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"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.

I believe they are being punished, as are Holland, Germany, Belgium and other old-europe states. The combination of their demographic timebombs, increased muslim immigrations and feckless foreign policies which stress anti-Israel, anti-America in their actions that are directly contradicted by their "pro-freedom" platitudes = their disappearance as national entities within 15-50 years.

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.