Hanson: Which Europe Will Show Up?

Annie · Feb 14, 2006

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-2_14_06_VDH.html

February 14, 2006
What Will Europe Really Do?
By Victor Davis Hanson

Nothing is quite as surreal as the Islamic worlds fury at the liberal and innocuous Danes. How could anyone wish to burn their embassies and kill their citizens, when they have always offered all the politically correct, multicultural platitudes and welcomed in any and all from the Middle East?

Now the furor over the cartoons, coming on the heels of the bombings in Madrid and London, the French rioting, the murders in Holland, and the failed European negotiations with the Iranian theocracy have shaken Europe to its foundations.

If the most liberal and tolerant states in Europe such as Holland and Denmark have the most problems with Islamic radicals, then what does that say about the continent as a whole? Why were not the calculating jihadists singling out a more unapologetic Catholic Poland that has larger contingents in Iraq and is far prouder of its Christian roots?

Do the Europeans sense that the more open, free-wheeling and non-judgmental the culture, the more it is hated by the jihadists? If Europe as a whole is more pro-Palestinian than the United States, disapproved of Iraq, and yet is still hated as much, is magnanimity at last exposed as appeasementearning only contempt from an emboldened enemy?

Dont look, however, for any overt expression of alarm. It is too much to ask of the European Union for now to go on the record supporting the right of Danish free expression or to demand an embargo of Iran as it approaches nuclear autonomy. Instead, expect the European reaction to be far more subtle: the same old public utopian rhetoric, but in the shadows a newfound desire to galvanize against the threat of Islamic fascism.

Here is what we can probably anticipate. First will come a radical departure from past immigration practices. Islam will be praised; the Middle East assured that Europe is tolerantbut very few newcomers from across the Mediterranean let in.

There will be continued public furor over the American efforts in Iraq, but far greater secret efforts to coordinate with the United Statesin everything from isolating the Assad regime in Syria to rethinking missile defense. For the past three years the post-colonial Europeans have wished the Americans to learn their imperial lessons by failing in Iraq. Yet it may well be that many in private will now wish us to succeed, if only in the hopes that such Middle East democracies will be less likely in the future to turn loose their mobs to burn European embassies and threaten their citizens.

We wont see much public condemnation of Hamas, but more likely quiet efforts to pull the plug slowly on subsidies for such terrorists. The Europeans praised Arafat, then learned that he was singularly corrupt. Nothing disturbs a European more than to be swindled and damned as immoral in the process. Subsidies to Jew-hating Hamas terrorists only ensure both.

Europe will still talk about bringing Turkey into the fold of the West, but de facto is horrified at the thought that millions of a religion that empowers so many to go berserk over a few cartoons might soon comprise the most populous nation of Europe. I doubt any European diplomat will invest any political capital at all in restarting in earnest Turkish/European Union talks.

We can also look forward to more bizarre pronouncements such as Jacques Chiracs warning about the French nuclear deterrent. In point of fact, Europe has no real defenses against a 9/11-like attack. They know it. So do the terrorists.

Crash an airliner into the dome of St. Peters or knock down the Eiffel Tower tomorrow: Europe has no mechanism to hunt down the perpetrators in the Hindu Kush, the Bekka Valley, or the wilds of Iranmuch less, like the United States, to hold a rogue regime responsible.

Frustrated by its lack of military resources, but cognizant of the classical need to warn an enemy that more is to be lost than won from starting a war, France is reduced to bluster about nuclear weaponsthreats that probably are either not believed or welcomed by the jihadists. In lieu of a credible military, Europe will send more tiny contingents to Afghanistan, remind the world that Britain and France are nuclear, and somehow hurry up to construct a conventional deterrent where there is now none at all.

Finally, the Europeans who despised the unilateral and preemptory George Bush will start to grate at his new multilateral side even more. Be careful what you wish for, especially when an American leader may now not necessarily be such an easy target of caricatureor may not always do the dirty work of fighting jihadists from Pakistan to the Sunni Triangle.

Instead, by letting the Europeans take the lead with the Iranian negotiations, and keeping nearly silent about the cartoon hysteria, the United States essentially has told the Europeans, Here is the sort of restrained sober and judicious global diplomacy that you so welcome.

Because of slated troop withdrawals from European bases, and a new American weariness with the old anti-Americanism, some Europeans are beginning to recoil at the idea that they might well be on their ownand in a war against fanatical enemies that they have appeased and without rational friends that they have estranged.

