Ted RE...Why? Because Europe could easily hide behind the US's strength and let the US do the dirty work, but instead they are choosing not to........which doesn't make sense if they were coming from weakness as the author asserts......the weak always cling to the strong.
But what if Europe had a way of becoming strong, and didn't need the US for its strength. By uniting into the Eu, separating the european countries out of Nato into a European NATO, and using the UN, where Europe has 18 votes to the US one; Europe can once again brandish its power, and doesn't need the US. Suddenly, American desires for unity, become bullying, because Europe doesn't want to follow the US lead, Europe wants to say what the lead is, and have the US follow. The US for 50 yrs, had the armies and weapons the Europeans needed; as a consequence, America controlled the battlefield, and Europe had no choice, but to go along with doing it our way. Now Europe wants to say, we have enough power, and we will do it our way. The same goes for the economy. Europe wanted to control businesses, especially American businesses, so Europe has stronger pro union tendencies, than the US. Europe doesn't mind the strikes as much as we do here, because for the most part, the businesses they are hurting are American, and the people profiting are their citizens. However,as European businesses grew after the war, Europe has reached a point, where the European based businesses are being strangled, and have stagnated. Does the left concede, and conclude that european businesses in order to survive, need relaxed wage rules, no. They decide to combine into one big EU. They want to outbig America. Which sounded fine, except it didn't work, Europe stagnated throughout the 90,s while America; who gave businesses more power; grew at a torrid pace. Part of the EU problem is not recognizing that small businesses, not big businesses were the engine of growth, INTC or MSFT, were small 20 yrs ago. So their unions, which were designed to control big businesses, also kept their engines of growth checked.
The same goes for wars, Europe did poorly controlling Yugoslavia, and needed US help. The old days, of taking yrs to prepare a navy, or army, then go off and fight a set piece war are over. Now the war is over before you can get ready, if you aren't prepared. Europe isn't prepared for that, so Europe needs the UN to slow things down, and debate it to death, because Europe sure isn't ready to win any other way. What does Europe do? Concede the power back to America, nah. Europe does what it is good at, ignoring it. 80% of Europe believes Saddam doesn't have WMD, because Europe needs to believe it. Europe isn't prepared to deal with terrorism and Saddam, and Europe doesn't want to concede that power to the US. When Gw came into power, GW and Powell were prepared to reduce the sanctions on Saddam, but 9/11 forced them to re-evaluate the situation, and determined Saddam needed to be dealt with, as the situation in Iraq is pissing off a lot of Arabs; even more so than the Israel situation. Europe hasn't had a 9/11, and doesn't see the urgency; besides, it was America enforcing the sanctions, so America was the target, not them, so what is the rush getting into something Europe can't handle. |
