[kabar]

We must also recognize that America's popularity and influence have fallen in many of our countries as well. Public opinions polls, including the German Marshall Fund's own Transatlantic Trends survey, show that our region has not been immune to the wave of criticism and anti-Americanism that has swept Europe in recent years and which led to a collapse in sympathy and support for the United States during the Bush years. Some leaders in the region have paid a political price for their support of the unpopular war in Iraq. In the future they may be more careful in taking political risks to support the United States. We believe that the onset of a new Administration has created a new opening to reverse this trend but it will take time and work on both sides to make up for what we have lost.

F**k them. If they must criticize Bush to curry favor with Obama, then they lose any credibility with me. Bush helped expand NATO and offered an anti-missile system to protect Europe. The US spends more on defense than all of the other countries in NATO combined.

Europeans and Canadians are spending about 1% of GDP on defense. They have been on security welfare for decades with the US taxpayers footing the bill. It is high time Europe starts to pay its fair share of the defense burden. The truth is that the US can no longer afford its current global defense commitments as we sink below an ocean of debt that will force us to choose between butter and guns.

[1rudeboy]

You are reading that incorrectly. These people (the ones I’m familiar with, at least), laid their necks on the line for the Bush Administration. If you’re not familiar with what they did, then you shouldn’t criticize them for pointing out the obvious.