'To The Barricades!'

HEIDELBERG, GERMANY -- The streets of this quaint university town are less photogenic these days. Much to the chagrin of the city fathers -- and businesses relying on tourism -- nearly every corner is filled with very un-Teutonic piles of garbage -- the detritus of a weeks-long public workers strike. The accumulated trash may be an eyesore -- and eventually a haven for vermin and rats -- but it hasn't kept the local university students off the streets -- or dampened their enthusiasm for "bringing down the system." All this I learned quite unexpectedly while visiting here to make a documentary on the life and death of General George S. Patton. Old "Blood and Guts" had liberated this city in 1945 and died not far from here after a car crash in December that year.

For two nights in a row, I was awakened by boisterous college-age shouting and laughter from the street in front of the ancient hostelry where our FOX News production team was billeted. Unable to sleep, I arose to go for a walk -- and stepped into a time warp.

Most of the noise was coming from the open portals of an Internet cafe and coffee shop a few paces across the cobblestones from the hotel. A bearded young man, wearing a beret and coiffed like Che Guevara, was speaking passionately in German to a half-dozen others seated at a round table. As I started to pass, he looked up and said, "Hello! You're an American, aren't you?"

"We saw you on the bridge with the TV cameras this afternoon. You are an American newsman, yes?"

"Yes, I'm an American, and I work for FOX News. We're here making a documentary about General George Patton."

"Good," the discussion leader interjected, ignoring my answer and clearly seeing his moment for 15 minutes of "on-air" fame. "You should document us," he said boldly. "We're going to Caracas to help 'the Revolution.'"

Immediately, one of the young women seated at the table raised her fist and said in German, "Nein!" and then, for the benefit of the gringo, she continued in English, "We're going to Paris to join our fellow students on the barricades against capitalism."

For the next hour or so, these half-dozen college kids debated the merits of spending several weeks supporting either the anti-capitalist student strike in Paris -- or the Marxist (they called it "re-distributionist") agenda of Venezuelan strong-man Hugo Chavez. It was ultimately resolved in favor of going to Paris -- because it would be more affordable -- but during this often-passionate debate, each expressed a desire to spend their "Spring Break" doing something to help damage American prestige -- or, as they put it, to "bring down the arrogant United States."

It was a fascinating experience. Since FOX News isn't on the local cable service, these youngsters had no idea that my only "beat" is the U.S. military. Unlike American college students, their professors hadn't had a chance to tell them of my role in the "evil Reagan administration." It was also clear that their youthful idealism and exuberance are being shaped by information that depicts the United States and the Bush administration as anything but forces for good in the world.

Though hardly a scientific sampling of European public opinion, these students' perspectives on the U.S. role in defeating fascism, communism, in bringing down the wall, of standing up to Islamic terror were both shallow and twisted. According to them, Germany would have rid itself of Hitler without "terror bombing German civilians"; the Americans "created the 'Red-Scare' to divide and punish Germany; the wall would have come down decades earlier but for the presence of U.S. bases in Europe; the Sept. 11 attack was concocted by the Bush administration; German troops should never have been sent to Afghanistan, and -- because this is much on the news here right now -- U.S. troops in Iraq routinely commit atrocities and human-rights violations. They were unaware of this week's forceful presidential speeches, press conference and question/answer sessions -- perhaps understandably, because they have been little covered in European TV and newspapers.

Interestingly, none of them had particularly strong views on the threat posed by radical Islamic terror. Several expressed a belief that Madrid and London were attacked solely because their respective governments supported U.S. policy in Iraq. None of them could explain why there had also been attacks in Bali, the Philippines and Casablanca, Morocco. Nor did any of them perceive that nuclear weapons in Iran were a threat to them -- only to the United States.

It would be easy to dismiss these students as willfully ignorant, but that's too easy. Given the history of elite European universities like Heidelberg, many of these youngsters will eventually become leaders in government and business. They all acknowledged getting their "news" from TV and the Internet. They are paying attention to what's happening in Iraq, though it's pretty clear that many, if not most, already have a strong anti-American bias. Turning around these perceptions is going to require more than just a few presidential speeches. If President Bush wants to get American and European attention -- he ought to make his next speech on keeping commitments while standing before U.S. troops in Iraq.

In Germany you have strong socialist under tones. Europe as a whole was rocked by the socialist movements of Marx and later the national Socialists like Hitler and Mussolini or Franco. Then came the Cold War and you had decades of indoctrination in the former DDR, radio Moscow FDJ/Young pioneers etc. The German today has this “socialist” view imprinted on him in his TV, radio, schools even. Germany as a whole is very heavily socialist influenced through it’s past love affairs with it.

