The same European governments that hesitated to confront terrorists were more than prepared to oppose us.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Europeans are familiar with terrorism and violence. We have not experienced a true conflict on our soil in a hundred years, and especially not one that involved 3,000 dead.
Terrorists oppose nations such as the United States and Australia not because of what we have done but because of who we are and because of the values that we hold in common.
We have shown, given these last three years, that we were succeeding in fighting terrorists. While during the first 30 years of the former governments they didn't.
Two European nations emerged with credit from the Iraq disaster: France and Germany. Both had the courage to withstand the Bush administration and oppose the U.S.-led invasion.
They were terrified that we were going to become an anti-war kind of platform.
America decided we were going to stand by and let Americans die at the hands of terrorists a long time ago.
When Britain and the U.S. invaded Iraq, it was with the reasonable expectation that it was going to increase the threat of terror, as it has.
Terrorists have failed to trigger mass conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe. We should draw strength from that fact.
Come to find out, the Russians were never afraid of the Americans. They weren't raised with the terror that we were by our government. I was struck by how our government misled us for so many years.
Although we dealt decisively with all terrorist organizations, we at the same time not only maintained, preserved our democracy, but kept improving it.