Yes it is a great shame the first Americans, who today detest Colonisation, in fact entered a country from abroad which was already fully occupied, then removed those same people almost completely, then proclaimed that country the "Land of the Free". Its a strange thing to celebrate?

Yes but those settlers were English!
At that the USA did not exist, however I suppose that the full extermination of the native Indians didn't start until after the War of Independence so we Brits can wash our hands of that one!

Very tenuous argument Sim. The Founding Fathers were partly British but it was they who started removing the Native Americans. The War of Independance happened partly because the "to be" Americans were far more anti Indians than were the British Government. So America was formed on a gross injustice, not something ever to be proud of?

I thought the war of independence started because the Americans didn't want to contribute towards the cost of us fighting France on their behalf for the previous 50 years.
That and they wanted to be free - free to keep slaves and commit genocide against Native Americans.

Hail Satan

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth

James the Yanks saved our bacon in WW2, and indeed probably most of the world. But is more recent years they have gone wrong. You can count them - Korea, Vietnam, Iraq (twice), Afganistan. Not enough thought of the consequences of military action - no exit strategies - fighting risky asymetric warfare - just not enough thought. Sadam apart from rhetoric never posed any risk to the US or UK, there was no need for the war - it was bound up in unwise policies by the US that so many died.

Louis,

There is an anti-American visceral reflex that too often kicks in when Europeans debate America, and even though numerous rationales are presented to substantiate such feelings- wars, culturelessness even the bizarre view that all Americans are somehow dumb – these claims remain largely mindless.

The United States is a fantastic embodiment of the human spirit and the best vehicle for its expression that mankind has yet come up with, and the words below are extraordinary, the reason that we take for granted now is because for the best part of the last century Americans have sort to ensure our continued liberty:

"and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth"

Although I understand if you nearly got bombed by them you may have a slightly different take on it.

I think the main problem James is the Americans are not mature enough to be in charge of the vastly superior military machine they possess. It is rather like inviting a four year old to go and play with a loaded AK47 .....

The majority of Americans are in my opinion Insular, paranoid and myopic. They are the main reason why the world (in particular the middle east) is the way it is. I could go on for a long time about this political and economic nightmare they are fostering but I like short and simple. They should get their heads out of their own $%^&s and smell the coffee.

We all paid the US handsomely for our liberty, and some. As for our special relationship? Its $%^&. I think 'quid pro quo' always leans the US's way and that may come back to haunt them, thats my opinion not a generalisation. They should all get out a bit more, is that a generalisation ?

The yanks save our bacon: only on the 'silver screen'. Surely they only entered the war 2 years after the allies had taken on the Germans +
If Pearl Harbour hadn't happened the Yanks would still bew sitting on the fence and no war films would ever have been made

Scottie,

I've just looked up this quote from Winston Churchill as I couldn't remember the exact wording.


You can always trust the Americans. In the end they will do the right thing, after they have eliminated all the other possibilities.

I think it about sums it up.


On the same page I found the quote I found this from the playright Harold Pinter -

The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have ever talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised quite a clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It is a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

Those two of course don't count, being just 'Little Englanders " ( four legs good, two legs bad, baaah ), but these quotes were also there -

This is from Joseph Sobram, an American journalist -

Most Americans aren't the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right

And this from Richard Mynick, another US citizen -

Today's America is no democracy — it's a degenerating tyranny, disfigured by its military-industrial-governmental cancer. Our people are increasingly ashamed and terrified of their government, and rightly so, because we have no control over it, and it's become a deceitful monstrous danger to us and to the health of the planet. We're not 'The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.' To the contrary: We, the people, are on our knees, cringing and whimpering in dismay and confusion, prostrate before the forces that have betrayed us.

It seems not everyone is in awe of the USA's supposed monopoly on being in the right, all the time.

As if fat waddling Americans could, but don't forget, as part of Thanksatan Day:

It is every American's duty to partake in the en-mass Deadly Sin of Gluttony. So much so that many hundred will die this very day as a direct result of Gluttony - all sacrificed through Sin at their own dinning table. It its own way, it is tragic.

But in this way you worship Satan with your bodies, despite praising Jesus with your words.

As ever, the actions betray the words.

PTL.

Yes this is very sad Declan. More Americans die yearly, relative to population, due to obesity - caused conditions, than any other country in the world ...

But fair dues Luois we're a close second!

Yes but it estimated that if Americans get much fatter, their combined weight could make the entire North American continent sink - this would make them very prone to flloding due to Global Warming - that itself caused by their misuse of gas guzzling SUVs ....

Hail Satan, crown him King of all Kings of this earth & beyond, Hail Satan