Mark Steyn: Irreconcilable differences

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | November 9, 2003 | Mark Steyn

[Tom D.]

Steyn gets it right again

[mathluv]

This can't be said too loud or too much. Many Americans are awake. Let's wake the rest.

[petuniasevan]

BTTT and bookmarked.

[FairOpinion]

"Steyn gets it right again "

==

Absolutely.

Now if the Dems would get it.

[gaspar]

I don't believe the fact that French 68mm missiles were used to attack the site where Wolfowitz was staying was reported in the mainstream media. I wonder why? Also, of the mile and a half of folders the CIA has found on Iraqi intelligence every effort should be made to ferret out the information related to the Franco-Germano alliance with Saddam Hussein.

[PhilipFreneau]

>>... the Israelis are the canaries in the coal mine

Remarkably insightful.

[Joe Bonforte]

Great article. It was, however, published earlier in the week under a different title, and thereby posted on FR a couple of times. See here and here for previous discussion.

No criticism intended, Tom. No way you could have known if you hadn't seen the earlier ones.

[DustyMoment]

Steyn has developed an excellent analysis and summary of the current state of American relations with its former friends and allies.

While I have observed the deteriorization of relations with our former allies, I had not had the opportunity to take a 30,000 foot view of it as Steyn has. IMO, his anaysis is dead on.

[Stultis]

This is watered-down Steyn! (Self-censored? Say it ain't so, Mark!)

For the full Marky, complete with cockroaches, see the previously posted version:

Mark Steyn: Europeans are worse than cockroaches ^
			Posted by JohnHuang2 On 11/07/2003 2:52 AM CST with 18 comments London Spectator ^ | Friday, November 7, 2003 | Mark Steyn <p>Here’s a round-up of recent items from the world’s press you may have missed: Item 1: In the last two weeks, two Toronto-bound El Al flights had to be diverted to other airports after credible terrorist threats were made about using surface-to-air missiles against them. The Canadian transport minister, David Collenette, responded by suggesting that the Israeli airline’s service to Pearson International Airport might be ended

[Not gonna take it anymore]

I think that different newspapers change the titles of Steyn's columns. It does make it more difficult to search for.

Great Steyn column as always.

[FairOpinion]

I am certainly glad Tom posted it, because I missed the previous two postings and this is a great article.

I am sure there are other people who missed it previously as well.

[AmishDude]

Excellent analysis from Steyn, it's a very serious tone that he doesn't often take.

[FairOpinion]

Thanks for the link to the unedited article.

MUch more powerful!

I bet it wasn't Mark who self-edited his article, but the Chicago Sun Times just couldn't bring themselves to publish the article as written by Mark.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1016661/posts

[AmishDude]

There are three possibilities:

1. He changed it because the Sun-Times won't give him the same amount of space.
2. He changed it because it contained a bit too much in terms of British idioms.
3. The Sun-Times decided to edit it.

No matter what happened, he got his point across.

[FairOpinion]

The original articles certainly had much much more -- I highly recommend for others to go to the links given by you to get the full article.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1016661/posts

Here is just one excerpt/section from the full article that was omitted from this one:

"Tariq and co. are right to this extent: in the scheme of things, it’s not about Islamic terrorism. The Islamist goal is a planet on which their enemies are either dead or Muslim converts. That’s not going to happen. But Islamism is sufficiently disruptive to rupture permanently the old ‘Western alliance’. A lot of things have been said on both sides, but what’s impressive about the Europeans is the palpable desire for America to fail, and Bush to fall.

I can’t see that happening. On election day next November, the Democrats have no chance of taking back the House of Representatives and they’re all but certain to lose seats in the Senate. Bush is likely to be re-elected: with that 7.2 per cent growth in GDP, it’s hard even for the BBC to keep pretending America’s in the middle of some sort of recession; and whatever happens in Iraq it’s difficult to see the Democrats, running on a foreign policy of Cut & Run, being the beneficiaries. But the trouble with a war on terror is that the victories go unreported — the plotters who get foiled, the bombers who don’t make it through. All you hear about are the defeats. Let’s say there’s a terrorist attack in the US in the next 12 months and it kills several hundred people. On the one hand, you could argue that this shows the soundness of Bush’s judgment in making terrorism the priority of his administration. On the other, you could argue that this proves he never learnt the lessons of the failures of 11 September. Knowing the American media, I’d bet on the latter line being the one they settle on.

But other than that, the arguments over the next few years are going to be between conservatives — between those who think it is worth pushing on with an ambitious programme to bring the Middle East within the non-deranged world, and those who figure that’s doomed to fail and we should settle for something less. This project is in the national interest of the United States but, in the end, the fate of the world’s hyperpower does not hinge on it.

Now let’s turn back to Europe. The Telegraph’s Adam Nicolson got irritated the other day because Denis Boyles of America’s National Review had dismissed the Europeans as ‘cockroaches’. Boyles is wrong. The Europeans are not cockroaches. The cockroach is the one creature you can rely on to come crawling out of the rubble of the nuclear holocaust. Whereas the one thing that can be said with absolute confidence is that the Europeans will not emerge from under their own rubble.

Europe is dying. As I’ve pointed out here before, it can’t square rising welfare costs, a collapsed birthrate and a manpower dependent on the world’s least skilled, least assimilable immigrants. In 20 years’ time, as those Dutch Muslim teenagers are entering the voting booths, European countries, unlike parts of Nigeria, will not be living under Sharia, but they will be reaching their accommodations with their radicalised Islamic compatriots, who like many intolerant types are expert at exploiting the ‘tolerance’ of pluralist societies.

How happy what’s left of the ethnic Dutch or French or Danes will be about this remains to be seen. But the idea of a childless Europe rivalling America militarily or economically is laughable. Sometime this century there will be 500 million Americans, and what’s left in Europe will either be very old or very Muslim. That’s the Europe that Britain will be binding its fate to. Japan faces the same problem: in 2006, its population will begin an absolute decline, a death spiral it will be unlikely ever to climb out of. Will Japan be an economic powerhouse if it’s populated by Koreans and Filipinos? Possibly. Will Germany if it’s populated by Algerians? That’s a trickier proposition. "

[lainde]

bttt

[DeepDish]

"Item 1: In the last two weeks, two Toronto-bound El Al flights had to be diverted to other airports after credible terrorist threats were made about using surface-to-air missiles against them. The Canadian transport minister, David Collenette, responded by suggesting that the Israeli airline's service to Pearson International Airport might be ended."

This so reminds me of the movie 13 Days where the trade of weapons in Turkey for weapons in Cuba is propposed. At what point are these people going to realize that a siege of the west not seen since Vienna is underway? Not anytime soon I fear. Collenette could very well be a 21st century Quisling, but unlike Quisling I don't think the Canadians have the good sense to dangle Collenette at the end of a rope.

[oilfieldtrash]

I think he is an idiot.

[xsmommy]

In the war on terror, the United States believes in preemption; Canada, like many other ''allies,'' believes in preemptive surrender. These two strategies are incompatible

yep.

[TheOtherOne]

I missed the others too - lucky for the repost - it is a great article.