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Many make the point that, when it comes to personal (or "social", as some call them) liberties, European nations tend to be well in advance of the U.S. I'm inclined to believe them; as this International Herald Tribune article shows, high European political leaders are clearly on some kind of powerful drugs. The article suggests that the European nations could block a war on Iraq for months, if not indefinitely, and force the U.S. to back down on its perceived unilateralism, by denying it the use of European NATO bases. In fact, this is merely one more step in the European nations' continual denial that they have become irrelevant in international politics. As the Yom Kippur War showed, it took only the co-operation of Portugal to resupply Israel, despite the anxiety with which the European governments rushed to fellate Arab tyrants so as to ensure their petroleum supplies. With U.S. bases existing in Sa'udi Arabia and Kuwait, whose utility is proportionate only to our willingness to point out to their governments that their survival is wholly dependent on our goodwill; with Russia and Turkey waiting to be added as allies only on our guarantee that they will not lose financially and politically by supporting us in a war on Iraq, it is ridiculous to assume that the European members of NATO could disconcert us by denying us the use of European bases. NATO is an obsolete alliance, one that has been frantically looking for a reason for existence since the collapse of the XSSR. The only remaining reason for its existence, in fact, is that a formal repudiation of it by the U.S. would force the Europeans to look for leadership amongst themselves, thus re-opening the Franco-German rivalry that dates to the crowning of Hugh Capet. Such a formal repudiation would like come about if the use of European NATO bases were denied us; the only thing keeping us in NATO today is the concern of the members of Bush administration for their financial futures, and that because of their outdated belief that European transnational corporations have a future. An attempt at a European veto on an Iraqi war would be the final act in the collapse of the Atlantic interests of the U.S., and their replacement by a U.S.-Asian community. Europe has a history of militaristic blunders in the last century; acting so as to drive the U.S. out of NATO, and into the arms of Russia and India, would hardly be unprecedented stupidity on its part. John "Akatsukami" Braue Saturday, July 27, 2002 |
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