Growing hostility in Europe towards the US could cause "lasting damage" to transatlantic relations, according to Neil Kinnock, the former politician who chairs the British Council.
Warning on threat to Europe's US links
By Hugh Williamson in Berlin
Published: March 19 2008 10:07 | Last updated: March 19 2008 17:10
Growing hostility in Europe towards the US could cause "lasting damage" to transatlantic relations, according to Neil Kinnock, the former politician who chairs the British Council.
Fix Londonistan first, moron.
Lord Kinnock, a former vice-president of the European Commission, said he was concerned over findings of a British Council survey, published on Wednesday, in which 46 per cent of Europeans thought the "perceived overall influence of the US in the world" was negative.
So, tell me what you have been teaching in history class? Americans, when you see these feces wouldn't you just love to bring everything and everyone home? Unfortunately the last time we tried that 45 million people got killed and we had to save Europe ANYWAY,.....AGAIN.
"This kind of attitude is on the increase," he said, adding that Europeans' views had hardened when US president George W. Bush took power in 2001, then "worsened again" after the start of the Iraq war five years ago.
When Bush was elected, he was a milquetoast repub of unknown dimension, but hated? THe problem wasn't Bush, it was, in the view of these putrid cretins, the AMERICAN PEOPLE, then.
The survey shows that rifts in transatlantic relations are deeper than previously thought, with a third of US citizens seeing Europeans as "snobbish".
Well? That's the way it is in the cultureless Levi-land or Walmart 1/4 pounders with cheeseville.
Efforts in recent years by European countries and Washington to boost co-operation on combating climate change, international terrorism and poverty have been largely "ineffective", according to the poll, conducted in January in nine countries: the US, Canada, Britain, Poland, Germany, France, Spain, Ireland and Turkey.
Lord Kinnock said: "People do not see [transatlantic] co-operation working." The European Union last year intensified relations with the US, but despite such initiatives ordinary people "don't see terrorism being conquered or climate change being stopped. Therefore, they believe co-operation isn't working".
Most people surveyed would welcome closer transatlantic ties, but there were barriers. In most European countries the main reason for "not engaging with the US" was Washington's foreign policy, while the view that "Europeans are too liberal" was the main barrier cited in the US.
Like Israel, they are pissed at us for actually taking actions to defend ourselves now and in the future, and no they are not too liberal, they are 1984 bureaucratic mindless functionaries of the extreme left.
A separate Harris opinion poll for the Financial Times, published this week, showed many Europeans perceiving the US to be a threat.
In Britain, Germany and Spain, the US was seen as the "greatest threat to global stability", ahead of China, Iran and North Korea.
Do I have to quote Caligula?
A British Council youth project launched on Wednesday aimed to counter this "mental widening of the Atlantic", Lord Kinnock said.
Julian Morgan, British Council's head of communications for western Europe and North America said the survey showed a "depth to the [transatlantic] rift that we had not expected".
"The survey shows that stereotypes die hard," Mr Morgan said, noting that 62 per cent of Europeans thought US citizens were "keen consumers and 45 per cent thought they were "selfish". In return, 34 per cent in the US said Europeans were "snobbish".
He said the results challenged those stereotypes, for instance by showing that Americans were more willing than Europeans to take action for social or environmental issues they cared about, such as by paying more taxes.
Are you kidding? More taxes to a govt that cannot accomplish anything?
The only areas where transatlantic co-operation was viewed overwhelmingly positively were in the fields of business and trade, and in combating diseases such as HIV-Aids and malaria.
At least 500 people were questioned in each country, with 1,019 polled in the UK and 2,001 in the US, said GlobeScan and IFF, the polling agencies involved.
NATO seems to be dead. Just look at Afghanistan where these miscreants (GB and Canda excepted) not only won't live up to the obligations in the nation where plans and actions were taken to destroy lower Manhattan, but also no positive accomplishments are even seen as worthwhile beyond the expenditure of words. In other words, European govts of NATO don't care enough to take required, obligated action