Good name for a romance novel.
Posted on 02/26/2005 12:58:40 PM PST by quidnunc
Recent books have raved that the European Union is the way of the future. In contrast, a supposedly exhausted, broke and post-imperial United States chases the terrorist chimera, running up debts and deficits as it tilts at the autocratic windmills of the Arab World.
That caricature frames the visit of the President to Europe as transatlantic pundits demand a softer George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld. Stop the childish bickering and the tiresome neocon preening, we are lectured ad nauseam by Euro and American elites. Don’t divide Europe, we hear endlessly. Even though the European press, EU leaders, and their wild public have dealt out far more invective than they have received, American circumspection is the order of the day, the expected magnanimity from the more aggressive (and stronger) partner.
Europe is huffy, but strangely tentative in its new prickliness. Short-term positive indicators — trade surpluses, the strong Euro, low inflation and expansion of the EU — are showcased to prove that its statism and pacifism are the preferable Western paradigm. But privately bureaucrats in Brussels are far more worried about different and scarier long-term concomitant signs: high unemployment, static rates of worker productivity, low birthrates, Islamicist minorities, looming unfunded entitlement obligations, and a high-sounding pacifism that is being increasingly seen worldwide as base appeasement by friend and enemy alike.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at victorhanson.com ...
FYI
You are the posting King.
Good name for a romance novel.
Walk quietly, but carry a big stick!
Trust, but verify!
Move our bases to the counties of real allies!
Spend our money with friends!
Buy American wine!
Clean up our immigration mess at home!
Thanks for posting the link.
I'm not sure if we can afford to just stand back and watch. Europe as a whole may be growing more neutral, but France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany under Schroeder are actively hostile, going around the world blackmailing countries to work against the United States.
That is not the kind of thing we can afford to just shrug off. France, in particular, needs to be punished for its unfriendly behavior. They are working hard to set Eastern Europe, Turkey, the Arab states, Africa, and China against us. They are arming our enemies and persuading our friends to abandon us. We really can't afford to condone that kind of behavior, which barely falls short of open warfare.
"France, in particular, needs to be punished for its unfriendly behavior."
From a basic, political standpoint, France must be made to pay a price for their hostility, otherwise, it just encourages more of the same.
Many of us are punishing France privately, by boycotting their products. But I agree with you, it's not enough. Part of the art of politics is to reward your friends and punish your enemies. Otherwise people have no incentives to behave decently to you.
So Germany and France want an EU military, to replace NATO. I say, have at it.
The United States spends more on pensions for its military retirees than either France or Germany spends on their whole defense budget.
Europe is huffy,
Of course they are. They wouldn't be European if they weren't
Let us not forget adding the ubiquitous "All your base are belong to us" (I've always luvved dat wun)
Short of a sudden and massively shocking turnaround - say, something along the lines of Holland hitting the brakes and dumping all muslim immigrants out of the country yesterday ( not going to happen, imo; right now, one of their PMs is being "protected" in Prison against death threats by these muslim immigrants - (( just think of the insanity of that for a moment... a citizen under assault/threat by a guest in your country, and rather than disciplining the guest, you "help" your citizen by making him a prisoner in his own homeland )) ) - there is nothing that indicates old-europe will, can or even wants to save itself.
As President Bush clearly stated, the powers we the United States have may not be invincible, but they are formidable. This truth applies both to the energy we expend externally in the support of freedom initiatives abroad (which was the context he delivered it in...) and also to the prudent application of resources in dealing/working with the old-europeans.
The metaphor, "don't throw away good money after bad" comes to mind... if the old-euros show no inclination to fight for western civ, we in the US should not get our knickers in a twist bemoaning their choice. We've plenty of work to do in (A) taking care of our own Country first; (B) helping those of our allies who are like us and fight the battle for freedom; and (C) encouraging/assisting the birth of Republican values and Freedom in places where the people simmer under the yoke of totalitarian/collectivist regimes.
Quick glance at the above priorities clearly shows that helping old-euros while they suffocate themselves is Dead LAST.
Good points all. But I don't know that Holland, Germany, et. following their internal policies to demographic collapse is the kind of political punishment I'm talking about here- The US has nothing to do with imigration policy in these countries.
I'm talking about the good, old fashioned punish your enemies, reward your friends axiom that is universal to politics. As a practical matter, if there is no price to France for selling arms to China, they will continue to sell arms to China - their internal immigration policies are irrelevent to this.
I do agree with your point that if other countries choose not to fight for their own survival, that we should not get our knickers in an uproar - we do what we have to do. However, given the historical tendency for European "stupidity" to spill over their borders, we (The US) are not in a position to simply walk away from their suicide pact. Another war in Europe will almost certainly involve American soldiers.
good points, as well. It is a difficult and complex path to nagivate with these old-euros; their lack of nerve and current policies point to - if left unchecked - certain self-extinction. Yet they possess some strength and capability and (from this perspective I see connection in your points...) consequently our diplomacy should be geared towards at least mitigating the negative impacts their capabilities can cause; at best getting their small-rudder ships-of-state to slowly slew back on-course.
In this respect, I think our current President and policies are correct; to continue the above analogy, it is certain that the old-euro ships are in stormy seas, but it could be worse... the US could be a reluctant passenger (as Kerry would have had us be...) whose fortunes relied entirely upon the old-euro captains.
Let me know if you want in or out
Mornin'.
Bump for later
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