'PEACE' MARCHERS IN OLD EUROPE-- A Cynical American's Point of View

The Iconoclast ^ | Feb. 25, 2003 | William E. Grim

[Apolitical]

William Grim's
AMERICA WATCH

'PEACE' MARCHERS IN OLD EUROPE
-- A Cynical American's Point of View

by William Grim, Iconoclast Contributing Editor

It's Fasching time in Germany. That's the pre-Lenten Carnival season when Germans dress up in funny costumes, drink gallons of beer and listen to marches. Ah, Germans in funny costumes. Some things never change.

But onto today's "peace" marchers. First of all, I would like to say that the best policy regarding today's marchers for "peace" is to ignore them. It's the usual suspects all over again. The same people marched against the Gulf War in 1991 and the deployment of cruise missiles in the 1980s. Their parents marched in the student revolts of the 1960s, and their grandparents goose-stepped to the Horst Wessel Song.

Of course, German popular sentiment is in favor of Saddam. Seventy years ago German popular sentiment was in favor of Hitler. A less charitable person might say that Germans just love genocidal dictators. But I won't say that because Lent is coming up soon. Just look at all the Germans wearing funny costumes.

Who really are the "peace" marchers in Old Europe? First of all, there is a very tiny contingent of true pacifists. They are opposed to war under any circumstances for any cause. In Germany the true pacifists are so dismayed by the barbarity of their country's Wilhelmine and Nazi periods that they have gone to the other extreme and have adopted total pacifism. It's like a person who says that because he has diabetes no one else may eat chocolate. It's not a position I agree with, but at least it's consistent and honest.

The next categories of "peace" marchers are the chronically unemployed and the Fasching revelers. With official unemployment in Germany now at 11% (and unofficial unemployment rumored to be twice as high), there are a lot of people in Germany with time on their hands. I also noticed during the "peace" marches that there were many marchers wearing Fasching costumes. One suspects that many marchers were simply out for a good time.

Perhaps the largest group among the "peace" marchers were anti-Semites. It is important to remember that Germany and France are two of the most consistently anti-Semitic countries outside of the Muslim world. Acts of anti-Semitic violence are skyrocketing in both countries. The new style of anti-Semitism (especially in Germany) manifests itself as anti-Zionism or opposition to the state of Israel. But don't kid yourself. It's the old wine of anti-Semitism in new bottles. About half of the signs and placards I saw carried by "peace" marchers were anti-Israeli, anti-Zionist, or pro-Palestinian.

Those who hate America constitute the next large category of "peace" marchers. Many Old Europeans may wear Levis and eat Big Macs but they hate America nonetheless. The French are simply ingrates and the Germans have never gotten over the fact that a country they consider to be inferior to them defeated them not once, but twice, in the past century. And the Old European psyche has suffered further damage from international studies (such as the PISA study) showing that America's educational system is superior to theirs. And to top it off, Old Europe's domination of the high cultural scene is a thing of the hoary past. Just attend a performance of a Wagner opera in Germany and you'll see what a wretched state in which the arts find themselves in Old Europe.

Those Old Europeans who have a visceral hatred of America try to achieve their agenda by pretending to make common cause with the true pacifists. But the pacifism of the America haters is malevolent in nature. They aren't against war per se; they're against America winning a war. Since they cannot stop America militarily, the America haters must content themselves by conspiring with America's enemies. The false pacifism of the America haters is, in reality, obstructionism by passive aggression.

A final large group among the "peace" marchers are members of the extreme left: communists, socialists and various anarcho-syndicalist-whatevers. If you examine the flags and banners that were held by the "peace" marchers, about half of them were from political organizations like the Party of Democratic Socialism (the new name of old East German Communist Party), the German Communist Party and various socialist groups. Hatred of America, of capitalism and of liberal democracy are also strong components of Old European leftist politics. In Germany, in particular, socialism imbues the worldview of almost all political parties. Even the nominally conservative parties of Germany are riddled with socialist ideology. Even though there are many outward similarities between Germany and the United States, the American enshrinement of the individual above the state is viewed with bewilderment, if not outright abhorrence, by the vast majority of Germans who get their socialism along with their mother's milk. For example, Americans view freedom as opportunity; Germans view freedom as chaos. Never the twain shall meet.

A final, and perhaps the most damning, reason for the "peace" marchers in Old Europe is that they are being aided and abetted by the tired and corrupt governments of Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder. Both leaders are saddled with ailing economies, allegations of ethical shenanigans, and blunders in diplomacy of monumental proportions. They are only all too happy to support a noisy "peace" movement that will divert the media's attention away from looming crises in their own governments.

And then there's the money trail. France and Germany have already been embarrassed by their close financial ties to Saddam Hussein. They certainly don't want a war in which American intelligence officers will find more bills of lading with France and Germany highlighted as the points of origin for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction........

[Apolitical]

William Grim, Iconoclast's resident Yankee sage, dices and slices the pitiful European peace movement.

[Defiant]

Here's the rest of the article:

The French accuse America of engaging in a war for oil, when in reality it's France that has the cozy deal with Saddam for cheap oil. And the Germans like to pass themselves off as a friend of Israel, yet it has been Germany that has largely built and supplied Saddam's enormous caches of weapons of mass destruction with which he threatens to annihilate Israel.

The "peace" marchers are, for the most part, a group of losers, layabouts and denizens of the loony left. Ignore them or make fun of them. They're part of the Old Europe that's been consigned to the dustbin of history.

But I'm hoping that more of the "peace" marchers will go to Iraq to become human shields. What they forget is that the use of human shields violates the Geneva Convention and makes those involved subject to prosecution. And I for one can't wait for the Second Nuremberg Trials to begin.