For the record, I am no fan of France.
Also, for the record, I do indirectly blame W and his cabinet's attitude toward Europe for the fact that I have had to deal with Gerhard Schröder for the last 3 years.
A bit less hubris and bit more diplomacy would have denied Gerhard the ability to use anti-Americanism to win in 2002. I say this with absolute certainty. A different attitude would have meant a different German government and an additional, traditional European ally.
From 1991 to 2003, what was the relationship between Germany, France, and Russia towards Saddam and Iraq? If I am not mistaken, they were doing business with evil. And you want the United States to be diplomatic towards nations that assist and abet a terrorist nation in their goal to eliminate the United States? You are insane!
Here is an ugly American thought for you. Germany, France, and all of Europe owe their very existance to the United States. We liberated/conquered Europe in 1945 and instead of saying up puppet government as Germany, France, England, et al, would have done, we returned your nations to you. Europe should kiss our feet and do our bidding from then until the end of time.
And I say your nations because you have made it evident that you side more with Europe than with your own nation. That is sad but because of the concept of America, you are allowed to do so. My opinion of Europe is low just as your of your own countrymen is low. Stay there. In this country, you would only work to make us weaker.
Your fellow countrymen voted him in, live with it. If you are so concerned, work to change it.
"A different attitude would have meant a different German government and an additional, traditional European ally."
We do not need or want fair weather "allies". If you do not have the backbone to stand up for what is right without expecting to have your butt kissed then you deserve the pos country you have created,
Socialist, Muslims and Eurotrash blowhards define the Europe of today and W did not create that. So get off your whinny A$$ and do something about it because you are becoming more irrelevant every day.
Having now traveled extensively in Europe for both business and pleasure, I no longer believe that.
I have gotten on a tram in Freiburg and gotten dirty looks for asking the conductor to repeat himself because I am used to Hochdeutsch and couldn't understand his thick, Schwabische accent.
I was polite, I spoke German. Still I was unacceptable.
The next day on the same tram line a group of about 15 drunken football supporters came running through the tram cars shouting football chants and stinking of sweat and cheap beer. Most of them appeared to be in their mid-30s.
No one on the tram reacted as negatively to them as they did to me the previous day.
Maybe teenage American tourists behave as badly as those middle-aged Germans did, but I doubt it.
Essentially an ugly American is simply an American. The only American a European is willing to tolerate is an American who does not possess any discernible American values or characteristics, and one who is willing to badmouth and ridicule his own country to foreigners.
It really is childish how a European businessman will be polite to you until he discovers you support the President and then he will become sullen and rude.
>>A different attitude would have meant a different German government and an additional, traditional European ally.
When were they an ally? In WWI? WWII? Did they do much of anything during the Cold War other than stick their hand out and ask for protection and then turn around and protest putting nukes and tanks in Europe to accomplish said protection? Germany is no ally and never has been. Hard to call a one-way alliance in the last 50 years a 'tradition'.
France was an ally many times, but I do not consider them much of one any longer.