As a complete aside -

We are wrapping up a 4 week visit of a German exchange student to our home. I have done work in Europe over the last 20 years and have gotten the opportunity to work with a lot of Europeans of all different stripes.

I am a little disturbed from this recent experience and hope it is isolated but suspect not.

Without going too far into things, I see this kid as having been conditioned to suppressing any and all German nationalism but having a scary degree of European nationalism. Such that he is quick to point out any and all failings he observes that can be associated with “Americans” and uses every opportunity to point out how rational Europeans have long since overcome such issues.

I have not met a person under the age of 18 with such a prejudicial mind in my life. Facts do not deter or derail his opinions. Europe is simply the best of civilization and America is somewhere between Iran and Guatemala.

As for the Marshal Plan and Berlin airlift, one gets “we are tired of hearing of this” or “of course you should help other people in struggling democracies”. And when one asks about Iraq regarding “struggling democracies” you get a sigh and a “that is completely different.”

Just a single data point and I hope it is an outlier.