Originally Posted by DTop

Yes 1217 you are right

Originally Posted by DTop

of course, we people all over the world should learn from each other because each has something positive to teach the other.

I think it's also important to learn from each other's mistakes.

I think there are tons of different opinions about Europe among Americans, the most common of which is undoubtedly indifference. There must also be a widespread impression of "We dont understand them".
To be frank, DTop, if I were American, I would vote for the 'basically ungrateful' option.

We didn't go that sophisticated when you came over to rescue our lives and freedom in WW2. One must support his allies and friends, I believe.
And Europe is just ducking the war on terror, nothing else matters as far as I see.

Originally Posted by ItalianGuy4US

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And Europe is just ducking the war on terror, nothing else matters as far as I see.

You cant say that
Comrades of mine died in Afhganistan, and my ticket is aleready printed.....

Most europeans just think that the war in iraq is not againsts terrorism..thats all

Well, in my opinion, there’s probably one thing missing from the poll that should be there: Americans don’t understand or know enough about Europeans to formulate a personal or factual opinion.

I say this based mostly on personal experience growing up. In most cases, when we were young people, our schools really only gave a rudimentary education about the world, in the case of geography, social studies, or history. We got an indirect look at how certain nations do to their interaction along the way with the United States as it developed as a country. I myself didn’t get an in-depth understanding of most countries until I took college level type classes in history, economics, and social studies. And I believe that with in the last 30 years there has been a serious decrease in tourism or travel for most Americans to get a practical view of the countries.

At least I had a chance to see the European countries during my military service, but even that was a little slanted (I saw a slightly different side than I expected of the people of the Netherlands when I witnessed the anti-cruise missile demonstrations during the 1980’s, for an example. It became apparent real quick that not all American policies were agreed with, and that it wasn’t all tulips and windmills In Holland.).

I would say the average Americans exposure to Europe is through the media, be it a newspaper, TV or even Film. And we know that sometimes the media isn’t flattering, nor completely un-bias in its reporting.

After all my experiences with world travel and college level education, what’s my opinion of Europeans? Its three fold:

We could learn some things from a European. Europeans do have some good ideas about living and resource usage we could sure use in the United States

Europeans are more thrifty and sometime more practical with their money, but really aren’t very different than people in U.S.

If it came back to helping the Europeans out of a bad situation, I would do it willingly,

Don’t get me wrong: I dearly love my own country. I wouldn’t have served it for 20 years if I didn’t. And I wouldn’t trade it for any other country in the world. Just wanted to voice an opinion not seen so far on the topic.

Originally Posted by ItalianGuy4US

And Europe is just ducking the war on terror, nothing else matters as far as I see.

A buddy of mine buried a comrade last week, he died in Iraq. It was the first Dutch soldier officially KIA for almost a decade, so it's a big story around here. I probably met the guy a couple of years ago, but I don't remember him. Our soldiers are there, and were not the only European country not ducking the war on terrorism. Don't blame all off Europe for something a couple of countries (don't) do.

Originally Posted by pollux

Most europeans just think that the war in iraq is not againsts terrorism..thats all

And I can't blame them. All the conflicting messages about evidence, weapons of mass destruction, ties to AL Qaida, oil and the history between Iraq and the US make it hard to see what's (are) the real reason(s) for the US to attack Iraq. (no judgment intended there)

"And Europe is just ducking the war on terror, nothing else matters as far as I see."

Not true at all, even if countries does not support directly or politicly (for say in Iraq) most countries do support it in other ways still beeing against the action in a political way

Much as the USA did in the erlyer parts of WW2 when they ware neutral, from a start they didnt want to have anything to do with europe and its problems, but it started more and more support the allies (france and britain) by supplying weapons. USA lost its neutrality after the peal habour incident and philipin incident, when they declared war on Japan (not germany at that time). Germany then declared war on USA and the big war started. And there was also a "debate" about signing a neutrality pact with germany and hitler, but as of what i know it never happened.

Many contries today, support allied troops in Iraq with weapons, money etc to help the allies, including neutral Sweden

Very interesting reaction, both Americans and Europeans....At least Europeans react to something! I dod not mean to berate any of our and your losses, we're fighting a common enemy and, to me, all those soldiers downthere are my brothers and deserve all our support. I won't go offtopic speaking of WMD and such ( who wills to talk about that just open a new topic and I'll get along with that - I believe there were WMD downthere) but I mean to pose you one more question:

IF Europeans, like some of you said, don't agree on the fact that there were links between terrorism and Baghdad, then how come, like you said, most Europeans countries are taking part to the effort in Iraq ? Was it just bandwagoning in the first place and now it's everybody-off-the-wagon ?
I'm not saying we had no casualties in the two theaters, I saw Quattrocchi dying, I saw a 23-yr-old soldier killed by a granade just 2 days ago, and a couple of dozens more killed. Those are my heroes- but I mean I'm speaking of the Population support, not the gov'ts: for example my gov't is fully supporting the effort. My gov't believes there were WMDs there. But the people of Europe just disappoint me: why can't we take our responsibility ? The people in Europe ( most of ) don 't support the USA and in my opinion they do so just because the situation is getting harder than before and they're not used to take responsibility in the world order. It goes without saying that US interests are OUR interests in todays and tomorrows world-

I dont doubt that SH had connection with terrorist, but the question and one of the reasons to war was, did SH have connections to Al Queada which was diaproved, they (Bin and SH) pretty much haded/hates each other. That was the initail reasons for war.

Originally Posted by ItalianGuy4US

I did not mean to berate any of our and your losses, we're fighting a common enemy and, to me, all those soldiers downthere are my brothers and deserve all our support.

Glad to hear that.

Originally Posted by ItalianGuy4US

It goes without saying that US interests are OUR interests in todays and tomorrows world-

The point I tried to make is that it isn't that clear what exactly the US interests were that made them attack Iraq. If that's not clear, there's no way of knowing if their interests are OUR interests.

there were links between Al Qaeda and Baghdad: the joining link is called Ansar-al-Islam, which was based in the north of the country. About my reason for believing SH was a threat to US, just go check out the WMDs in the military related news.