We are sad and confused by European Socialism, and trying very hard for the disease to stay over there. I think Arnold Schwartzenegger summed up our response fairly well.
We can support you - but maybe the best way to do that is to try to keep the US at least a little bit normal.
Tookie was a cold blooded cold hearted murderer. If we stop killing guys like him - which by the way in all studies show states with death penalty have lower crime rates for death penalty crimes (we vary by State) - meaning it is an effective deterrent to these type crimes.
If we stop killing the Tookies of the world, for all we know Germany will work their way down from 15 years to ten, then maybe 5 years? Who knows.
Don't forget - the Canadians act European too.
In the last two elections we came within a state of having Leftist Socialists elected President. We are holding on with our fingernails.
Define a common foundation? How about not assuming the worst every time the US has to do something. How about supporting Democracies like the US and Israel over Iran and Palestinians. How about Austrians not getting anti-American excited when an American governor enforces the law of the US - on a cold blooded murderer. We are excited because Germany let the known terrorist murderer of an American serviceman go free after a short sentence. (and you know Germany only got involved in the first place to prevent his extradition to the US). Austria has nothing to do Tookie. Nothing. You guys know the right things to do in your hearts.
What Arnold was doing with Graz was saying "Keep your weak minded opinions to yourself". By all means - Austria should name the stadium after Tookie Williams. After all - this was a very important case with important ramificaitons for Austria. (Sarcasm). Do you know how funny that sounds over here? It sounds like common sense turned upside down. What common foundation should we have with people who treat cold blooded murderers as martyrs? Why the fascination with the US? Why the meddling?
I mean - seriously - how much outrage do these same losers show for Saddam, or Iran, or North Korea, or Sudan, or France for "Oil for food $" or ...etc. It is only anti-US grandstanding. Austria hasn't been important to us for 50 - 200 years - it isn't even important to Arnold anymore, and he was born there. This is not the US grandstanding against Austria.
I just showed you this Tookie Williams story to point out the completely different way of thinking between Europe and America. We do not have to discuss the rightfully desicion of your gouvernator. The simple thing is, that his former (or still - he has two citizenships to my knowlege) Austrian compatriots see him as a murderer, because he refused to stop a normal American judiciary process. The sad thing is, that they mean exactly what they are saying. Maybe this gives you a feeling how antithetic the values on both sides of the Atlantic are. These different attitudes are widely spread throughout whole Europe. It would have turned out to be the same for Arnie if he would have been born in London, Paris, Berlin or Brussels.
There was i.e. no possibility to do more on Hamadi for Germany than what has been done. Hamadi was longer behind bars than most other offenders (who convicted even much worser crimes than him). Since we have a law that no one can be extradited as a result of a crime he already "atoned" in Germany (unregarding the capital punishment issue), any German "help" would have been highly illegal. In a democratic country you have to obey the law or you turn yourself into a criminal very fast.
It is possible that Europe and America will loose each other since there is indeed no real foundation anymore. This is not only a problem between Germany and the US, this problem is between all western European nations and the US. If you come to the UK, your by far closest ally, you better not talk about your sympathy of your own administration for example. In the moment we have some reasonable politicians like Merkel, Sarkozy or Blair who try to ease the situation. This will not be that way forever. Since there are many issues were Europeans and Americans have totally different viewpoints that can't be by-passed, it would be helpful if we could find out what is connecting us. Both sides can't afford loosing their friends on the other shore. There are not only such fundamental interests like free trade, political stability or clear economic rules, we share our forefathers, our history and -guess what?- most of our values. Maybe we are mature enough to accept that some differences can make a friend even more interesting.