Quote:

Dave said:
The difference between Europe and the US is that Europe has only participated in one war since WW2. I'd run out of fingers if I counted the number of wars the US has been in since then.



Since WWII, Europe, or nations thereof, have participated in the wars in Palestine, Malaya, Korea, Suez Canal Zone, Kenya, Cyprus, Suez, Borneo, Vietnam, Aden, Radfan, Oman, Dhofar, Northern Ireland, the Falklands War, the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and a number of other locations.

Often their involvement stemmed directly from their lingering history of colonialism. One could argue that a war stemming from colonialism is also a war of "agression."

Furthermore, had the United States not provided the bulk of funding for NATO and, essentially, protected Western Europe from the Soviet Union (and each other) for fifty years, we can only speculate on how many other wars they would have been involved in.

As for your comment "you guys have Indians stuck on reservations," you apparently imagine, inaccurately, that reservations are some sort of forced ghetto and Indians are without the same rights as other U.S. citizens.

Indians have suffered many forms of unfair, or even brutal, treatment through our history. But they are not "stuck" on reservations. They are free to live any where in the nation they wish. They have full citizen rights and can be elected to any public office. At least one United States Senator is an Indian (Ben Nighthorse Campbell). How many Jews, pray tell, held elective office in Nazi Germany?

Furthermore, if we want to keep moving further and further back into history in some sort of moral tit for tat, we can discuss Europe's role in the crusades, the Roman Empire, etc., etc.

Of course, all of which would be silly, if not futile.

The point of all this is that no nation is all good, nor is one all bad. Rather than base our foreign policy decisions on the imagined superiority of other--also flawed--nations we should base it on what is strategically and otherwise justified as being in the best interests of our citizenry.