When somebody tells you that Americans aren’t liked overseas you may at your whim laugh or ignore him. We were never liked overseas. Never, that is, by what passed for the ruling elites of the day. They always disdained and despised the young Americans. They still do.
Anyway, the only proper response to such a question is ‘Who cares?’ Really, should we go all weepy and school girlish if some effete Frenchman sniffs our way?
Of course, normal folks have always loved the US. They still do. They line up to get here. They cross shark infested waters to get here. They cross borders illegally to get here.
How many folks are begging, borrowing or stealing to get into Germany? France? Russia? China? Switzerland? Iran?
The reality is that our own effetes hang out with European effetes and share stories about how they both disdain America. They do not mean their America, the America of Manhattan and San Francisco, of Boston and Hollywood, but the ‘other America,’ that of cowboys and rednecks and Christians and gun lovers.
I revel in the effete disdain for that ‘other America.’ I would be very, very worried if these moral and physical weaklings thought otherwise. Never forget that men and nations are measured by their enemies as well as by their friends. To be despised by, say, The New York Times, is a mark of honor.
Besides being looked down upon by the effetes of the world, Americans have always been underestimated by them. In every single war since the French had forts in the Ohio River Valley, the elites of the world predicted defeat and humiliation for us New World folk. Even after the French loss in the French and Indian War (1756 – 63) those wise old Europeans said that it was the British who had won the war, that the ‘colonials’ were merely along for the ride, that they had contributed nothing of value.
Then along came our first war with Great Britain. There was laughter all around in all the right European circles. How could a rough and tumble bunch of militia and backwoods boys with no army to speak of, no training facilities, few canon, no discipline and no navy possibly beat the greatest empire in the world, an empire that had distinguished itself on battlefields across the globe, an empire whose navy prowled where it willed, an empire who already had 30,000 highly disciplined troops on American soil?
Then along came Ticonderoga. And Saratoga. And Yorktown.
Then the European effetes said we could never prevail against those pesky Barbary pirates. Why, even the British paid them tribute!
Then along came the march to ‘the shores of Tripoli.’
Then the British insisted on another round of warfare, the War of 1812. The effetes clucked, “Now the Brits will show them!” They had a point. The American navy had languished, the army had shrunk, and the Americans were up against the troops and the navy that had defeated Napoleon.
Then along came Andrew Jackson and the Battle of New Orleans (1815).
When Americans began to lust over all that Mexican land south of the Brazos and north of the Rio Grande—and all points west—the Europeans smirked. “How can those barbarous Americans possibly defeat the armies of Mexico, whose military traditions go all the way back to the Spanish Hapsburgs?”
Then they saw the US flag over the ramparts of Chapultepec castle (1847).
When we fought our Civil War the effetes of Europe laughed yet again. “See how that experiment in Republicanism has failed!” They called the North a bunch of merchants while the South was a chivalric and romantic ideal whose military traditions recalled the days of Ivanhoe.
Then along came Gettysburg and Sherman and Richmond and Appomattox.
During WW I it was doubted that the ‘yanks’ could do much against the Kaiser’s legions. During WW II Hitler laughed at America and the Japanese thought us barbarous weaklings. During the Cold War most of Europe’s elites could not imagine the US stopping Soviet aggression, yet alone defeating it.
During both Iraq wars the world’s effetes predicted ‘tens of thousands of body bags’ if the US invaded hallowed Islamic lands. The American invasion of Afghanistan was seen as the utmost folly. Why, even Alexander had had trouble there, as had the British. And those foolish Americans were invading during the Winter!
Those foolish Americans conquered the Taliban in a matter of weeks.
Since the 1700s those who were the movers and shakers of the world continually saw the enemies of America as near invincible, and America herself as a bumbling incompetent that needed a lesson in the power of the Old World elites.
Now the same type of cut-rate doomsayers who have always yammered about the coming defeat of America are issuing dire and apocalyptic warnings about military action against Iran. “Iran will send forth her hosts of terrorists around the globe to spread fire and death!” they say. “She will unleash 11,000 missiles!” they say. “She will shut down the oil supply for the entire globe!” they say.
Yawn. We have heard it all before. The reality of the thing is that Iran will suffer a total and comprehensive military and economic defeat—and it will be a quick one. There will be a short burst of outrage from the usual suspects, and then the world will continue along its merry way. Behind the scenes in every capital men in striped pants will express sighs of relief that Iran’s nuclear fantasies have been extinguished.
And then will come the next challenge to the US—perhaps from China. Or Russia. Or from some nation that today scarce anyone pays attention to. Really, the list of potential problems for the US is as endless as such a thing can be.
And America will win every battle but the last one.
Such is the way of empire. Such is the lesson of History.
