[DanaC]

"Part of this difference is that Europe brings a knife to this street fight while the US brings a shotgun. If all you have is a knife, maybe you prefer talking to fighting. But part of this difference is the national character, in which the American people, once struck, will fight back with ferocity. We ain't taking shit from nobody. Nobody comes into our house and pushes us around.

You punch us in the gut, it only makes us madder. You punch Europe in the gut and half of it shrinks back and tries to figure out how to walk away."


I see. I must have been reading some pretty messed up history books all these years. This reluctance to wage war and try to annihilate anyone who takes a shot at us is something of a new phenomenon in Europe. After centuries of knocking down each other's cities and sieging each others towns ( not to mention all the sport we had with each other's streams of ragged trousered refugees) and then the good old days when we had no compunction in stealing someone elses country and adding it to our own little collections.......You'll forgive us please if we seek not to involve ourselves in America's vengeance campaign against people who are racking up reasons to hate the West pretty fuckin fast right now.


What's funny is that in the mid 20th century American journalists used to look on in disbelief and horror at some of the stunts we British pulled in Iraq. .....Of course we didnt have international permission to disarm them before invading and destroying all semblance of civil order we would probably have considered that a little unsporting.