Anti-Americans had me in tears on the Fourth of July

I've just moved from New York City to London, into a little house with a little garden - and it seemed a good idea to throw a Fourth of July barbecue. After years of cramped Manhattan parties, craning out of our air-conditioned apartment window to catch a glimpse of fireworks, I was determined to have the traditional outdoor feast.

My British flatmate loved the idea. "It's a themed welcome-back party," she exclaimed. She emailed invitations to our friends. I bought gourmet sausages, and then suddenly I panicked. Why would a bunch of Brits, anti-Bush and liberal Brits at that, want to celebrate our most all-American day?

Having lived in London on and off for two years, I've realised that young British people don't like America; in fact, now that Bush is waging his war on terror, they hate it. At a dinner party in the autumn, a boy I'd just met said: "You know, basically bin Laden is right." I began to cry. "America oppresses every other country, and really exploits them just to get richer and, you know, crushes them if they try to stand up for themselves. Bin Laden was telling America to mind its own business; it needed to be told."

And all this when my city was plastered with posters for loved ones missing since September 11; when I had just discovered that a friend had died in the attack. Knowing that one of the charges against Americans was that we "take everything too seriously", I apologised for crying.

Since September, most of my introductions to young Brits begin: "Oh, you're American." Then comes a barrage of questions and assertions about Bush and America's place in the world. If you can clear such political minefields, you find yourself with some friends for life, whose political attitudes about America do not extend to their opinion of individual Americans. "So really," I told myself, "stop worrying. These are your cherished friends coming to the party. You can make it through an evening without talking politics, and everyone loves a camp themed party, especially one with gourmet sausages and mustard in a squeezy bottle."

Then I read the "youth" survey in The Telegraph - a huge majority of young Britons thought America was "aggressive", "inward-looking", "concerned only with its own place in the world" and "not a good example to other countries". Thirty-seven per cent thought Bush was either "poor" or "dreadful". I accosted each new guest - even before they had negotiated the red, white and blue balloons that covered our floor - with interview requests. "Please will you tell me what you really think about Bush and America? I swear I won't get upset and really the more honest the better and I know that we disagree anyway." It worked, but not until we had more than a little drink. What a sight: BA literature students, photographers, actors and people in the theatre - all British but me - piling on to a sofa and talking tipsily about politics.

"Well, America," began someone, nestling into the couch and setting her drink on the table. "I really like America, but I don't think their political system inspires much confidence." "Bush is awful - a total idiot," broke in a boy from across the room, and the polite reserve was broken. "Yeah," nodded another friend earnestly. "Everyone in Britain thinks he's horrible; we were really gutted when he won. We wanted the other guy, what's his name? - Gore - to win."

Turning away from a conversation revolving around an Alabama-style chocolate cake that one of our friends had brought us, someone volunteered: "Bush is a homicidal megalomaniac; he wants to take over the world." My friend's boyfriend added a new sort of conspiracy theory: "The US is the world's biggest terrorist. They think that it is fine to go into other countries and pillage them for their own good, but when other countries attack them they call it terrorism. George W welcomed September 11. Look what it did for him. He didn't exactly engineer it, but he wanted to go into Afghanistan because of their oil resources. Do we really know Osama was behind September 11?" "Where did you hear this?" I asked, trying desperately to be impartial. "Well, I pieced it together," he replied. His paranoia was met with approval from some quarters: "Yeah, Bush wants to use 9/11 to start a world war." He was shot down by the others: "He's too stupid to do that."

I wondered out loud why they were convinced that he was so dumb. The answer was a bit feeble: "Our media has hyped him as stupid." But another friend, while pouring us more wine, came to the rescue: "He always messes up the speeches that are written for him and trips over big words." "He's a knob," yelled a friend as she went into the garden to partake of the sausages.

