Some Timely Euro Bashing...

The Iconoclast ^ | November 13, 2002 | Murray Soupcoff (The Iconoclast)

[Apolitical]

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Some Timely Euro Bashing....



November 13, 2002: Today's recommended reading is an opinion piece appearing on the UPI site by their Chief International Correspondent, Martin Walker. And surprise. Unlike most of his snobby Europhile media colleagues, Mr. Walker seems to have had it up to here regarding the righteous anti-American braying emanating from continental Europe.

Mr. Walker capsulizes what he sees as an increasingly skeptical but realistic perception of America's continental European allies that's finally developing among the Washington's diplomatic elite. Here's how he paints the picture:

"You want to know what I really think of the Europeans?" asked the senior State Department official. "I think they have been wrong on just about every major international issue for the past 20 years."

"They told us they could fix the Bosnian mess all on their own. Wrong."

"They told us the Russians would never accept NATO enlargement. Wrong."

"They told us that the Russians would never accept National Missile Defense. Wrong."

"They told us that if we withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 the whole structure of international arms control agreements would come crashing down. Wrong."

"They told us that the Kyoto Protocol was a good and worthwhile treaty, more than just cosmetics. Wrong."

"They told us that the European Union's new common security and defense policy would improve the military abilities of the NATO allies in Europe. Wrong."

"These were also the people who were wrong about Ronald Reagan and the Evil Empire, the same 'friends' who helped vote us off the United Nations Human Rights Commission. These are the people who whine about our Farm Bill when they are the world's prime protectionists. They are not just repeatedly wrong; they are also a bunch of hypocrites. So why should we pay attention to a single thing they say?"

The official, a career diplomat who speaks fluent French and likes to vacation in Italy, sat back and took an appreciative sip from his glass of good red wine from Bordeaux.

"One more thing," he added. "Whenever I use the word Europeans, I don't mean the Brits."

It was perhaps the most interesting and informative off-the-record lunch this reporter had attended in some three decades in the news business.

Well good for the diplomatic elite for finally getting it right about the moral, intellectual and diplomatic decline afflicting continental Europe today. After all, America hating in the European media has become a near blood sport. Appeasement of (pardon me, make that "constructive engagement" with) the most loathsome dictators and murderous regimes has become a diplomatic way of life. And elitist bureaucratic whim has become a haughty substitute for responsive democracy.

The Europeans (Britain sometimes excepted) continue to lecture America about it's cowboy diplomacy, its philistine culture, its worship of money and guns, and its racist ways. However, when you think about it, what is Europe today all about?

The Continent celebrates its brand new International Criminal Court and criticizes the United States for opting out of this noble exercise in international justice. But what is the real mandate of this court? To only selectively prosecute international scapegoats defined as criminal by the politically-correct European leftist elite.

In other words, it's okay to prosecute an aging Latin-American has-been like retired General Augusto Pinochet because the United States once supported him. But forget about all those veteran Russian, East German, Hungarian and Czech Communist political commissars responsible for the murderous purges, death camps and show trials in the former Soviet Bloc, and the very nasty suppression of the Hungarian and Czechoslovakian revolutions of 1956 and 1974 . They're all too busy governing the newly emerging East-European democracies now, or staffing the unresponsive bureaucracies of the European Union.

And of course, forget about the cultural genocide and religious persecution that's going on in Tibet today. Or the repressive despots in a number of Third World African dictatorships. Or the unjust and barbaric Saudi Arabian justice system -- never mind the blatant misogyny and oppression of woman in a multitude of Islamist theocracies.

The United States puts to death serial killers. The U.S. is bad.

All those repressive Third World tyrannies are the victims of ruinous colonialism. They're good.

And so it goes. Even though it's no secret that the new united Europe has evolved into an elitist oligarchy run a by a clique of left-wing 'knowledgecrats.' In fact, the executive arm of the European Union has mushroomed into an unwieldy bureaucratic molasses of 18,000 haughty but cowardly bureaucrats in Brussels happily flushing away an annual 80-billion-dollar budget by means of bloated salaries, grand regal offices, and huge expense accounts for fine dining and wining at the taxpayers' expense.

