rikzilla said:
Why is that a "silly generalization"?
well, statements like
Americans are not like Europeans. I don't know why, we just are.
without any supporting points posted on a discussion board, espacially one dedicated to scepticism constitute silly generalizations in my book.
If however you start to support your view with solid arguments, it might turn out to be not so silly after all. So let's see...
If we're attacked we tend to come together in severe pissed-offed-ness.
So the Spanish people didn't come together after the attacks both to help and to protest? Haven't you seen the pictures? These people seemed pretty severly pissed off to me.
It is based upon observation of real mass reactions to real comperable events. The 9/11 attacks brought GWB the highest approval rating of any American President in history for a while at least. In Spain the reaction could not have been more opposite. Not only that, the amount of destruction and loss of life in Madrid was less than 10% of the 9/11 attacks. So, what conclusion would you reach if you were a terrorist? I don't just mean Al Qaeda...perhaps they will move on to other targets....I mean ANY terrorist with an axe to grind against ANY present or future Spanish government?
You are comparing apples and oranges here. If you want to support the position that a group of people who - due to some yet to be defined shared property that qualifies them as Americans - would never ever possibly react like another group of people who qualify - by sharing even more mysterious properties - as Europeans in general and the Spanish in particular you have to speculate over the same situation.
So, suppose Bush had dragged the US into an armed conflict in the middle east without a major islamistic terror attack ever happened on US soil. Say the reasons given were similar to those actually used for the invasion i.e. "has WMD" "immediate threat" "must act now" etc. Additionally, the very most of Americans actually opposed the war (like the Spaniards did). Now, many of the reasons given for the war turn out to be, let's say arguable. And then something like Madrid happens and the government immediately blames it on the wrong guy and resorts to a really fishy information policy.
You keep telling me that a course of events similar to these couldn't possibly move about 10% of the voters to actually vote the government out of office instad of supporting it like they had planned before the attack? Gimme a break.
Talk about silly! Don't you remember all the debate? All the controversy about the invasion of Afghanistan and demands for the proof of Osama's guilt? There was real resistance from the rest of the world AND within the US to the invasion of Afghanistan. Do you really think it possible that the US could have invaded either of these countries without 9/11 as the catalyst??
What is your point here? Of course there was a debate and certainly people would want some proof before engaging in an armed conflict. Are you advocating rash and blind warfare now?
And IIRC the US got all the support they wanted in Afghanistan in the end and several non US soldiers are still risking their lives there exactly because 9/11 happened.
Our history is about throwing off the reins of tyrants, not bowing to their tyranny.
What a load of tripe! And the Spanish people didn't get rid of Franco by themselves. France never had a revolution that spread through half of Europe?
Zee
