LGF: Posting without thinking

Charles Johnson highlights (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=8740_Fear_Us_Oh_Europe) an interesting piece of news about an EU survey showing that most Europeans believe that the US and Israel are currently the greatest threats to world peace. How can this be? Unthinkable! America and Israel are peace-loving countries who want nothing but good for their fellow nations, aren't they? The fact that Johnson doesn't even attempt to understand why the survey produced this result, but instead calls Europeans "Eurosimpletons" for thinking this way should say something about the fashion in which he analyses world affairs.

Has it passed Johnson by that the USA has intervened militarily in dozens upon dozens of countries all over the world for over a hundred years, often to replace those countries' leaders with ones more favourable to American interests? Doesn't Johnson realise that, while most Europeans are immensely grateful for the fact that the United States helped liberate it from the scourge of fascism in the 1940s, they worry that it hasn't learned the lessons of mass conflict the way Europe has and will continue to use its military might at will - whatever the cost to the rest of the world. Hasn't it occured to Johnson that this survey is a damning indication of the way America is squandering the goodwill of its most obvious allies: the liberal democracies that share the same values of freedom and equality that supposedly underpin America's self-understanding?

Sometimes, Johnson, it's better to ask questions and treat a piece of information with cautious respect, than to tear it to shreds at the first moment because it could challenge your outlook on the world.