Blame whom? (A precise damnation of Spain, Greece, and other European appeasers)

Victorhanson.Com ^ | March 14, 2004, 10:00 p.m. | Victor Davis Hanson

[NZerFromHK]

Let me get this straight. Two-and-a-half years after September 11, on a similar eleventh day of the month, 911 days following 9-11, and on the eve of Spanish elections, Al Qaeda or its epigones blows up 200 and wounds 1,400 Spaniards. This horrific attack follows chaotic months when Turks were similarly butchered (who opposed the Iraq War), Saudis were targeted (who opposed the Iraqi war), Moroccans were blown apart (who opposed the Iraqi war) and French periodically threatened (who opposed the Iraqi War).

[CatoRenasci]

You say we have to rethink the basis of our strategy without offering any alternative strategy. I would hardly consider that to be helpful. What specifically in our actions would you change? And, how do you think those changes would advance our goal of destroying Islamofascist terrorism permanently?

It's easy to criticize when you don't have to come up with alternative policies. Simply saying we should think of something else does not advance the debate.

[Berliner Baer]

The only one of these possibilities which can lead to catastrophic results for the West involves taking the European approach.

We here in Europe see a fifth possibility: America overreacts and this could fan a little terror-flame in the Muslim world into a global bonfire.

You must understand (which the British certainly do) that Americans are reluctant warriors. We want to be left alone to do our business and live our lives.

Said by someone who uses the nickname Cato and like him, uses his famous quote at the end of every 'speech' (you should add something like 'El Qaida ad portas' in there)? *g*

So I do think you are also a bit 'in love' (can't think of a better term right now) with the historic proportions/comparisons of all this, but I understand now after our discussion perhaps a bit better the conservative US-viewpoint - thanks -, aside from the "We kick ass just because we can and America is the greatest on earth"-attitude, which I had largely suspected before in my Euro-ignorance. ;-) Also quite amazed and a bit frightened by the determinedness in these forums - something I had noticed before in earlier years really only in leftists forums.

I also think Bush will win the election, btw. (sadly) And thought so even before I discovered these forums to hear any Bush-fans directly:

It was a few weeks ago when he held one of his rare press-conferences early in the morning, and I noticed the repeated hammering of words like terror, threat, war, danger, etc. And well-picked phrases like: "I am only doing my job and that job is to guarantee America's security as long as Americans want me to". The average American, perhaps with kids and only "normally" interested in politics, won't be able to avoid the power of these words. Security sells. My friends were surprised when I asked them that day if they wanna bet with me over the coming US-election - their fallacy if they rely only on the media from one direction

Well, if any new topics come up which interest me, you might see me again, poking a bit more around to understand the followers behind that odd guy, who rules our Western world, a bit better. :-)

[Berliner Baer]

...I already took my stance when I chose to buy a Honda over a VW. Multiply me by 290 million consumers...and appease at your own financial risk.

Financial arguments are mute in this - I think it became quite clear in the discussion that while we differ on reasonings, it is also a moral issue for us, which can't be outweighed with money. Issues like decisions on war, life and death are essentials.

Besides, we all need each other anyhow for business and live from each other quite well - Europe is a great market for US-products and vice versa. Trade-wars or boycott-campaigns would mostly hurt people on both sides.

And if you wanna boycott seriously out of morality, I would suggest though looking for those countless "Made in China" stickers instead of going after France, Spain or Germany.

[CatoRenasci]

Your "fifth possiblity" is subsumed in my possiblity that Europe is right, but the America approach is used. Even if there is a global bonfire, the West would win. Unpleasant, but not a disaster for the West. No, the only possiblity of the West losing is to choose the European approach but we Americans are right.

What I find so frightening about the Europeans is that you all cannot even seem to consider the possibility that the Americans, who have saved you from yourselves three times in the last century (WWI, WWII, and the Cold War), might be right about Islam.

Frankly, Europe's track record in the matter of recognizing tyranny early and nipping it in the bud is not very good. In fact, it is abysmal. Your performance in the Balkans would have been risable if it hadn't cost us so much money -- your solution still hasn't worked and has tens of thousands of European troops making the world safe for Albanian drug gangs and traffickers in Eastern European women as sex slaves. NATO's finest hour, NOT.

You suggest I am over enamoured of the historical analogy, perhaps so, but I remain mindful of Santayana's famous comment that those who fail to understand history are condemned to repeat it and Croce's assertion that Man does not have a nature, what he has is history. I don't agree with Croce, but is useful to think on nonetheless.

