[LibWhacker]

Fine, Fletcher . . . Do you promise not to call on us next time you appease your way into war? If not, sit down and STFU!

[VOA]

Europeans Are Not Cowards. It's That We Know War.

Europeans Are Not Cowards. BUT We're Smart Enough To Get The Americans To Expend Their
Capital Fixing Our Problems In Our Own Backyard...Like In The Former Yugoslavia...

...but We were only able to pull that one off because Bill Clinton and his
Democratic Soul-Mates ARE Old Europe.

[marron]

The thing with Europeans in the Second World War is that they didn't oppose Hitler in part because they were in agreement.

Anti-communists sometimes sided with him because they were more afraid of Stalin, but his anti-Semitic rhetoric didn't cause much heartburn anywhere in Europe. The Jews who burned in the camps died at German hands, but were rounded up and handed over by French police, Belgian police, Hungarian and Romanian police, and so on.

Palestine was very much in vogue among the camp survivors because there was no home to go back to, having been turned in by their neighbors.

So the writer might better have said that Europeans are not Cowards, its just that They are Fascists, and have a soft spot for dictators in snappy clothes.

[OldFriend]

Europe knows wars because they are appeasers and lack any moral convictions at all.

[BluH2o]

Europeans didn't have any problem ramping up for WWII ... after only a 21 year interval from the chaos and bloodshed of WWI. WWII ended in Europe in May 1945, nearly 60 years ago ... three generations have grown to maturity in that period. Not buying into the "We know war" argument ... something else is in play here.

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

The problem with Europeans is not that they know war, it's that they are unwilling to do anything about a problem until it escalates into a war.

[cricket]

Too bad so many people cannot grasp just what it means when a civil society decides it is not worth defending itself against the barbarous.

Not a matter of 'knowing war'; but surely a matter of knowing what is at stake; and why, when confronted with evil; there is no choice.

[lainde]

bttt

[Sockdologer]

It may be true. But as a European myself — I'm from Britain — it doesn't feel true.

And of course, that's all that matters!

[pierrem15]

Within a few short years we were forced into a World War II, and this time there was none of the flag-waving; instead there was a stunned gasp of: "Are we really going through all this again?"

Note the use of the passive voice.

You were not forced-- you walked right into a hell of your own making that a blind man could have seen, on a path paved with demagoguery, cowardice, and appeasement.

As a consequence of your stupidity, we were attacked, and we saved your sorry butts not once but three times (counting the Cold War) in one century.

You could at least have the decency to shut up.

[Twinkie]

Oh, we know war on this soil! Our first one was the
bloody one with Britain for independence. I'm from the
South. Oh, we know war here. Our men have died on
foreign soil by the thousands fighting European tyrants.
My father had battle fatigue from WWII from the time he
was 21 yrs. old until he died at the age of 81. I know
firsthand about living in the house with a man who
automatically falls into sentry duty mode at a certain
time of night. We know about war. Chamberlain's ideas
were just like the liberals here today. They didn't learn
anything from all the history they studied in those fancy
ivy league universities they attended after all.

[tracer]

"An average listener would be forgiven for believing that Europeans are a cowardly bunch of ungrateful wimps, whose anti-American bombast is a merely a cover for their complicity with evil regimes."

No, an average listener would be correct.

But, then, we Americans know nothing of wars Europe, do we, Fletch?

Do you speak German? Oh, well then, you're welcome, old boy.....

[tracer]

"And I wonder if our cultural disconnect comes from two very different experiences of war."

Indeed. One would expect that the "experiences of war" of a liberator and those of a defender whose subjects were disarmed by their own government might just be a bit different, then.......

[tracer]

"And I wonder if our cultural disconnect comes from two very different experiences of war."

Indeed. One would expect that the "experiences of war" of a liberator and those of a defender whose subjects were disarmed by their own government might just be a bit different, then.......

[Revolting cat!]

The current attitudes and policies of the western European governments and elites have nothing, I repeat, nothing to do with the history of European wars. They have everything to do with the post-colonial hangover, the legalized invasion of Muslim hordes on the European continent and with political correctness. The Europeans, if they want to point out the Americans hypocrisy, should point out to our white gloves treatment of the War on Poverty!

[He Rides A White Horse]

Europeans Are Not Cowards. It's That We Know War.

Americans Are Not Cowards either, It's that we know the political systems you continue to propagate are Why You Know War.

...and Why We Should Avoid Them Like The Plague.

[Snuffington]

The major flaw of this analysis is that it mistakes the experience of the nation for that of the citizen. The Europe of today is extremely different from that which waged the last great wars. The citizens have changed along with it, even though they're loathe to admit it.

The United States of today is perceived as "militaristic" because it fills the vacuum that is left by Europe's abandonment of its own defense. While we try to keep our military outlook positive and optimistic (and are called naive and gung-ho for it), we increasingly resent the notion that we're shouldering the burden our "allies" neglect.

Meanwhile they continue to fight their last war endlessly, condeming us for reminding them of their errors, while becoming oblivious to the fact that this is neither 1939 nor 1914 (and demonstrating increasingly childish views of even those conflicts), and that their own military blunders are not sufficient to condemn all military actions for the rest of history.

[dougherty]

What the hell is this idiot talking about? Americans know war all too well, thanks to the Europeans and WWI and WWII. I swear, some of these Euros are brain dead.

[longtermmemmory]

This bafoon knows nothing. I have family who know the horrors of war, who survived the horrors of communists. You must say no to evil BECAUSE you know.

[Cacique]

btt