Posted on 02/27/2005 12:32:39 PM PST by Zivasmate
U.S. can sit back and watch Europe implode
February 27, 2005
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Advertisement
A week ago, the conventional wisdom was that George W. Bush had seen the error of his unilateral cowboy ways and was setting off to Europe to mend fences with America's ''allies.''
I think not. Lester Pearson, the late Canadian prime minister, used to say that diplomacy is the art of letting the other fellow have your way. All week long President Bush offered a hilariously parodic reductio of Pearson's bon mot, wandering from one European Union gabfest to another insisting how much he loves his good buddy Jacques and his good buddy Gerhard and how Europe and America share -- what's the standard formulation? -- ''common values.'' Care to pin down an actual specific value or two that we share? Well, you know, ''freedom,'' that sort of thing, abstract nouns mostly. Love to list a few more common values, but gotta run.
And at the end what's changed?
Will the United States sign on to Kyoto?
No.
Will the United States join the International Criminal Court?
No.
Will the United States agree to accept whatever deal the Anglo-Franco-German negotiators cook up with Iran?
No.
Even more remarkably, aside from sticking to his guns in the wider world, the president also found time to cast his eye upon Europe's internal affairs. As he told his audience in Brussels, in the first speech of his tour, ''We must reject anti-Semitism in all forms and we must condemn violence such as that seen in the Netherlands.''
The Euro-bigwigs shuffled their feet and stared coldly into their mistresses' decolletage. They knew Bush wasn't talking about anti-Semitism in Nebraska, but about France, where for three years there's been a sustained campaign of synagogue burning and cemetery desecration, and Germany, where the Berlin police advise Jewish residents not to go out in public wearing any identifying marks of their faith.
The ''violence in the Netherlands'' is a reference to Theo van Gogh, murdered by a Dutch Islamist for making a film critical of the Muslim treatment of women. Van Gogh's professional colleagues reacted to this assault on freedom of speech by canceling his movie from the Rotterdam Film Festival and scheduling some Islamist propaganda instead.
The president, in other words, understands that for Europe, unlike America, the war on terror is an internal affair, a matter of defusing large unassimilated radicalized Muslim immigrant populations before they provoke the inevitable resurgence of opportunist political movements feeding off old hatreds. Difficult trick to pull off, especially on a continent where the ruling elite feels it's in the people's best interest not to pay any attention to them.
The new EU ''constitution,'' for example, would be unrecognizable as such to any American. I had the opportunity to talk with former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing on a couple of occasions during his long labors as the self-declared and strictly single Founding Father. He called himself ''Europe's Jefferson,'' and I didn't like to quibble that, constitution-wise, Jefferson was Europe's Jefferson -- that's to say, at the time the U.S. Constitution was drawn up, Thomas Jefferson was living in France. Thus, for Giscard to be Europe's Jefferson, he'd have to be in Des Moines, where he'd be doing far less damage.
But, quibbles aside, President Giscard professed to be looking in the right direction. When I met him, he had an amiable riff on how he'd been in Washington and bought one of those compact copies of the U.S. Constitution on sale for a buck or two. Many Americans wander round with the constitution in their pocket so they can whip it out and chastise over-reaching congressmen and senators at a moment's notice. Try going round with the European Constitution in your pocket and you'll be walking with a limp after two hours: It's 511 pages, which is 500 longer than the U.S. version. It's full of stuff about European space policy, Slovakian nuclear plants, water resources, free expression for children, the right to housing assistance, preventive action on the environment, etc.
Most of the so-called constitution isn't in the least bit constitutional. That's to say, it's not content, as the U.S. Constitution is, to define the distribution and limitation of powers. Instead, it reads like a U.S. defense spending bill that's got porked up with a ton of miscellaneous expenditures for the ''mohair subsidy'' and other notorious Congressional boondoggles. President Ronald Reagan liked to say, ''We are a nation that has a government -- not the other way around.'' If you want to know what it looks like the other way round, read Monsieur Giscard's constitution.
But the fact is it's going to be ratified, and Washington is hardly in a position to prevent it. Plus there's something to be said for the theory that, as the EU constitution is a disaster waiting to happen, you might as well cut down the waiting and let it happen. CIA analysts predict the collapse of the EU within 15 years. I'd say, as predictions of doom go, that's a little on the cautious side.
But either way the notion that it's a superpower in the making is preposterous. Most administration officials subscribe to one of two views: a) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater; or b) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater where the whole powder keg's about to go up.
For what it's worth, I incline to the latter position. Europe's problems -- its unaffordable social programs, its deathbed demographics, its dependence on immigration numbers that no stable nation (not even America in the Ellis Island era) has ever successfully absorbed -- are all of Europe's making. By some projections, the EU's population will be 40 percent Muslim by 2025. Already, more people each week attend Friday prayers at British mosques than Sunday service at Christian churches -- and in a country where Anglican bishops have permanent seats in the national legislature.