In response, we may see less of the anti-American rhetoric and a return to the Cold War slogans of a strong Atlantic Alliance and an essential Nato, as nuclear jihadists replace the fear of 300 Soviet divisions.

So now Europe is being thrust right into the middle of the so-called war against Islamic fascism. Once threatened, it will either react with a newly acquired Churchillian maturity to protect its civilization, or cave, in hopes that even more Chamberlain-type appeasement will satisfy the Islamists.

It should be a fascinating spring ahead.
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CSM · Feb 14, 2006

I am betting on the side of Chamberlin...they are too used to it.

trobinett · Feb 14, 2006

We can also look forward to more bizarre pronouncements such as Jacques Chiracs warning about the French nuclear deterrent. In point of fact, Europe has no real defenses against a 9/11-like attack. They know it. So do the terrorists.
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I hope, really I do, that Europe DOESN`T have to go through anything approaching a 9/11 like attack.

First, because of the unnecessary lost of innocent lives.

Second, cause I don`t really want to have to come to the rescue of the French, yet one more time.

I was stationed in France cira 1966. France choose to kick NATO out of their country, and not contribute to the military strength of NATO.

Never have much cared for the French government since.

musicman · Feb 14, 2006

Kathianne said:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-2_14_06_VDH.html
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Hanson is so great. There are so many "quote-worthy" thoughts here, I wouldn't know where to start.

Annie · Feb 14, 2006

musicman said:

Hanson is so great. There are so many "quote-worthy" thoughts here, I wouldn't know where to start.
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I agree with that! I'll try though.

Annie · Feb 17, 2006

France on Iran. Now the leftist newspaper there. Denmark, to a greater extent and Norway, to a lesser extent:

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/816

Muslims Create Islamophobes, Then Want Islamophobes Punished
From the desk of Paul Belien on Tue, 2006-02-14 23:28

An article by Paul Belien with Filip van Laenen (Oslo)

Last Saturdays riots in Antwerp, when Moroccan youths went on the rampage in Antwerps historical center, destroying cars and beating up reporters, has led to frustration among police officers because the authorities prevented them from stopping the violence. Officers complained in todays papers that they had been given orders to watch passively while young, rowdy Muslims were allowed to take revenge over... drawings published more than four months ago in a Danish newspaper.

We had to watch how they were ripping off car mirrors. We wanted to stop this vandalism but were ordered to withdraw, an anonymous policeman says in todays Flemish daily De Standaard. An ambulance was told to switch off its siren because that might provoke the Moroccans. Another anonymous officer told the press: There you are watching this, while citizens can see that you are powerless. According to an anonymous police chief the authorities decided, that it was better to have a few cars vandalized than risk open war in the streets. On Monday the city council, led by the Socialist mayor Patrick Janssens, decided that the city would compensate the damage to cars and property.

One of the victims of the violence was Fatima Bali, a city councillor of Moroccan origin. She was on a tram last Saturday evening around 6 pm, when the vehicle was attacked. It was very frightening, she said. Stones were thrown at the tram. Passengers tried to hide under the seats. Everyone panicked. Windows were shattered, a stone hit a passengers head a Moroccan by the way. I hope I will never have to go through something like that again. As a result of their experience the non-Muslims on the tram, as well as the citizens who watched the police stand by while their cars were damaged, have probably all turned Islamophobe now. Islamophobes, however, soon risk being put in jail.

Today some 200 Islamic religious leaders demonstrated in Brussels European district. It was a peaceful demonstration, but the Muslims want Europe to adopt the religious taboos of Islam. They handed a letter to a representative of the European Commission condemning the blasphemy and humiliation caused by the Danish cartoons, demanding that the EU introduce legislation against hatred and islamophobia and that it ban blasphemy and the showing of disrespect for all religions and their prophets because every excessive form of free speech stigmatizes people.

After their meeting with the representative of the Commission the Muslim delegation was received by the Danish ambassador, Karsten Petersen. He thanked us for our moderation that invites dialogue and calm, said imam Said Dakkar, the chairman of the Union of Brussels Mosques. We have told him that we disapprove of violent demonstrations, imam Said Mdaoucki of the Antwerp Mosque Federation added, but we want to know how far freedom of speech is allowed to go. Can you ridicule someones values and beliefs? Is that freedom of speech?