Finally, I went out into the garden to talk to my friend, the war studies undergraduate, who seems the exception to the rule. "There is less to worry about George W than everyone makes out," he said, lighting my cigarette with an "I Love NY" lighter. "He is a strong hand on the tiller and his responses are not wrong. The Republicans pick people for character traditionally and set up a really intelligent strong team behind them. I don't think we have to worry with Colin Powell and Rumsfeld." This inspired a boy who had been quiet the whole evening - "I am the most British person you'll ever meet," he confided, "and I am completely behind Bush and America. So I guess that I don't have anything to say here."

Probably this, not the paranoid anti-Americanism, was the most shocking comment. But it was a lovely evening, and no one got into an argument, except for two Brits about the NHS. The Telegraph poll said that 63 per cent of young Britons think America is a good friend to Britain, and that is what I most noticed at my party. For all their criticism of America and its supposed militant posturing, here were my friends, bearing wine, celebrating the Fourth of July and staying late, long after we wanted to clear up and go to bed.

After all, these were the same people who had called me and my parents on September 11 and sent flowers to lay at the site.

If you didn't liberate continental Europe and allowed the Soviets to dominate it, Stalin would have done to you what Hitler failed to, that is, mount an invasion of England. Thus, you would have wound up speaking Russian. Thanks for making my point.

The Soviets would have taken a much longer time to clear up the remaining NAZIs and recover enough before attacking Britain. Our excellent Navy would have made it very difficult for them to cross the English channel, their Navy was rubbish in comparison.

By the time they would have been ready to invade, the USA would have had the atomic bomb. It would have been in both Britain and the USA's interests to have nuclear missile bases and nuclear bombers in the UK. Hence the Sovs would have had to leave us alone.

I'll admit that we British would have ended up speaking Russian without the USA's help. But not bloody German.

Yes, Roosevelt could be a bastard.

But I think that the most important contribution we made was the sheer volume of materiel.

The Hun had better quality, but we had so much more quantity that it didn't matter.

A sad thing today, to see Britain disarmed.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

The Germans didn't need the population--your British generals were responsible for the senseless slaughter of millions of good,brave men in those three years. The truth is, you were down for the count in early 1917.

Field Marshal Hague and his ilk were lousy Generals, their idea of battle strategy was to instruct their men to walk very slowly towards the German trenches. However, the German Generals were equally bad, so our losses were similar. Hence the British Empire's massive population did give us a major advantage over the Germans. We would have eventually beaten them.

'Sure they declared war over Poland, but what did they do to try to help Poland?'
They commenced firing on German ships at sea, The Scheer was bombed within a few hours of the declaration of war.

Would you expect the Brits to start bombing cities ? the war hadn't got that desparate yet. Or do you think they should have shipped off their only two fully-equipped divisions to help the 40 Polish against the 62 German divisons ?

The Brittish and French could have attacked Germany from the west while the German army was attacking Poland. The Germans were in no position at the beginning of the war to fight on two fronts simultaneously.

I never said that the USA doesn't deserve some credit. You were good allies, apart from the fact that all arms and supplies had to be paid for in advance and you stayed out of the war until the NAZI allied Japanese attacked you.

There was not strong support for entering the war before Pear Harbor was attacked. The first peace-time draft in US history was extended by a one vote majority in the House in July 1941. There are still people who believe conspiracy theories that FDR knew that Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked and deliberately prevented the dissemintaion of that intelligence to the various commands in the Pacific. Brittain was fortunate that Hitler blundered on December 8, 1941 by declaring war on the US. Also, Brittain was fortunate for the the US naval victory at Midway six months later. The destruction of four Japanese carriers prevented further Japanese expansion in the Pacific and allowed the US and Brittain to follow a Europe first strategy.

Thankyou - unreservedly

Firstly there is nothing that is ‘indisputable’ in history. History doesn’t exist as pure fact, a natural or purely object view of history doesn’t exist at all. You have an opinion that America is solely responsible for winning WW1 and WW2, it’s an opinion not fact.

The whole premise of your argument is based on a ‘what if’ scenario. You can’t actually prove America won the war, to prove your point you'd have to go back in time and either fight the Germans and Japanese alone or not get involved. Because that’s impossible, you cannot present your opinion as fact.