However, unlike in the United States, one important political ingredient is missing in the new United Europe -- accountability to the electorate. The true EU decision makers are appointed not elected. They hold sway over a growing collectivist empire that extinguishes national sovereignty wherever possible and scorns the will of ordinary Europeans wherever and whenever possible. So not unsurprisingly, the death penalty cannot be enacted in any participating European state, even though recent polls show that sizable majorities of Europeans still support it.

The truth is that whatever economic affluence and national security most continental Western European nations have enjoyed the last 57 years has primarily been thanks to the United States of America. But of course, the European elite would rather forget about the Marshall Plan, the success of free-enterprise global capitalism, and NATO.

And even today, the continental European nation states -- like America's erstwhile friend and neighbour Canada -- will not spend the money needed to create the military might needed to defend their continent. So they continue to depend upon the United States to be their protector -- when it suits them.

The United States may be guilty of "cowboy" diplomacy in the world. But the continental Europeans are even more guilty of Chamberlain-like appeasement (or should we say "constructive engagement) in international affairs. Without the intervention of the United States, the Balkans would probably still be an ethnic killing ground, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia would be provinces of Greater Iraq, and Osama Bin Laden might be the Grand Caliph of Vienna by now.....................

[Apolitical]

Some timely Euro bashing indeed!

[JeeperFreeper]

Great post. Let's hope this understanding begins to percolate here among our leftist elites. (Yes, I know, I know...when pigs fly)

[SpinyNorman]

Time to let them defend themselves and pay us back for the war debts we forgave! With interest!! The next time the French roll over on their backs like puppies for the next two-bit dictator, we should remember this kind of thing.

[SeaDragon]

Timely indeed. Makes my heart go pitter patter with the pleasure of reading it.

Thanks for the post.

[Marobe]

An excellently painted picture of the EU scum. It will take a while but the EU must and will fail because of its main goal ... power and wealth for the few at the exspense of many. Better to die here in America, fighting the JBT's than to crawl around on our knees begging for scraps.

[I still care]

I have been wondering for a long time the about the mindset of the Europeans. I think their problem might be the socialist downfall, which I think is the spiritual elevation of the underachiever, or the concept that mediocrity can be good and unity is more important than excellence.

They seem to feel that as long as you are in community with the crowd, that is the ultimate good, and any attempt to break out of that mold or seek better for oneself or one's country is a betrayal of mankind, especially if it causes conflict of any kind.

I don't know how to put it any better, but this seems the common thread running through all their actions.

The US culture has the opposite opinion, that each person is responsible for elevating themselves to a better position, and that conflict and competition is often necessary to achieve this.

If my hypothesis is correct, we will never see eye to eye with Europe on anything.

[mil-vet]

Outstanding post! I get SO excited when someone actually seems to have an amazing grasp of the obvious and, furthermore, even writes in down!! Said excitement (and it's genuine) is an illustration of how far left the media has fallen - when they get it right, I can hardly believe it - ROTFLOL!!

[Reagan is King]

Bump for the truth!

[Cobra64]

For the umpteenth time, I say we should pull out of NATO and implode the UN building. Maybe then those morons will get the message. They can take their dirty laundry back to their third world countries.

[Allrightnow]

"that mediocrity can be good"

This should be the EU slogan. What a riot. And it would work too as long as everyone was mediocre.

[MannMade]

Excellent post! I vote we cut aid to all these countries by 50% effective immediately, use the money to secure the borders, also immediately.
There are 2 types of people in this world: The mentally tough (Cowboys) who do whatever it takes to get the job done and the pathetic make excuses and never get the job done.
Hear ye, hear ye! America just elected the cowboys. Deal with it.

[Cobra64]

They seem to feel that as long as you are in community with the crowd...

I refer to this as the "herd mentality." Envision a herd of sheep. Europeans AND Democrats think this way. They are all followers of a mindless herd with zero direction.

[Teacher317]

If the European Union gets 20+ votes in the UN, then each of the 50 States should get individual votes as well.

[Mike Darancette]

French President Charles de Gaulle's imperious demand that America remove its soldiers from French soil. As the story goes, Mr. Johnson then instructed his Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, to inquire whether de Gaulle's demand applied to those buried in military cemeteries in France.

We should send back the bodies of Europeans that died in America defending us from the Kaiser and Hitler --- oh wait there are none.