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Why Europe Won't Fight
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Opinion; Posted on: 2009-04-10 15:51:28 [ Printer friendly / Instant flyer ]
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Because of Europe's new "diversity," any war fought in a Muslim land will inflame a large segment of Europe's urban population.
by Pat Buchanan
"No one will say this publicly, but the true fact is we are all talking
about our exit strategy from Afghanistan. We are getting out. It may
take a couple of years, but we are all looking to get out."
Thus did a "senior European diplomat" confide to The New York Times during Obama's trip to Strasbourg.
Europe is bailing out on us. Afghanistan is to be America's war. During what the Times called a "fractious meeting," NATO agreed
to send 3,000 troops to provide security during the elections and 2,000
to train Afghan police. Thin gruel beside Obama's commitment to double
U.S. troop levels to 68,000.
Why won't Europe fight?
Because
Europe sees no threat from Afghanistan and no vital interest in a
faraway country where NATO Europeans have not fought since the British
Empire folded its tent long ago.
Al-Qaida did not attack Europe out of
Afghanistan. America was attacked. Because, said Osama bin Laden in his
"declaration of war," America was occupying the sacred soil of Saudi
Arabia, choking Muslim Iraq to death and providing Israel with the
weapons to repress the Palestinians.
As Europe has no troops in
Saudi Arabia, is exiting Iraq and backs a Palestinian state, Europeans
figure they are less likely to be attacked than if they are fighting
and killing Muslims in Afghanistan.
Madrid and London were
targeted for terror attacks, they believe, because Spain and Britain
were George W. Bush's strongest allies in Iraq. Britain, with a large
Pakistani population, must be especially sensitive to U.S. Predator
strikes in Pakistan.
Moreover, Europeans have had their fill of war.
In
World War I alone, France, Germany and Russia each lost far more men
killed than we have lost in all our wars put together. British losses
in World War I were greater than America's losses, North and South, in
the Civil War. Her losses in World War II, from a nation with but a
third of our population, were equal to ours. Where America ended that
war as a superpower and leader of the Free World, Britain ended it
bankrupt, broken, bereft of empire, sinking into socialism.
All
of Europe's empires are gone. All her great navies are gone. All her
million-man armies are history. Her populations are all aging,
shrinking and dying, as millions pour in from former colonies in the
Third World to repopulate and Islamize the mother countries.
Because of Europe's new "diversity," any war fought in a Muslim land will inflame a large segment of Europe's urban population.
Finally,
NATO Europe knows there is no price to pay for malingering in NATO's
war in Afghanistan. Europeans know America will take up the slack and
do nothing about their refusal to send combat brigades.
For Europeans had us figured out a long time ago.
They sense that we need them more than they need us.
While
NATO provides Europe with a security blanket, it provides America with
what she cannot live without: a mission, a cause, a meaning to life.
Were
the United States, in exasperation, to tell Europe, "We are pulling out
of NATO, shutting down our bases and bringing our troops home because
we are weary of doing all the heavy lifting, all the fighting and dying
for freedom," what would we do after we had departed and come home?
What would our foreign policy be?
What
would be the need for our vaunted military-industrial complex, all
those carriers, subs, tanks, and thousands of fighter planes and scores
of bombers? What would happen to all the transatlantic conferences on
NATO, all the think tanks here and in Europe devoted to allied security
issues?
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the withdrawal of the
Red Army from Eastern Europe and the breakup of the Soviet Union,
NATO's mission was accomplished. As Sen. Richard Lugar said, NATO must
"go out of area or out of business."
NATO desperately did not
want to go out of business. So, NATO went out of area, into
Afghanistan. Now, with victory nowhere in sight, NATO is heading home.
Will it go out of business?
Not likely. Too many rice bowls depend on keeping NATO alive.
You
don't give up the March of Dimes headquarters and fund-raising
machinery just because Drs. Salk and Sabin found a cure for polio.
Again, one recalls, in those old World War II movies, the invariable scene where two G.I.s are smoking and talking.
"What are you gonna do, Joe, when this is all over?" one would ask.
Years ago, we had the answer.
Joe
stayed in the Army. He couldn't give it up. Soldiering is all he knew.
Just like Uncle Sam. We can't give up NATO because, if we do, we would
no longer be the "indispensable nation," the leader of the Free World.
And, if we're not that, then who are we? And what would we do?
Source
Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, "The Death of the West,", "The Great Betrayal," "A Republic, Not an Empire" and "Where the Right Went Wrong."
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News Source: human events
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