Mark Steyn again has a priceless one, and reveals he's half Belgian :-)
Bret Stephens, the editor of the Jerusalem Post, opened his mail the other day and found a copy of something called "Conclusions of the European Council", a summary of the work done during the six months of the Irish Euro-presidency. He made the mistake of reading it.Here's item 80: "The European Council expresses its deep concern at the recent events in the Eastern Congo, which could jeopardise the transition process."
Been following that one? Europe is free to flaunt its "concern" – and even its "deep concern" – over the Eastern Congo precisely because it's entirely irrelevant to events in the Eastern Congo. As Stephens points out, European countries now have attitudes in inverse proportion to the likelihood of their acting upon them. They're like my hippy-dippy Vermont neighbours who drive around with "Free Tibet" bumper stickers. Every couple of years, they trade in the Volvo for a Subaru, and painstakingly paste a new "Free Tibet" sticker on the back.
What are they doing to free Tibet? Nothing. Tibet is as unfree now as it was when they started advertising their commitment to a free Tibet. And it will be just as unfree when they buy their next car and slap on the old sticker one mo' time. If Don Rumsfeld were to say, "'Free Tibet'? That's a great idea! The Third Infantry Division go in on Thursday'", all the 'Free Tibet' crowd would be driving around with 'War is not the answer' stickers. When entire nations embrace self-congratulatory holier-than-thou moral poseurdom as a way of life, it's even less attractive. The Belgians weren't half as insufferable when they were the German army's preferred shortcut to France.
For the purposes of the preceding racist generalisation, I should explain that I'm semi-Belgian
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A wealthy continent liberated from the burdens of military expenditure is also liberated to a large degree from reality. Poor peoples have no choice but to live in the real world: if a drought wipes out their crops, they starve. Likewise, rich, powerful nations have traditionally required great vigilance to maintain their wealth and power.
But Europe increasingly resembles those insulated celebrities being shuttled around town from one humanitarian gala to another – like Barbra Streisand flying in by private jet to discuss excessive energy consumption with President Clinton. Just as elderly rockers and Hollywood divas are largely free from the tedious responsibilities of rich industrialists or supermarket magnates – payroll costs and plant upgrades – so the EU can flaunt its "concerns" about the world and leave the logistics to others.
The US security umbrella, along with the Eurovision Song Contest, was really the prototype pan-European institution. The Americans helped build a continent in which you could sing Waterloo rather than fight it, and, if in their excessive generosity they accelerated an inclination to softness and decadence, well, it's not their problem.
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The EU, meanwhile, has challenges of its own, and in the coming clash between a shrinking secularised Euro-elite and its swelling Islamist populations it's not clear whether, as James Baker would say, America has a dog in that fight. The only question for the Continent is whether it's over over there in a more profound sense than those singing doughboys ever contemplated.
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