The stories of unctuous European sanctimony re: unsophisticated USA are alternately maddening/comical, but they address only the superficial "geek show" of anti-US animus in Europe.

Contradiction to America is roughly (although unhealthily) comparable to a fourteen year old's rant against their parents (... you're so stupid - what's for dinner?). At least a fourteen year old CAN grow up. Europe is teetering towards willful infantilization.

If the European bid to counter the US “hegemony” can be taken at face value, how will Europe be a "force" in the world when they refuse to act? “European power" can't be projected from a swing on the porch. How will "war is always unacceptable" be reconciled with a robust arms/troop buildup?

No, I'm afraid that all of this is only blather to distract from what is going (and has gone and will go) on.

The Franco-German alliance (what they mean when they say "European Union") is on a cynical par with the Stalin-Hitler pact - two thugs cooperating so that when they finish mugging smaller nations they can, when convenient, try to kill each other more easily.

It's still the quest for the "French rider on the German horse" (I'm not sure what the German take on that little ditty is ...), 19th century politics with PowerPoint presentations.

Too many Europeans smarm that Americans are "cowboys"; they're probably right. Perhaps more important to their continued existence would be for them to turn their powerful analytical tools on themselves. Then they could conceivably come to understand that the conceits that made the first two World Wars possible will make the third inevitable.

They're the "same stew in the same pot" - the Germans say it was the Nazis, the Europeans say it was the Germans. Where did all those bad people go? If they went away, what's going on with anti-Semitism in Europe presently - is it ALL Muslim immigrants?

Heraclitus said "character is fate" ... the dialectic sleigh-of-hand of stupid, fat, callow, etc., Americans can't trump the reality that they will have to face. When this latest attempt to politically yoke Europe via economic union unravels, all of the edifice and pomp will yield to the usual murder.

Great article. Thanks for posting it.

Thanks for the link.
I fear the europeans will not fight for thier own freedom when called upon. Part of me says let them pound sand and they can get a dose of reality. The other part of me knows we will loose many more great americans bailing thier ass out once more.

For centuries, the Great Powers of Europe were the major players on the world stage. They established great empires, fought huge and terrible wars, promulgated complex philosophies, produced universal art. But, at the seeming height of their power and glory, the end of the 19th and the early 20th Centuries, it all began to unravel.

Until WW1, to be European was a badge of honor, a membership in the great cilivilzation that overarched the world. It is a story told in my family that my Grandmother, a rough and ready butcher's daughter from Chicago, always described herself as an "Austrian Bohemian". It was alright to be from Bohemia if it was the part that belonged to the noble and powerful Austrian Empire, otherwise it was somewhat desreputable.

The 20th Century was a disaster for Europe on a scale most Americans still cannot understand. Even though we participated in the wars, we never felt the spiritual devastation that came with defeat, loss of sovereignty, loss of Empire, the realization that one's once proud society was now only a pawn in the cat and mouse game between the Asian colossus and the American superpower.

It has still not truly penetrated the European mind that their days of importance are gone. It is not American animosity they are reacting to now, but the even worse attitude---indifference. We have turned our attentions elsewhere, to protect our interests, as we see them, in the ME and Asia. The last of the great European political philosophies, Marxist socialism, has been exposed as a murderous fraud, and collapsed, not only in Europe, but around the world. It is time to move on with the new challenges of the 21st Century.

Like a cartoon used car left on the lot as a trade-in for a new model, Europe now sits and cries tragically, unwilling to notice that its tires are bald and the brakes have gone, not to mention the rust. It is, in an odd way, the reaction of a shrewish old wife who suddenly realizes, after years of lashing her poor mate with insults and scorn, that he now has a new companion. It isn't envy---it's jealousy.