Who knows if the Japanese Empire could have been dislodged? It’s impossible to say. I can say that America made more than a significant contribution to the overall effort, but I will stop short of saying it won both wars. In my opinion.

Spitz, you are a good sport. Surely, a "what if " scenario can be disputable, and some history is really written by the victor. But there are some facts in history that are are indisputable. As in "Who dropped the first atomic bomb in warfare?" The answer will always be "The United States". That's an example of indisputable fact in history. That's what I meant.

Britain was the super power up until the second world war, do you find it so hard to believe that Britain did then what America does now?

I don’t know why President Truman made that comment, but I’m not going to dismiss it out of hand.

As for the Atomic bomb. The two guys who actually pressed the button that dropped the bombs were, in fact, of Polish and Hungarian descent. They just happened to be in an American Bomber. That’s a complete lie of course I’m just winding you up.

What is it about freedom that so frightens Europeans?

Personally IMO .. they lack the balls to fight until it is too late

Just take a look into history over the past century .. how many times have we bailed them out ..

And IMO if they don't wake up soon .. we will yet again have to bail their butts out of the mess they made

...just take a look into history over the past century .. how many times have we bailed them out ..

"We"?

What's this, "we"? Did you hit Omaha Beach yourself- or are you trying to somehow cloak yourself in the glory, of those who did?

...I'm done ranting about Eurosocialist ingrates whose asses we saved twice, for now...

You didn't save anyone's ass, Sargon.So don't try to attach yourself to the coattails of the American servicemen who fought in Europe.

The only thing you have in common with them is your country of birth.

A comment from England's penal colony. You're right, I didn't do any fighting. But my father and my uncles did in WWII. My grandfather fought in WWI. I remember these things and how my freedom was paid for in blood. I have no idea what your country is like and it's none of my business. I know that the United States defeated england in our war of independence. We beat them again in 1812. They sided with the south in the civil war. We fought with then in WWI and SAVED them in WWII. They'd be speaking german now if not for us.

We in the United States do not pay homage to royal families and other parasites. Perhaps you people shouldn't either.

You're right, I didn't do any fighting. But my father and my uncles did in WWII.

My paternal grandfather died fighting the NAZIs, I've never even seen a photograph of him. My maternal grandfather fought in that war too, but he survived. One of my paternal great-grandfathers was decorated in WWI, he was a sergeant in the Royal Marines and a hero by all accounts.

I know We fought with then in WWI and SAVED them in WWII. They'd be speaking german now if not for us.

NO, we wouldn't be speaking German. If it weren't for the USA, we'd be speaking Russian. I'll let you say that, because its accurate.

We in the United States do not pay homage to royal families and other parasites. Perhaps you people shouldn't either.

Damn right. I'm an English republican myself, which means my preferred system of government is doomed, thanks to the royalist media's brainwashing of the British people.

Europeans know America, but they do not understand it. I bet a few Euros have read the constitution, but fewer have read the Federalist Papers, Adam Smith, John Locke...the authors, thinkers who we got our American ideas from.

Europe is the land of good intentions and the road to hell is paved with them. They have created their own hell through their "will to power" crap.

Whether you are an individual or a nation, when you are willing to go out and do what must be done at the time that it must be done and regardless that it may be unpopular or dangerous, those who are afraid to act will hate you.

Good post! Do we still have quote of the day around here?

Don't judge all the Aussies by that nincompoop. Though he does represent a certain whack of them, as so many are spoiled from their effortless lifestyle these days. The old Aussies of the WW2 days were a different kettle of fish altogether. They knew what it was like to have to work for your well-being and freedom -- that was before Australians became hooked on their welfare state. More public servants per head of population in Australia than any country in the free world, I've heard. As is true world over, though, those people with their own businesses work three times as hard as everyone else and don't expect anything for nothing. a dying breed, in their country and ours.

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