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To: Mark Felton

"...The masses of people in Europe who are otherwise apolitical admire the USA and George Bush. ..."

Not quite.

Need to make a delicate differential.

The Europeans in general, like the US. But they do not like Bush.
As long the US was one of the engine of the democratic development of the world, it was no problem.
But most of the Europeans don't like the single superpower configuration, a "get it alone" styile.
As the germans said regarding the Iraq conflict, the allies are not there to be told what to do, but to consult and act together.

The masses of Europa agrees with the general values what the USA represents, but not the methodes it try to impose on others.
Also, in Europe there is a dynamic connection with the arab/muslim world, and it not viewed so darkly as from the USA.
The people of the USA only know the muslims in connection the oil and 9-11 and so they draw their conclusion.
Europe builds on more than 1000 year of shared history, and judge them by that.

Tony Blair did not do well on the last election.
He lost a lot from the previous one.
He is lucky that his political opponents are absolute non-starters, so the brits had to choose between the bad and the worse.

For short: Being "anti-american" most of the times not really means that. It means mainly anti-war and anti-single-superpower.

And it is hard to deny that the war critics got it wrong completly. From a handful of die-hard AlQuaida in Afghanistan now we face few thousand battle-hardened terrorist who getting their "live" training in Iraq.

And if someone try to grill Sadddam over the Halabja attack, now he can smile back saying that it was a boys scout picnic compared to Falujah...


6 posted on 08/04/2005 8:05:32 AM PDT by bozot
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To: bozot
Tony Blair did not do well on the last election.

That was to do with annoyance with massive stealth taxes and Labour's general socialist elitism IMO. I certainly didn't vote for him :0)

7 posted on 08/04/2005 8:13:54 AM PDT by agere_contra
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To: bozot
And if someone try to grill Sadddam over the Halabja attack...

Not sure I follow you here. Saddam gassed 5000+ Kurds in a single day. Iranians, Syrians and ex-Baathists have killed a equally great many innocent civilians in Iraq. America has killed a small number of innocents in unavoidable collateral damage in their extremely restrained operations. The world can believe what it wants to believe, but the truth is evident. America under Bush has done the right thing in Iraq (disclaimer: I am not American).

8 posted on 08/04/2005 8:23:05 AM PDT by agere_contra
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To: bozot

"The masses of Europa agrees with the general values what the USA represents, but not the methodes it try to impose on others."

...Unless it is their own narrow self-interest like imposing democracy by force on NAZI Germany or fascist Italy or opposing (by force) Russian communists or imposing values on Bosnia or Kosovo. Then it is a-OK to impose values by force.


9 posted on 08/04/2005 8:29:29 AM PDT by Owl558 (Please excuse my spelling)
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To: bozot

"The Europeans in general, like the US. But they do not like Bush. "


That's just B.S., Europeans don't like Americans in general because it makes them feel inferior. Bush is just an excuse.


11 posted on 08/04/2005 8:41:52 AM PDT by nettuno
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To: bozot
"As long the US was one of the engine of the democratic development of the world, it was no problem. "

Are you saying that the US are no more an engine of democratic development or is it Europe that is incapable of fighting for democracy anymore?
12 posted on 08/04/2005 8:44:16 AM PDT by nettuno
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