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the last six months we have witnessed an unprecedented level of
hostility voiced toward America by an array of European intellectuals,
EU officials, and those in the media from London to Rome. At a time
of war we expect such enmity from our enemies in the Middle East.
Americans are accustomed to such opportunistic broadsides from Cuba
and China — and of course venom from the lunatic states of
North Korea, Libya, Iran, and the like. Yet it is unnerving to hear
constant European recriminations over everything from Guantanamo
Bay and our injunction of the word "Axis" to plans to
topple Saddam Hussein and preserve Israel.
As sort of
an informal survey, I counted talking heads that I have listened
to recently on public and cable television. In the last five weeks,
I have heard eight from India, and six from Russia. All were reasonable,
supported more or less the efforts of the United States to combat
terrorism, and seemed genuinely to appreciate American institutions.
In contrast, the last 13 European allies I saw — French officials,
British journalists, and EU bureaucrats — have uniformly voiced
dissatisfaction with America. In some cases they express an almost
visceral dislike of the United States. Perusal of some European
magazines and newspapers reveals a similar continuum of disdain.
There are two general themes to their unhappiness — other than
simple envy. First, European criticism is without a doubt deeply
embedded in aristocratic socialism. We Americans somehow are purportedly
cutthroat and exploiting in our manner of capitalism, and yet manage
to allow our unwashed, crass, and parochial classes to define our
culture. Do they hate us for trampling upon our less fortunate —
or allowing our less fortunate to trample high culture and so dominate
the American landscape from McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and Britney Spears
to Oprah, Nascar, and Jerry Springer?
Second, the
Europeans also don't have a clue about America's world role —
past, present, or future. And their ignorance has manifested itself
in a variety of ways throughout this crisis. Everyone from Swedish
relief officials to Bono whines that in proportional rather than
absolute amounts of foreign aid, we Americans are tight-fisted and
do not give generously to the Third World countries. Forget the
billions that we do hand out — and whether such blanket donations
without prerequisite conditions of Westernization make countries
like Egypt, Palestine, North Korea, and Pakistan worse rather than
better. Instead consider that Americans, unlike Europeans, spend
billions in defense that in real terms are not directly tied to
the security of the United States, but rather ensure global trade,
tranquility, and security.
Just how much
"foreign aid" is a multibillion-dollar carrier battle
group worth, when it patrols the Mediterranean or the Sea of Japan
and so has the effect not of stealing foreign resources, but rather
of ensuring that Turks and Greeks are not at war, that Koreans do
not blow each other up, or that China keeps away from Taiwan and
Japan? Unlike simple food or money, this type of "foreign assistance"
is quite risky to its benefactors — and more likely to be resented,
caricatured, or misrepresented. Sending in an air wing to Kosovo
can save thousands; sending in the Red Cross or the U.N. tragically
cannot. GPS-bombs, not Amnesty International, are more likely to
keep killers away from Big Ben and the Vatican. Should we not deploy
carriers, frigates, and planes the world over, both the Europeans
and the Third World would not enjoy a stable global community, but
one that would either sink into the chaos of a Mogadishu, Monrovia,
or Kabul, or find its stability only in the law and order of a Baghdad,
Peking, or Havana.
Nor do Europeans
understand that the United States is rightly or wrongly engaged
in one of the most radical experiments in emigration and assimilation
since the Irish arrival during the great famine over a century ago.
We may well have eight-ten million legal and illegal immigrants
from Mexico inside our borders. Here in California some cities —
like my hometown and dozens nearby — have seen their populations
swell to between 70 and 90 percent Hispanic immigrants. Some studies
suggest 90 percent of the arrivals, in large part from Oaxaca and
Michoacan, have no formal education past the eighth grade. Of all
those born in Mexico who now reside in California, only 60 percent
will finish high school. In the CSU system, the largest university
in the world, 47 percent of all students must take remedial classes.
And how has
the United States dealt with millions of aliens from the third world
crossing its borders illegally? Despite the rhetoric of the race
industry, it has been mostly humane in its great experiment to transform
millions that had no opportunity to become literate into American
naturalized suburbanites in a generation. The entire survival of
our immediate neighbor Mexico is built on two assumptions: billions
in cash remunerations must be sent back by its citizens living illegally
in the United States, and millions of them must leave and head north
rather than march en masse on Mexico City to seek redress of grievance.
