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The War on (Some) Terrorists
Jan. 2nd, 2003 08:37 pmFollowing a recent issue of Promethea, a few people on the rec.arts.comics.misc newsgroup got engaged in discussion about The War On Terror (or TWOT for short). After much discussion back and forth about who was responsible for what, whether George Bush was morally better than Osama Bin Laden, etc. the topic came up of Europe being a nation of pussies who wouldn't stand up to terrorists if they were raping our pets, as we weren't backing the US in TWOT. And that this was reprehensible after the US saved our asses in WW2.
After someone else pointed out that it took the US being attacked themselves to bring them into the war, and that they joined a good few years after everyone else, I decided to pitch in with some actual ideas about why Europe isn't charging into battle under the flag of General George. The following has the sense of what I was saying there, but cleaned up somewhat so it makes sense out of context:
The Europeans have different ideas of how to deal with states that For instance, we just caused a wave of human rights laws to be passed throughout a whole 'bloc' of former USSR countries, by telling them that they could join the EU once they had done so.
Similarly, after decades of increasing the problems in Ireland/Northern Ireland by being 'tough on terror', extended negotiation, pumping money into the area, educating people and generally improving the area seems to finally be causing the reign of terrorism to come to a close.
It's the fact that Europeans have seen War Against Terror tried and failed for centuries that means we are repulsed by the US's attacks, not a kneejerk anti-americanism (at least amongst people I know. Some people are just anti-American, a trait I despise). In fact, if anyone can point to a widespread terrorist campaign that was successfully stopped through force, I'd be interested to know.
After someone else pointed out that it took the US being attacked themselves to bring them into the war, and that they joined a good few years after everyone else, I decided to pitch in with some actual ideas about why Europe isn't charging into battle under the flag of General George. The following has the sense of what I was saying there, but cleaned up somewhat so it makes sense out of context:
The Europeans have different ideas of how to deal with states that For instance, we just caused a wave of human rights laws to be passed throughout a whole 'bloc' of former USSR countries, by telling them that they could join the EU once they had done so.
Similarly, after decades of increasing the problems in Ireland/Northern Ireland by being 'tough on terror', extended negotiation, pumping money into the area, educating people and generally improving the area seems to finally be causing the reign of terrorism to come to a close.
It's the fact that Europeans have seen War Against Terror tried and failed for centuries that means we are repulsed by the US's attacks, not a kneejerk anti-americanism (at least amongst people I know. Some people are just anti-American, a trait I despise). In fact, if anyone can point to a widespread terrorist campaign that was successfully stopped through force, I'd be interested to know.