You also criticize my having adopted the personna of Cato the Elder, and a variant on his famous line with which he ended every speech. Well, I adopted it on message boards at the time of the 1991 Gulf War with Mesopotamia in place of Carthago, and it served me well through the years of the evil Clintons. Someday, I pray for a Scipio to tell us Islamofascism delenda est!, but that Scipio will surely not be a European.

You had better hope Bush wins, because a Kerry victory, while perhaps congenial to Europe in the short run, will mean a disarmed America unable to defend you in the long run. The man have voted against every major weapon system now in the American arsenal.

As I have said, I wish to wish the Germans well, but am profoundly disappointed in Germany.

[CatoRenasci]

Financial arguments are mute in this - I think it became quite clear in the discussion that while we differ on reasonings, it is also a moral issue for us, which can't be outweighed with money. Issues like decisions on war, life and death are essentials.

Moral issue? Please. That is risable. Germany was hip deep in supplying Saddam. German opposition to the war in Iraq was about as moral as Soviet protestations against our upgrading the Pershings in 1981. Based on Germany's history in the 20th century, Germany has no moral credibility where matters of war and peace are concerned.

[Publius6961]

*ouch*
That one should leave a scar.

One small correction, speaking of irritating: Herr Baer repeats the "loaded" myth that all Japanese were interned, suggesting, I suspect, a moral equivalence with his domestic death camps.
For the record, only Japanese along the West Coast were moved inland. Everyone knows that, but then it wouldn't provide as dramatic fodder for the arrogant presumptuous and parasitic Euroweenies, whose time has come and gone.

[NZerFromHK]

And the whole thing is even more ironic that the debate resembles lots of VDH's articles. Remember that many of his articles feature simulated conversation between "Americans" and "Europeans" and even reconstructed conversations he had with many European academics? Herr Baer fits the profile of the "typical European" to the T and you people have basically requoted (or paraphrased) VDH's points.

I remembered myself asking theatrically if Europeans read VDH and care about his arguments. It seems the answer is obvious: yes, but "I am not convinced!" seems to be the answer from them.

[tpaine]

-- You're going around in circles here, trying to justify your point that we must continue doing exactly as we have been..
I think, as does Hansen, -- and the europeans, -- that we need to re-think the basics of our strategy, lest we end up at that 'global jihad' point before we know it..

You say we have to rethink the basis of our strategy without offering any alternative strategy.

Not true. I said we should attack terrorist's, not counties.

I would hardly consider that to be helpful.

Wow, - that certainly tells me where to get off.. Lucky for me, I don't care.

What specifically in our actions would you change? And, how do you think those changes would advance our goal of destroying Islamofascist terrorism permanently?

I tend to think like Hansen on war.. That once we, - very carefully, -- start one, -- we keep killing them all till they surrender.

It's easy to criticize when you don't have to come up with alternative policies. Simply saying we should think of something else does not advance the debate.

You've "come up" with what "alternative policies"? All I've seen here from you is intellectual posturing that essentially backs the status quo.

Your big set piece so far is:

If the Europeans are right, and the Americans are wrong, and we take the European approach, things are ok.

Maybe. Sounds to simplistic to me.

If the Europeans are right, and the Americans are wrong, and we take the American approach, we will have over reacted, but Western civilization will be preserved.

Complete supposition. We have never fought a religious world war. A global jihad could reduce us all to fighting over the ruins of our civilization.

If the Americans are right and the Europeans are wrong, and we take the European approach, the West will fall.

Again, complete BS, based on your hubris.

If the Americans are right, and the Europeans are wrong, but we take the American approach, the West will be preserved.

Would we live in a free republic after a global jihad? - I wonder.

The only one of these possibilities which can lead to catastrophic results for the West involves taking the European approach.

As I said, your hubris has no basis in fact, that I can see.
But feel free to pontificate further on your 'me too, status quo' theories.

[Publius6961]

As much as I dislike the silly "You come from Nazi-country"-standardflame from online-people, everything in our domestic psyche is still dominated from the Hitler-trauma.
In the U.S. this is known as the "I am an orphan" patricide murder defense.

Only a non-German could suggest that. Germans should force again some people to relocate because they didn't assimilate enough to "being German"?
No. But certainly it is justified to force them to relocate.because they seem incapable of acting civilized. How many generations is enough? Fearing world opinion here is clearly a red herring.

[Batrachian]

"Al Qaeda could do this in NYC right this second. This is just something that is hard to stop."

