Janet Daley over at Daily Telegraph has a great article about our great allies: (hat tip American Future)
as I listened to George W Bush telling Europeans that his campaign for liberty and democracy arose directly from ideals that had originated with them. You could almost hear the injured bewilderment in his voice: this was all your idea in the first place. Whatever happened to your commitment to the values enshrined in Magna Carta and the French Revolution – the doctrine of the rights of man and of government by consent? And if you are still committed to those principles, why can you not see the need to extend them to parts of the world that are still deprived of them?
Eighteenth-century spoken English may or may not survive in America and in Australia, but 18th-century ideas about liberty and the redeeming quality of democracy certainly seem to have found a permanent home in exile.
The enlightenment idealism of Europe was exported to the rebellious colonies and, in geographical isolation, it flourished. While Europeans themselves undermined their own great democratic project with their ancient hatreds and their aristocratic nostalgia, the na?ve Americans kept the dream intact, building it into a written constitution (which was an 18th-century idea itself).
Europe has pretty much given up on the whole undertaking now: we tried it and it ended in the Terror. We went through our phase of proselytising democratic revolution with Bonaparte and look where that ended. Spreading freedom? All that amounts to is killing off one generation of autocrats and replacing them with another. Trust the people? They are just as likely to follow a fascist demagogue as to perpetuate the sacred principle of justice.
Better to make your cynical peace with the worst aspects of human nature than to pretend that free men will always choose good over evil. Much better to make a mutually profitable trade-off behind the scenes than to expose political decisions to the popular will. What evidence is there that the people actually know what is best for them? Most charitably, the European philosophy of government – shortly to be permanently installed under the EU constitution – is paternalistic. At worst, it is arrogant and authoritarian.
What is it with Europe? Will they capitulate to any enemy? Do any of them have any balls?
That is why Jacques Chirac – the very embodiment of corrupt European political cynicism – and George Bush can never, ever find true common ground. When the President tries to give credit where it is due – to the European authorship of democratic revolution – it sounds faintly sarcastic.
I have written before on this page that European hatred of the United States has a great deal to do with jealousy of American self-belief. But there is an element of shame there, too. Because Europe knows that it has sold the pass. It has traded liberty for security: the safety of consensus, the reassuring unfreedom of bureaucratic control and an over-regulated economy.
And they will see their own 9/11 im afraid before they come around, maybe not even then as evidenced by the spineless Spanish.
Much more in the article, well worth the read.
Then you have a German paper interviewing Richard Perle. (hat tip Discarded Lies and David’s Medienkritik):
DIE WELT: (…) [I]s there a new thaw in transatlantic relations?
Richard Perle: I?m very skeptical about the Europeans? ? and when I say that I mean the Germans and the French ? being prepared for a new beginning. Certain circles in these countries don?t want US policies in Iraq to be successful. And, whether or not they supported the war, that is not the case with the rest of Europe.
Q: Did the election in Iraq legitimize Bush?s foreign policy of “transformation” even though no weapons of mass destruction were found?
A: Absolutely. We?ll look back and see the liberation of Iraq and the establishment of a freely elected government that respects human rights as a turning point in history. Today?s German and French position reminds me of their attitude toward Ronald Reagan?s policies to end the Cold War. They were terribly short sighted and lost sight of the big picture. The French and Germans were above all, as we said, appalled. History has proven them wrong then and will do it again. Their underestimating Bush and hostility toward is as wrong today as their attitude toward Reagan was wrong then. ?
Q: So the Europeans? negotiations with Iran are a complete waste of time?
A: Well, I suppose we must go through those phases so people will recognize that it won?t be easy. I have my doubts about the negotiations leading to anything because you cannot trust the Iranians. In point of fact it seems to me pretty obvious that the regime wants the bomb and nobody will talk them out of it. It?s only a matter of time before the Germans and French accuse the Americans of being at fault for the Iranian?s refusal to yield. They?ll say, “You ruined the pretty little treaty we almost had completely negotiated.”
Q: Sounds familiar…
A: We?re seeing the same issue that split on the Iraq war. Europe doesn?t perceive Iran as a threat, and the US does. The Europeans are not as threatened by Iranian nuclear weapons as are the Americans and they aren?t as threatened by the terrorism that Iran sponsors. If the only way to keep the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon is military action against Iranian production facilities, then the US must undertake that action.
Yup, think he has it covered.
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