Yesterday, during a visit to Saudi Arabia, EU Foreign Policy Coordinator Javier Solana promised that the EU will support a clause in an updated human rights charter of the United Nations to protect the sanctity of religions and the prophets. Earlier, in a joint statement, Mr Solana of the EU, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Secretary-General of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) wrote: We understand the deep hurt and widespread indignation felt in the Muslim world. The freedom of the press, which entails responsibility and discretion, should respect the beliefs and tenets of all religions.

On Dec. 16, 2005 the UN General Assembly adopted a strong resolution on defamation of religions. This joint statement and the UN resolution provide the legal ground for condemnation of acts of European newspapers, the OIC said during its meeting last week. This is a very important achievement and we must seize the opportunity to preserve the momentum for joint action to prevent a recurrence of this despicable act. To combat Islamophobia in the West we must work toward the adoption of relevant legislations.

However, the attempt to impose the Muslim taboo on depicting Muhammad and forbid the publishing of mild cartoons such as the twelve Danish ones (see them here, halfway down the page) is encountering resistance.

José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission, says in an interview with Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that first published the cartoons, that freedom of expression is a fundamental value in Europe and that it is better to publish too much than not to have freedom.

In Paris, Frances leading left-wing paper Le Monde criticised the EUs failure to act in response to the series of attacks on European embassies in the Middle East. In todays leading editorial it writes that Europe (the paper mentions Mr Solana) is not adequately defending freedom of speech. Europe seems crippled, intimidated by the reaction to the cartoons in the Middle East and the paper argues that this can only encourage regimes like Syria and Iran to continue to manipulate this affair for political ends. Le Monde also criticizes French President Jacques Chirac who condemned the offensive character of the cartoons but not the attack on the French embassy in Teheran.

In another article Le Monde draws attention to the fact that only Denmark and Norway have protested against the attacks of their embassies, though these attacks constitute a violation of international law. The other European countries are keeping a low profile out of fear of seeing the violence spread to other embassies or other countries.

In Norway, meanwhile, Kåre Valebrokk, the president of the Norwegian private television channel TV2, deplores last weeks apology by Vebjørn Selbekk, the editor of Magazinet, for republishing the Danish cartoons. According to Mr Valebrokk the editor was coerced into apologizing by the Islamic Council of Norway and the Norwegian government. Mr Selbekk apologized during a press conference in the Norwegian ministry of Social Inclusion on Friday morning, immediately before the beginning of the Muslims Friday prayers.

Kåre Valebrokk, a former editor of the business paper Dagens Næringsliv, said that Mr Selbekks apologies affect the freedom of the Norwegian press: From now on journalists no longer decide independently about what the networks and the papers report. The Islamic Council decides as well. If Muslims object to what we show or write it suffices that they burn down a few embassies to have us give in. For a large part we have now renounced our editorial freedom to fundamentalists. I do not like this new role. It is now that freedom of speech needs all its friends.

In Denmark today, Ahmad Akkari, the spokesman of the cheating radical Danish imams, who incited hatred by distributing false cartoons throughout the Muslim world, said that his group is prepared to accept a third of the blame for the escalated conflict on condition that Jyllands-Posten and the Danish Government accepts that the rest of the responsibility is theirs. Mr Akkari explained that this is an offer to resume dialogue. Is he perhaps following patterns of haggling used in primitive tribal societies?

Yesterday Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen met with a newly established group of moderate Muslims, while his government announced that it would not continue dialogue and cooperation with the lying imams, who until now had been recognized by the authorities as the official representatives of the Muslim community in Denmark.
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trobinett · Feb 18, 2006

In Denmark today, Ahmad Akkari, the spokesman of the cheating radical Danish imams, who incited hatred by distributing false cartoons throughout the Muslim world, said that his group is prepared to accept a third of the blame for the escalated conflict on condition that Jyllands-Posten and the Danish Government accepts that the rest of the responsibility is theirs. Mr Akkari explained that this is an offer to resume dialogue. Is he perhaps following patterns of haggling used in primitive tribal societies?
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YES!

I`d resume talks, but NOT WITH Ahmad Akkari.

"Primitive tribal societies", so true, guess that might be the big problem.

rtwngAvngr · Feb 18, 2006

a third of the blame - they really are calculating.

trobinett · Feb 18, 2006

rtwngAvngr said:

a third of the blame - they really are calculating.
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Thank goodness, no.

Just STUPID.

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