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De-Quided:

In Saturday's Guardian, Charlie Brooker concluded his analysis of the presidential election thus: "On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?"

Well, wherever they are, they're probably saying: "Why bring us into it? When ol' Lee Harvey decided it was time for JFK to get assassinated, he didn't sit around whining, 'John Wilkes Booth, where are you now that I need you?' Get off your butt and do it yourself, you big Euro-pussy."

But, with the armchair insurgents of the Euro-Left, it's always got to be someone else who straps on the old Semtex belt and waddles off to do the deed. For your average Leftie columnist, the vicarious frisson is more than delicious enough. Anything else would interfere with dinner plans.

By the weekend, the Guardian had thought through the implications of Brooker's comments, and decided that it would be rather embarrassing to be flying in the lucky winners of the big Clark County competition for their US vacation only to discover, as the plane was diverted to Guantanamo, that the entire editorial staff had been placed on a Justice Department watch list. So in re Charlie Wilkes Harvey Brooker, they issued a clarification: "Charlie Brooker apologises for any offence caused by his comments. Although flippant and tasteless, his closing comments were intended as an ironic joke, not as a call to action - an intention he believed regular readers of his humorous column would understand. He deplores violence of any kind."

I can't say I'm a regular reader, so the humour in the column was lost on me - the "joke" is that he wants Dick Cheney to be president, is that it?

Hey-ho. In his mea sorta culpa, he's managed to nail the defects of "the entire civilised world". If by the "civilised world" you mean Europe, Guardian editors, BBC political-discussion panellists, that nice bird from the New Zealand Green Party you met at a conference to demand something be done about something etc, this world is defined almost entirely by its passivity. Whether or not everything is an "ironic joke", hardly anything at all is a "call to action". Does the EU have a position on Darfur? And, if so, who cares?

Brooker's ironic assassination target, being famously moronic, is deluded enough to believe that, when one takes a position on something, one is expected to act on it. But in the "entire civilised world" that's no longer necessary: "Sneer globally, act fitfully" is the watchword. Because Belgium opposes the Iraq war, its foreign minister makes a few anti-Bush cracks and various lesser figures attempt to indict Rumsfeld and co for war crimes - but they know nothing's going to come of that; it's an empty gesture.

Now suppose Belgium took the opposite position and decided it wholeheartedly supported the Iraq war and stood 100 per cent shoulder to shoulder with its American friends in the battle for freedom: in that case, they'd have dispatched a rusting frigate to, oh, the eastern Mediterranean or maybe 30 of their elderly infantrymen to help run the canteen in Qatar. That, too, would have been an empty gesture.

That's why, whoever's president, the September 10 international system can't be put back together. The Cold War required deterrence, which is about as suited to a passivist European culture as can be devised, and even then there were plenty of wobbly moments.

But this new war requires action, resolve, ongoing participation - and most of America's "allies" just can't be fagged. The Spanish vote was a vote for passivity, a call for inaction, and a quiet life no doubt with many "ironic jokes" about the absurd Americans. The "civilised world" sees itself like Continental skating judges at the Olympics, watching the Yanks career all over the ice and then handing out a succession of cranky 4.7s. The decadence of passivity does not express itself solely in "ironic jokes".

The ersatz emotions that gripped Britain in the run-up to Kenneth Bigley's decapitation were also the product of a passive culture unwilling to come to grips with the real challenges it faces. A week ago, I wrote: "In the last three weeks of Mr Bigley's life, the actions of various parties made it more likely that more Britons and other infidels will be kidnapped and beheaded." When I say I wrote it "a week ago", I actually wrote it two weeks ago, but that first Bigley column got spiked by the Editor. Which I regret more and more, because the above point needs to be hammered home.

The kidnapping of Margaret Hassan is, very obviously and tragically, a direct response to the mass Bigley wallow. She is an Iraqi citizen, has lived there for 30 years, was opposed to UN sanctions, the war, the occupation, etc. She has been seized only because of her nominal British citizenship, which, thanks to the Bigley episode, the headhackers now know is the key to weeks of prime-time coverage. In Mrs Hassan's video, her remarks have been scripted by someone keeping a very close eye on Fleet Street - both in the references to Mr Bigley and to the deployment of the Black Watch.

Not all of this is the media's fault. Geoff Hoon's blasé remarks in the House of Commons that the Americans had asked for some of our lads in the Sunni Triangle and he was mulling it over gave the appearance of tossing the question of troop deployment over to the whims of public opinion. And once he put it up for grabs, you can hardly be surprised that Mrs Hassan's captors should seek to apply a little extra pressure. I hope he's learnt his lesson.

But, if this is the best the "civilised world" can do - maudlin sentimentality and ironic jests - then it's in big trouble. Both modes are a pose and a detachment from reality. Brooker and the Guardian seem to be protesting no, don't worry, we were just talking the talk, there's nothing we're prepared to walk the walk for. That's the problem.