When I first heard the French called "Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys" it made me laugh. I wonder if that little epithet is widely known in France though?
Who knows? It's hard for anyone to have perspective on themselves.
But this article is from the Moscow Times. It gave me a little perspective on how others view America:
"It was believed that the Americans were afraid of close hand-to-hand encounters, they would not tolerate the inevitable casualties, and that in the final analysis they were cowards who relied on technical superiority"
Basically, the Russians were convinced that Americans were ultra-sanitized technowusses.
It's interesting to see that the same article goes on to say that the Russians were wrong:
"The worst possible outcome of the war in Iraq for the Russian military is a swift allied victory with relatively low casualties. Already many in Russia are beginning to ask why our forces are so ineffective compared to the Brits and Americans; and why the two battles to take Grozny in 1995 and 2000 each took more than a month to complete, with more that 5,000 Russian soldiers killed and tens of thousands wounded in both engagements, given that Grozny is one tenth the size of Baghdad."
Interesting. The Russians mocked America for not wanting to get it's hands dirty. I imagine some kind of mental equation, the Russians seeing a direct corellation to how dirty the hands are to the likelihood of winning the war.
As it turns out, the Hands-dirtying may have nothing whatsoever to do with winning a war. But Russia doesn't want to admit that:
"The Russian media is generally avoiding the hard questions and serving up anti-American propaganda instead. It is alleged that the U.S. government is "concealing casualties" (like its Russian counterpart), and that hundreds if not thousands of U.S. soldiers have already been killed. Maybe this deceit will become the main semi-official excuse for disregarding the allied victory."
Very Interesting.
Thanks to Jamie for bringing this article to my attention.
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