Lol, when I was in Greece back in the day, a whole shit-ton of Greeks virulently disliked Americans. They blamed the CIA for backing the Greek Junta but mostly, they had an enduring hard-on against the USA whom they blamed for favoring the Turks over the Greeks in their age-old territorial disuptes (think Cyprus, for one example.)
As if!! All the US wanted back then was to keep both countries happy and as contributing members of NATO, in our cold war struggle against dem evil Rooskies!
😛 Our government didn't give a damn about taking sides between the two.
What I perceived underlying all this was a cultural butt hurt over America's political, economic, and pop cultural dominance. The Greeks felt, and still feel that THEY gave the world democracy (a Greek derived word, after all) and were the legitimate but now overlooked birth place of Western culture.
Plus, it's hilarious if you look at a map of the Mediterranean and see all the hot spots of Greek/Turkish territorial contention. They are all islands far away from Greece itself and right up against mainland Turkey.
Otoh, in my six months on Crete, I met and got to know well Greek folks that were the salt of the earth good people. Seriously, mostly wherever you go, when you get away from the tourist places, that's the way it shakes out.