How do you know that? I can't believe that all the security measures implemented here after 9/11 are worthless, which would be the case if what you say is true.

[CatoRenasci]

You argue ad hominem. Live long and prosper.

[tpaine]

CatoRenasci wrote: You argue ad hominem. Live long and prosper.

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As if you don't..
One of the reasons I posted when I did to you and Berliner was to get ~you~ off the ad hominum attack bit you had just started on germans ..

Needless to say, it didn't work.

[CatoRenasci]

No. You attacked me personally, not my views. I attacked the views of Germans. There is a vast difference. -thirty-

[nkycincinnatikid]

Greetings and welcome to this forum. I wish you to know that there nothing in this post is a result of any bad feeling towards you or your nationality. I am of almost total deutsch and nederlandisch parentage and have lived in one of Americas oldest and largest predominately german communities my entire life..
This is a long thread , and you have posted much, To respond to your many individual assertions would be to tedious for us all. I wish only to mention a few of points and comment if I may.
You maintain as fact that our intervention in Iraq was predicated and justified by the issue of wmd, and that since sufficient quantities have not been located germanys leadership has been proven correct in its opposition to the move. You are certaiainly not dumb and I don't care to think that you are dishonest, so I assume you are just ill informed. The US chose to invade and thereby liberate Iraq for strategic reasons, bolstered by favorable existing political justification, and a genuine moral dimension. The US sought sincerely to maintain the unity of the free nations in this war against Islamic teror by asking for a further UN resolution, and made every argument that could reasonably and honestly be made, including wmd. This was done even with the knowledge that the blood and treasure lost in the effort would be almost all American But the effort was in vain as your chancellor had demogogued his re-election by appealing to the basest instincts of the electorate, fear of conflict, and gave France the resolve to execise its veto. The error was for Americans to have again overestimated the character of leaders of middle europe, had it not done so the issue of wmd would never have needed to be regurgitated in the run-up to action.
You maintain that terror can not be beaten , that poverty breeds it .Why then is India not the mother of terror? But even if you were correct , then how can you then bemoan the fact that America wishes to see Turkey given a fair shot at inclusion in the EU, that we ask germans to take such a burden.. In America we say put your money where your mouth is.
You maintain that until there is a settlement of mideastern grievances there will be terror. Those are the ultimate german weasel words that bring knots to American stomachs. THE past 75 years of history force an honest man to recognize that the settlement of these grievances is the extinguishing of the state of Isreal. The grievances of the middle east were born in the beer halls of Munich and the ministies of Berlin, not in Cincinnati or Chicago. Yet America inherits the fruit of germanys crimes and acknowledges a moral burden which did not fall upon us due to murder but due to strengtht.
You come from my fatherland, I have visited it often, I love it ,I pray for it.

[tpaine]

CatoRenasci wrote:
No. You attacked me personally, not my views. I attacked the views of Germans. There is a vast difference. -thirty-


______________________________________

BS.. How juvenile can you get?.

I didn't attacked you personally until you had made some snide remarks to me. -- Anyone can read our exchange to see the truth.

Whats the "-thirty-" bit mean?

[lainde]

I was at the Munich Olympics. You've described a feasible scenario. I'm just so angry!

[lainde]

---Unlike me, you believe Iraq will be a Western-style democracy. When I read the recent comments by Ayatollah Sistani on the new constitution, I have my doubts and wonder if we only opened new doors to Islamic fanatism from a previous secular dictator.---

I share your doubts. But we will have at least given them a chance to choose sanity over barbarism. If they choose wrong, well...

[lainde]

---Currently I am in Qatar, which is a quiet supporter of U.S. efforts in the WOT. This is a very interesting country as only about 20% of the population is Qatari, but because of the enlightened policies of the Emir, there is very little radicalism and Westerners can feel safe in public.---

Thanks for a little hope in this past miserable 48 hours...Stay safe!

[AmericanVictory]

AS Kagan has pointed out, they are comfortable in their "paradise" and do not sense the cliff "unmorselling from their heels."

[CatoRenasci]

While I wasn't at the Olympics, I was in Bavaria during the Olympics in 1972. I remember that horrible time, watching on German television. Responses of Germans were curious. The widow and daughter of the Nazi mayor of the town where I was staying were furious with the Palestinians. Oh, they were probably still anti-semitic, but to them it was intolerable behavior at the Olympics. The athletes were guests in Germany and should not be harmed by anyone! It was the radical university students who were sympathetic with the Palestinians. Well, it's those radical students of the early 70's who are now the SPD leaders in Germany.