Some of us think an Islamic Europe will be easier for America to deal with than the present Europe of cynical, wily, duplicitous pseudo-allies. But getting there is certain to be messy, and violent.
Until the shape of the new Europe begins to emerge, there's no point picking fights with the terminally ill. The old Europe is dying, and Mr. Bush did the diplomatic equivalent of the Oscar night lifetime-achievement tribute at which the current stars salute a once glamorous old-timer whose fading aura is no threat to them. The 21st century is being built elsewhere.
Already posted.
The question is, why sit back when you can stand up and cheer?
A 511 page constitution is designed so it's citizens won't be able to understand it.
As someone else has already alluded -- Steyn is as good as it gets.
Because Bush is a class act and a "no gloat" guy.
Somehow this whole bit on the decline and fall of Europe and European type snychophants "thinkers" vs. the US reminds me of the chidrens story about the grasshopper and the ants; and we all know how that story came out.
Wouldn't surprise me in the least to see a new flood of immigrants coming to the US from Europe. The few good ones left; fleeing, saying they've had enough of Socialism and Liberalism.
That can only be good news for the Republican Party. IMO, Europe in 50 yrs from now will be mostly an Islamic continent.
Wait until the day when the German Muslims try to impose their brand of Islam on the French, Dutch and Polish Muslims to create a 1,000 year hadj.
"Wouldn't surprise me in the least to see a new flood of immigrants coming to the US from Europe. The few good ones left; fleeing, saying they've had enough of Socialism and Liberalism."
A lot of the good ones left years or centuries ago, and became our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. Every morning when I put my flag up, I thank God my grandparents had the strength, courage, and determination to leave Europe for the New World, so I could be born and raised here.
Great article, thank you.
I like the idea that Bush is just humoring them.
We should now remove our remaining troops from Europe, Germany in particular. If some are needed to protect the newer, Eastern European states, then put a much smaller contingent in Poland.
Then we should humor them some more and state we are removing our troops because the EU is now much more capable of defending itself.
We have to stop subsidizing their economies with our troop deployments!!!!
Thanks for posting - an excellent laugh. Steyn is the best.
Europe is again being swallowed up by Ethnocentric thinking and behavior that has always led to its wars.
Next step to watch for is for some group to start claiming the powers of a tyrant in their small area of a country. If the rest of the country draws back from confronting them, the snowball will begin to build.
Tyranny is right down Islam's alley. Tyrannical Europe provides a role model for Islam. In Iraq, a small group dominated the life of an entire country, with a tyranny firmly establishing itself. The tyrant started wars to expand his empire.
Europe knows a tyrant-group when they see one, and yet they still fall habit to appeasing that tyrant-group. Let's see if Europe reacts the same way again for the umptieth time.
Any idea which country might be the lucky center of the tyranny? My guess is - oh what's the name of the country with the Eiffel Tower again?
25 years ago, the CIA (in some analysis) predicted the collapse of Mexico in 10 years.
LOL !!!
It won't be long before little Hans and little Ana come home and declare they have converted. Individuality is hard to come by in Europe and the children have learned well. Won't be long before they start converting to avoid any conflict or it appears it could threaten their vacation time. The hold outs will convert via sword.
If it were just the Joseph Wilson tea-drinkers at the CIA, I might be skeptical, but that's also what some of the better Wall Streeters will say after a couple of drinks of harder stuff.
Q. Can you give us some of your thoughts and prognostications about Europe?
Byron Wien: "Yeah, I was hoping you wouldn't ask about that. I almost got fired once for my comments on Europe, and it looks like I'm going to run that risk again. In 1995 I was going to Europe and I gave an interview to a Wall Street Journal reporter. He said, "Boy you have a terrible job - you have to travel all the time." I didn't want to tell him that the only time I returned reporters phone calls is when I'm in airports, and I said, "I really like to travel - I learn a lot. " And he said. "Where are you going?" and I said, "Amsterdam." He said, "What do you expect to learn there?" And I said, "Well, I have this theory that if the European union doesn't work twenty years from now, Europe will be a vast open air museum." Now usually when I say something irresponsible to a reporter I say, "You know, I was only kidding about the open air museum," but I liked the ring of it - you know, the open air museum.
(LAUGHTER)
Byron Wien: "...so I didn't say anything, and the next day in the European Wall Street Journal and the U.S. Wall Street Journal, that line printed and I got in an enormous amount of trouble for it.
"I've generally had a skeptical view of Europe and I don't think that the European union is working as seamlessly as it was supposed to...." (Byron reverts to diplomat-mode)
(From: Morgan Stanley Outlook & Strategy 2004)
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