[Tolik]

    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

[Tolik]

The complete title:

Let Europe be Europe
You won’t be our friends? Fine, protect yourselves and at least be neutral.
 

[Keith]

The man is a true treasure, like Peggy Noonan and Mark Steyn. I eagerly anticipate each column...

[susiek]

Unfortunately for us, Europe can't protect itself, and if they go too far under, it hurts our interests, too. They also won't stay neutral because some of those countries (especially France) are too arrogant to admit that they have ceased to be relevant and have not been anything approaching a superpower for a really long time.

[Carry_Okie]

If, for example France falls to muslim terrorists, what happens to their nuclear weapons, Mr. Hansen?

[metesky]

Thanks for beating quidnunc to it.
:O)

[dennisw]

Germans? They're the ones who allow their gay soldiers to hump away in the barracks. Other Euro militaries are similarly degenerate and puny.

[garyhope]

I used to love everything French.

Heck, I'm still taking French lessons (don't ask why, I like my teacher, he's a friend) but now I'm starting to hope that some Islamofascists hijack an Air France 747 and fly it into the Eiffel Tower and drop the sucker over the Seine.

THAT would wake up the Euro chickens.

[ultima ratio]

Magnificent analysis. Right now we are supporting their socialist pipe dreams by picking up their tab for defense. They would like us better if they were on their own--and needed our help in a pinch.

[Atlantic Friend]

Imagine what would have happened if Paris or Berlin had mobilized to preempt Milosevic while the United States refused — claiming with Russia in the Security Council that such unilateral, non-U.N. approved action was brinkmanship of the worst sort — and then strong-armed other NATO countries to oppose European efforts.

Er, sorry to interrupt, but this ALREADY happened in 1956 when France, Israel and the United Kingdom intervened militarily in Egypt where terrorist-backing President Nasser seized the international Suez Canal.

Eisenhower DID strong-arm Paris and London even as allied troops had already stormed Port-Saïd, and he also said the United States would not neither help nor defend France nor Great Britain as the Soviets threatened to attack both countries...

[aculeus]

Bump!

[Fraulein]

The ethicists of Europe don't want to see success in Iraq, since it might be interpreted as a moral refutation of their own opposition to Saddam's removal...Liberating Iraq, shutting down Baathist terror, and establishing consensual rule, after all, was a dangerous — and mostly Anglo-American — idea, antithetical to all the Europeans have become.

bump

[perfect stranger]

VDH

[BartMan1]

But isn't the Atlantic Alliance critical to American security? Sadly, no. Right now it de facto does not exist and we are in no greater danger due to its absence. Instead, the key is not to force Europe to be an ally, but to ensure by our absence that it is a friend — or at least a Swiss-like neutral — in the present fight against terrorists and their sponsors.

Truly the heart of the matter....