Mark Steyn: A War Without Polkas

National Review Online ^ | May 23, 2005, issue of NR | Mark Steyn

[Lurker]

" But the real battleground is the West itself, "

Always has been. It's such a shame that Mr. Steyn is just about the only one who seems to understand that fact.

L

[alwaysconservative]

The full Steyn. . .ahhhh. Thanks for the ping, Pokey!

[SallyM]

Europeans are tumbling to the fact that in this anarchic world, America is the closest thing we have or ever had to a world ruler. They are very annoyed at this fact. The odd thing is they can't really help us fight the evildoers and can't really hurt us all that much either. In the span of human history the 60 years since World War II is an eyeblink, but in the ebb and flow of world power, World War II and its seriously nasty multipolarity is an eon ago.

Europe is limping along, attached to a mobile oxygen unit, but it will never be a world power again, not even as a unified EU.

[kidd]

Welcome aboard!
Good post.

[SallyM]

Thanks much.

[Billthedrill]

Perhaps in the end the comparison isn’t World War Two or the Cold War, but the one that created the modern Middle East in the first place — the First World War, which began with one specific act of violence and unraveled all the great European empires before it was done.

One of those empires, interestingly enough, was the Ottoman. The Arabic resurgence has been fueled by oil wealth and propagated by radicals who were kept successfully repressed by the Turkish Sultans. T. E. Lawrence might not have done us all that much of a favor after all.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[Go West]

Truth spoken. But don't forget to open your borders for those of us in the Old World who are not yet sedated. Some of us are not yet addicted to the multiculturalist laudanum.

[Radix]

Just come in legally. We would not want to be accused of hypocrisy.

Welcome.