Taken in that context, the United States is not merely giving billions
of dollars in foreign aid the world over, but in fact trying to
vent the social unrest of much of Mexico and Central America —
in the same way that we were the safety-valve for Europe for much
of the nineteenth century. Let Italy, Holland, or Austria allow
10 million from Bangladesh, Nigeria, or Mexico to cross their borders
rather than merely send food and medicine abroad.
Europeans also
have a strange way of looking at the history of the twentieth century.
Just because on two occasions they have wrecked their civilization
and suffered greater tragedy than we is no reason to forget the
origins and remedies of those great calamities. Let us remember
that Germany, Austria, France, and England almost ruined Western
culture between 1914-18. Only the belated entry of a million American
soldiers stopped the bloodletting. Two decades later, deviant states
in Italy and Germany nearly ruined the West a second time —
in the process eliminating 6 million of Europe's finest citizens.
Western Europe — the bedrock states of the EU of Holland, France,
and Belgium — could do little and capitulated in a matter of
weeks. All were liberated only due to the efforts of muscular and
unsophisticated Americans. I suppose that concern with Europe is
why we said "Hitler first," even though it was the Japanese,
not the Nazis, who had attacked us directly and were the most immediate
threat.
There is no
need to recount the half-century of the Cold War. Despite the shrill
nonsense of Euro-Communists and socialists, few doubt that had America
not stood firm in creating NATO, the entire continent would have
been conquered in the manner of Eastern Europe. Then there are the
minor affairs, beyond the Berlin Airlift and the American assurance
to risk New York and Washington to stop Soviet armor from reaching
Bonn and Paris. The British created Israel, and then bailed with
the rest of Europe when it became clear that continued support would
endanger the friendship of their former colonial subjects —
now full of oil and terrorists — in the Gulf, Syria, Egypt,
and Iraq. The Europeans most recently sat paralyzed in fear as 250,000
of their neighbors were butchered in the former Yugoslavia —
and that was after Soviet tanks were being melted for scrap.
So there is
a sad pattern to this sad century. We did not beg to get involved
in two world wars. The Soviet Union was no threat on land to us.
We didn't know much about the Middle East or the Palestinian problem
or Serbia. But somehow we certainly were needed for something by
someone to prevent a catastrophe.
The Europeans
apparently talk only to our elites on the East Coast, who in turn
apparently worry whether they are treated politely or rudely in
London or Paris. But the vast majority of Americans simply could
not care less. They do not think K-Mart or Target are crass; they
eat fast food instead of hour-long lunches because they work at
hectic 40-50-hour a week jobs that would send much of Europe into
a revolution. They are trying to assimilate millions of some of
the poorest people in the planet into their culture — a far
more daunting task than reuniting East and West Germany.
In this regard,
Europe should pay closer attention to America's demography as well.
Some of us teach classes made up of 60-70 percent from immigrant
students from Mexico, the Punjab, or Southeast Asia. These newcomers
have little immediate cultural or emotional ties with Europe. Even
two decades ago, all my Hispanic friends in our local community
were vehemently cheering on Argentina, and damning rumors of American
assistance to England. By 2050, a quarter of the population will
be of Hispanic heritage; perhaps another 20 percent Asian and African
American. Their view of Europe will be predicated on its attitudes
in the here and now, not on a reservoir of good will based on a
common emotional bond or ethnic heritage.
Yet in the
past six months, our European allies have been frittering away almost
all of America's past positive sentiments toward the continent.
After the European reaction to the aftermath of Sept. 11, I doubt
seriously whether America would wish to intervene as we did in 1999
in Kosovo. Should there be chaos in the Aegean, should there be
a falling-out between Russia and Eastern Europe, should there be
a missile attack on a European capital from Iran or Iraq, should
China make demands on the EU, there would now be zero support
in the United States for the use of American troops abroad. As we
have seen — thanks to Europe — Article V of NATO now means
little, if anything. Nor is this growing reluctance to aid Europe
a return to American isolation or knownothingism. Americans in contrast
feel strongly about their obligations to Japan and Latin America,
and their thawing relations with India and Russia.
So the problem
is not with us, but with the Europeans. And if the dividends of
their new utopian and increasingly unfree EU are what we've seen
in the present crisis, it may well be that we can only remain friends
by being allies no longer.
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