The German today is taught that the NAZI is the opposite end of the spectrum from the Communist. But they fail to accept the fact that a NAZI (NSDAP) was basically a national socialist (National SOZIALISTICHE Deutsche Arbeiter Partei). They can’t swallow this truth because it would tarnish their belief in socialism, something they hold dear to.

To the German bucking the Americans also serves other purposes. It’s a matter of pride (We are someone again), a new sense of sovereignty (They are hyper sensitive and this is politically exploited often), they think it makes them “intellectual” by making such profound statements. Underlying there is also some fundamental ideological differences since they are very socialist and we are not. Then add in some resentment from WWII and a bit of a feeling of inferiority. Like the French who insist French be a second official language of NATO, the Germans today dislike our dominance. Fact is, we are dominant from Defense, to politics or even sports and economics. To the German it’s as if they are “America’s little helper” and the US TELLS THEM what and how to do. There is a reason why Merkel made it a point to define herself and take position on the over flights of US prisoners. In German it’s called “Bevormundung” and the Germans are irritated by it.

But what else can you expect? Ultimately the US is near 5 times the German economy, with today near 10 times the defense budget, 3.5 times the population. In number of Nobel prizes won, patents and copyrights we lead world wide. We either win or are in the top three in the Olympics and Lance Armstrong won again! What do you expect? Who is really the world leader in IT, Aerospace…….? Everywhere you go you have America this America that. German bands like Ramstein make songs about it, the French even pass laws the limit the broadcasting of foreign made radio/TV programming (Who is the real target here?)………..

In reality Germany goes along with us because ALL our geo-political interests are 100% aligned.

Islamic terror threat, Iran nukes, China patents, Libya sponsoring terror…….. it does not matter if we are talking about Belarus or Sudan, our interests are 100% identical. In fact you can break our interests into broad categories at the geo-political level:

1. Free access to resources
2. Open free lines of communication/transit in air land and water
3. Regional stability in certain areas
4. Patent/copyright protection

But why is it that Tony Blair feels compelled to make statements constantly that he is not America’s stooge? Is Great Britain in reality protecting it’s vital interests? Absolutely! But in concert with the US, any cooperation is always perceived as being an American initiative.

Example: Balkans. This was a military endeavor pushed politically primarily by Great Britain and Germany. But who ended up fighting the air war in all reality? Who do the Serbs see as being behind this campaign and in fact who is the target of most the wars criticism? Most people even in Germany don’t realize that it was their government that pushed for intervention there!

Another example: Iran. As the EU negotiates with Iran reference it’s nuclear program who do the Iranians address near all their speeches, and other public messages too? The US.

But there is an aspect which the European does not understand either. While many in Germany have inferiority complexes and want to say “Nein” just so they can say that they do have a word to say. The truth is, who did pay the ultimate price in the Balkans? Which nation had 32 people die? The US. Who was it that bombed Libya several times, sent in operators to blow up a WMD facility years ago and and and? The US. He who pays the cost politically (And Bush is paying a political toll for the decisions made), economically (87.5 BILLION just in 2004 for Iraq and Afghanistan), militarily (in dead and invalids) has a say. Not to say that Germany does not matter, but he who pays, makes the decisions. Germany wants a say and wants to matter, but they don’t want to pay the price. That’s a simple fact of life. It’s the US that took dead in Lebanon, has had troops in Sinai since the mid 70’s (Most Germans don’t even know that) and and and. The EU can spew all it’s rhetoric about the Middle East, but it’s actions that matter. It’s the doer of deeds, not the mere critic that matters (Theodore Roosevelt):

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

What you have today is a situation where at the geo-political levels we are 100% aligned with MOST of Europe. We are economic competitors, and politics get raveled up in that too. But nonetheless, all our interests coincide. It’s shear spite, envy and ideological contempt that is the root for most of these games today.

How do you as a German socialist look at the US and justify socialism to a bunch of young children in a German school? You tell them about 35 million uninsured, the plight of black America, or have a special on Flint Michigan. There is a reason why the German has so much “Schadenfreude” over Iraq or with GM or our re estate market. None of these stories unfolded the way they predicted, but their "wishful" thinking was just to obvious. In the big picture it’s more than just Iraq that is burning them up. You don’t have to scratch hard nor deep to see the wishful thinking in their media, even in casual conversation of the street. While in all reality it would even endanger their own security to have Iraq spiral out of control, they sure would love to see us get a bloody nose. People always like to see the big guy fall - Ask Microsoft.

It’s a situation where we have the same goals but the sidebar issues, the petty emotional side debates are dominating the REAL problems out there. Iran is a real problem, but ultimately it will be the internal political climate which drives Germany’s foreign policy and much of Germany's behavior in the last few years is solely based on emotion and ideology, lacking all pragmatism or realism. Let's see how Iran unfolds.

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