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To: Cacophonous
My point is (and it is admittedly a poor match for Greece) that the US constantly inserts itself - many times, true, by invitation - into regions and conflicts in which no American interests are at stake. This inevitably pisses off one side or the other, or, quite frequently, both. Then we wonder why they hate us.

You can travel further back than Theodore Roosevelt's Great White Fleet and find plenty of anti-Americanism, and none of it will be based on interventionism. Like anti-Semitism, there has always been a strain of anti-Americanism in Europe. Perhaps it is because we were too Anglo-Saxon, too Protestant, too industrious, too free, too proud, too... whatever. We were inferior upstarts in any event, and useful only as a political pawn; the current vision of Uncle Sam as manipulator is supremely ironic.

In any event, it doesn't matter. We piss a lot of these people off only because they want to be pissed off, whether out of envy or manufactured political unrest. Kiss their butts or kick them, they seem to have the same brand of friendship for us.

And that may just be the biggest difference between us and them (Greeks inclusive).

"If you could disguise your nationality you would not find any insolence here. These shopkeepers detest the English and despise the Americans. They are rude to both, more especially to the ladies of your nationality and mine.
However, these people are not impolite to Russians or Germans. And as to rank, they worship that, for they have long been used to generals and nobles."

Mark Twain, "A Tramp Abroad," copyright 1880.

33 posted on 07/13/2003 6:07:40 AM PDT by niteowl77 (Pray for our troops... harder.)
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To: edskid
That's a good point. I withdraw my comments. I know when I'm whipped.
37 posted on 07/13/2003 6:19:21 AM PDT by Cacophonous
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