord scandal vanished - was that a sign of seriousness? The widespread condemnation of sanctions, again without offering a viable alternative? Before and after the war, I have seen a suspicious number of virulently anti-American documentaries – national public television being the worst offender – using techniques that do not belong in a documentary and containing provable untruths. There is not the space to go into them in detail, but serious it was not.

Schröder could have just stayed quietly out of the war, but instead he used an extremely sensitive issue in 2002 to ramp up anti-Americanism to win the 2002 elections - was that responsible given the world situation? Do you not believe it is possible that his undiplomatic posing encouraged Saddam? I remember well when Saddam´s representative in Germany offered his thanks.

„Remember that regional conflicts of this nature can spread very, very fast“ / „looking at the potential consequences of a war with Iraq, and looking at all of the evidence, Europe feels entirely justified at criticizing US behavior in Iraq“
- it seems we are on different continents. Well, one immediate consequence of the Iraq war was that asylum applications by Iraqis in Germany (which had been going at about 1000 per month in the years before) went down by 80-90 percent. No that the press mentioned this; I had to look up the statistics myself. One thing people here do not fear is that the instability is spreading to them. If they say it, they don´t mean it. They feel very snug and secure. I have heard this often enough: Oh, the Americans are always fearful, they are paranoid, but not us.

"only thing that separates the carnage in Iraq from the borders of the EU is Turkey" - yes, and the entire Balkans, which many Europeans feel is a lot of buffer. Nobody here gets agitated about Kurdish villages flattend by the Turkish army. People vacation in Thailand without realizing the carnage there. In the 1990s, 120.000 massacred Algerians didn´t cause much concern - and Algeria is closer. A few years ago some Germans were kidnapped while biking on the Algerian border and they were not even aware of the situation.

Besides, if it is in their interest, why do they contribute absolutely nothing to stabilizing Iraq now? Or are they sulking? Serious people don´t sulk, either.

By contrast, when the German government finally got serious about the Balkan wars - fearing that hundreds of thousands of people for former Yugoslawia would remain in Germany forever - they drummed up support for German participation in the Kosovo war by spreading lies about Serb atrocities and concentration camps (later proven to be made up, not that I deny that other atrocities did indeed take place). They decided they didn´t need Russia´s agreement in the UN. This was conveniently forgotten three years later, when the very same administration called the Iraq war "illegal". Talk about chuzpah. Schröder is now getting along splendidly with Putin and even has a job with Gazprom – which simply proves that other people have their own agendas and ideologies and not everything that happens can be blamed on American failures.