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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   28219 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026

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I guess I will believe you when you say that Europeans cheering for 9/11 meant nothing personal to Americans, but it certainly felt personal to us. (In fairness, I don't remember a lot of Europeans openly celebrating, but there certainly were a lot of Europeans saying, in so many words, that we had it coming, and the real tragedy would be if we retaliated against poor innocent Muslims in any way.)

If a major terrorist attack happened in your country, and Americans were all "Haha that's what you get for importing infinity Muslims, face meet leopards!" (and I have no doubt you'd see Americans saying that), I suspect you would take it very personally and would not be convinced by arguments that it was an abstraction, that Americans didn't really wish death to Europeans.

There is of course a more sophisticated discussion about empire and "chickens coming home to roost" (another popular phrase of the time), and just as with Hamas and October 7, reasonable people can talk about what led to this without it being black and white and "They just hate us because they are made of pure concentrated evil." But it is kind of unreasonable to say "You had it coming" (and that "Death to you!" doesn't literally mean "Death to you!") and expect people to believe that it's not personal and they should understand it as an abstract political statement because a few deaths are just a statistic, and you're just celebrating the fat kid standing up to the bully.

In fairness, I don't remember a lot of Europeans openly celebrating, but there certainly were a lot of Europeans saying, in so many words, that we had it coming, and the real tragedy would be if we retaliated against poor innocent Muslims in any way.

Were there? Because I don’t recall any of that and I’m European and old enough to have watched the second plane hit WTC live on BBC at work.

What reason would Europeans even have had to dislike US en masse outside the pseudo-communist far left circles back then? Clinton era US was generally liked and GWB was a somewhat bumbling but seemingly largelt irrelevant president until after 9/11.

Yes, this idea of Europeans (in any significant number) cheering on 9/11 seems completely made-up. There was a wave of pro-American goodwill like I can never remember before after 9/11. Lots of European countries participated in invading and occupying Afghanistan.

Iraq, on the other hand, thoroughly reset the counter. But that was after.

As one of those Europeans that cheered up about it - it is not completely made up. Seeing the hegemon humiliated and hurt felt nice after the Serbian bombings.

Eh, what?

The main perceived problem with the Serbian bombings for a layman on the street was that NATO took forever to actually start doing them. Certainly not that NATO bombed Serbia in the first place (outside niche edgelord or old communist far left circles).

In the balkans it was 50/50 aporoval at best.

Is that because it seemed like an arbitrary decision, considering all the shit the Serbs were put through over the last centuries, including genocide in WW2? I don't know much about it, but I've gathered that the genocide of the 8000 Muslims didn't just appear out of nothing?

The genocide in WWII was perpetrated by Catholics. The Ustasha facists specifically.

I'm aware of that. Fascist Croat Catholics, right? But the Serbs, having always refused to convert to Islam, had been repressed and humiliated by Muslims for centuries, right?

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