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 talkingabout our exit strategy from Afghanistan. We are getting out. It maytake 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 agreedto send 3,000 troops to provide security during the elections and 2,000to train Afghan police. Thin gruel beside Obama’s commitment to doubleU.S. troop levels to 68,000.
Why won’t Europe fight?
BecauseEurope sees no threat from Afghanistan and no vital interest in afaraway country where NATO Europeans have not fought since the BritishEmpire folded its tent long ago.Al-Qaida did not attack Europe out ofAfghanistan. America was attacked. Because, said Osama bin Laden in his”declaration of war,” America was occupying the sacred soil of SaudiArabia, choking Muslim Iraq to death and providing Israel with theweapons to repress the Palestinians.
As Europe has no troops inSaudi Arabia, is exiting Iraq and backs a Palestinian state, Europeansfigure they are less likely to be attacked than if they are fightingand killing Muslims in Afghanistan.
Madrid and London weretargeted for terror attacks, they believe, because Spain and Britainwere George W. Bush’s strongest allies in Iraq. Britain, with a largePakistani population, must be especially sensitive to U.S. Predatorstrikes in Pakistan.
Moreover, Europeans have had their fill of war.
InWorld War I alone, France, Germany and Russia each lost far more menkilled than we have lost in all our wars put together. British lossesin World War I were greater than America’s losses, North and South, inthe Civil War. Her losses in World War II, from a nation with but athird of our population, were equal to ours. Where America ended thatwar as a superpower and leader of the Free World, Britain ended itbankrupt, broken, bereft of empire, sinking into socialism.
Allof Europe’s empires are gone. All her great navies are gone. All hermillion-man armies are history. Her populations are all aging,shrinking and dying, as millions pour in from former colonies in theThird 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’swar in Afghanistan. Europeans know America will take up the slack anddo 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.
WhileNATO provides Europe with a security blanket, it provides America withwhat she cannot live without: a mission, a cause, a meaning to life.
Werethe United States, in exasperation, to tell Europe, “We are pulling outof NATO, shutting down our bases and bringing our troops home becausewe are weary of doing all the heavy lifting, all the fighting and dyingfor freedom,” what would we do after we had departed and come home?
What would our foreign policy be?
Whatwould be the need for our vaunted military-industrial complex, allthose carriers, subs, tanks, and thousands of fighter planes and scoresof bombers? What would happen to all the transatlantic conferences onNATO, all the think tanks here and in Europe devoted to allied securityissues?
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the withdrawal of theRed 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 notwant to go out of business. So, NATO went out of area, intoAfghanistan. 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.
Youdon’t give up the March of Dimes headquarters and fund-raisingmachinery 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.
Joestayed 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 wouldno 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?
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.”