Replies

The only Europeans who "know war" in the sense intended are those who were old enough in 1945 to feel the direct impact. Otherwise, they don't know war any better than American civilians do. And probably not nearly as well as those American civilians in the vicinity of the World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11/2001.

That is exactly right. Most of these young Europeans have no idea of what war is and in fact, America has a much better idea of what war is due to are expereinces. I would also add that they have not learned anything over the years because they have allowed a war in Yugoslavia erupt and did nothing and have had a new wave of anti-semitism.

Not exactly true at all. The Soviets were a threat long after 1945. Germany was divided, the wall a reminder of what dangers were on the other side. A failed revolution in Hungary was further reminder of the Red menace.

There were terror attacks from the Bader Meinhoff gang, Japan had terror attacks from leftists too.

Europe suffered for a long long time after 1945 and I don't minimize that at all.

This is very true and can't be stressed enough. I remember talking with a young friend of mine about this very topic, and his position was somehow that the europeans 'knew' war better than americans, given their history over the last couple hundred years and most notably since the start of WW1.

This is really simplistic, and as you point out, the average euro doesn't necessarily know war better than the average american.

I stunned the youngster, though, when I asked if he felt that Americans somehow knew better than the europeans the horror and injustice of racism, given our nation's relatively recent history with the vile practice.

Caught in a position where his reasoning would naturally bring him to a conclusion that Americans would be naturally more insightful than Europeans, he exhaled and gave me a 'hmmmmmm,' - at this point I dismissed him and told him to get back to work on his mental housecleaning.

The look in his eye was priceless. I was mean, but sometimes mean is appropos.