[Culturechat] EUROPE - THY NAME IS COWARDICE

[Vance Roy]

>

This might be something to discuss with an European when he asks a 
tourist about the USA policies.

> This is written by a German.

>  
> EUROPE - THY NAME IS COWARDICE
> (Commentary by Mathias Döpfner)
>
> Matthias Döpfner, Chief Executive of German publisher Axel Springer 
> AG, has written a blistering attack in the daily WELT against the 
> cowardice of
> Europe in the face of the Islamic threat. Hartmut Lau translated the 
> article for us.
>
> A few days ago Henryk M. Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, "Europe - 
> your family name is appeasement." It's a phrase you can't get out of 
> your head because it's so terribly true.
>
> Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives as England 
> and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long 
> before they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to 
> agreements. Appeasement stabilized communism in the Soviet Union and 
> East Germany in that part of Europe
> where inhuman, suppressive governments were glorified as the 
> ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities. 
> Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo and we 
> Europeans debated and debated until the Americans came in and did our 
> work for us. Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, 
> European appeasement, camouflaged behind the fuzzy word 
> "equidistance," now countenances suicide bombings in Israel by 
> fundamentalist Palestinians. Appeasement generates a mentality that 
> allows Europe to ignore 300,000 victims of Saddam's torture and murder 
> machinery and, motivated by the self-righteousness of the 
> peace-movement, to issue bad grades to George Bush. A particularly 
> grotesque form of appeasement is reacting to the escalating violence 
> by Islamic fundamentalists in Holland and elsewhere by suggesting that 
> we should really have a Muslim
> holiday in Germany.
>
> What else has to happen before the European public and its political 
> leadership get it? There is a sort of crusade underway, an especially 
> perfidious
> crusade consisting of systematic attacks by fanatic Muslims, focused 
> on civilians and directed against our free, open Western societies. It 
> is a conflict that will most likely last longer than the great 
> military conflicts of the last century-a conflict conducted by an 
> enemy that cannot be tamed by tolerance and accommodation but only 
> spurred on by such gestures, which will be mistaken for signs of 
> weakness.
>
> Two recent American presidents had the courage needed for 
> anti-appeasement: Reagan and Bush. Reagan ended the Cold War and Bush, 
> supported only by the social democrat Blair acting on moral 
> conviction, recognized the danger in the Islamic fight against 
> democracy. His place in history will have to be
> evaluated after a number of years have passed.
>
> In the meantime, Europe sits back with charismatic self-confidence in 
> the multicultural corner instead of defending liberal society's values 
> and being an
> attractive center of power on the same playing field as the true great 
> powers, America and China. On the contrary-we Europeans present 
> ourselves, in contrast to the intolerant, as world champions in 
> tolerance, which even (Germany's Interior Minister) Otto Schily 
> justifiably criticizes. Why?  Because we're so moral? I fear it's more 
> because we're so materialistic.
>
> For his policies, Bush risks the fall of the dollar, huge amounts of 
> additional national debt and a massive and persistent burden on the 
> American economy-because everything is at stake.
>
> While the alleged capitalistic robber barons in American know their 
> priorities, we timidly defend our social welfare systems. Stay out of 
> it! It could get expensive. We'd rather discuss the 35-hour workweek 
> or our dental health plan coverage. Or listen to TV pastors preach 
> about "reaching out to murderers."  These days, Europe reminds me of 
> an elderly aunt who hides her last pieces of jewelry with shaking 
> hands when she notices a robber has broken into a neighbor's house. 
> Europe, thy name is cowardice.
>

Vance Roy
gigli.saw@dplanet.ch	
http://homepage.mac.com/fredch

For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson