[mixologist]

No sane person will tell you that EU should accept all the consequences of US starting wars in our neighborhood and also pay for that privilege.

Nobody is forcing US to field the largest army in the world. It is their own choice. We all would much rather if they didn't have such an incentive to arbitrarily start wars just to justify their defense budget.

BTW, if US is such a mighty nation as they advertise themselves, they should have no problem providing safety net for their citizens. The problem is that they just don't want to do that. They don't care about their citizens. All administrations just want to avoid taxing the rich and shift the blame to made up external enemies.

[robertlagrant]

I don't see the point in this bad faith stuff. Clearly the US has provided a massive defence umbrella not limited to wars the US started. EU countries are now arming up and spending increased GDP on defence to accommodate the US spending less on their defence. The US has spent a fortune that those countries didn't have to previously spend, and could instead spend on social things. I think the US was fine with this, but they're not fine with doing this for the EU while the EU is laughing at it for not spending enough on social things.

[mixologist]

What bad faith?

US has been destroying Middle East for decades. Where do you thing that migrants from those regions run to?

Wars in Middle East are not something that EU needs or wants. We just went with it because of all the "we are allies and we respect each other" lies that were used by US administrations to swindle EU and get what they want.

Or do you propose that US pays for the costs of immigration problems around the world?

It is obvious that only reason US doesn't have safety net for their own citizens is US.

[lupusreal]

We all know where the middle east strife comes from. America has supported it, but not America alone. Is Germany going to stop providing financial and military aid and hardware to Israel?

[mixologist]

I have a feeling (haven't seen any studies) that support of Israel by EU countries is done mainly by politicians who are listening to US polititans.

It will be interesting to see how long EU support for Israel will last without the pressure from US.

[lupusreal]

European NATO members were well within their rights to refuse to participate in Afghanistan when America invoked Article 5 (read it!). They should have in fact, because it was a bullshit war and they knew it at the time. They chose to participate anyway and have been whining about it ever since. Fine, mistakes were made, but now you lot should be happy to put distance between yourselves and America and take on full responsibility for your own defense.

As for America starting wars in the region, if you think America started the wars Russia has waged and is waging against Georgia and Ukraine, you've been huffing Kremlin retard gas. You lot have a problem on your border, America didn't make it and its not America's responsibility to fix it. Maybe the American people would be more eager about helping Europe if Europeans didn't take every opportunity they could to gloat about how they're better than America, how Americans are stupid to spend so much on the military. Doesn't matter now though, the damage is done. Take care of yourselves.

[mixologist]

Region as in "relatively close to Europe". Immigrants are coming all the way from Middle East where US performs the operations, not our neighboring countries.

Russian thing is all EU fault. Glut for cheap oil made putin think he has a big bargaining chip against EU and that this will all be a simple task.

I don't know what propaganda media you get your information from, but people of Europe are not gloating or thinking you are stupid. I work for a company that has US offices (as many Europeans do) and we work very well together. We travel a lot between countries and work face to face and there have never been any problems.

[robertlagrant]

> but people of Europe are not gloating or thinking you are stupid. I work for a company that has US offices (as many Europeans do) and we work very well together. We travel a lot between countries and work face to face and there have never been any problems.

I think this is a mixed bag, but also I think the perception is there. There is a lot of "Scandinavia does this perfectly" talk that creates the perception in the US, even if perhaps no one in Scandinavia is the least bit bothered either way!