[expatpat]

You are just spouting the conventional wisdom around here. These are people who have a ruthless, get-the-job-done streak, hidden for the moment. Look at what nast work the Belgians did in the Congo, the Dutch in SA and Indonesia, the Germans everywhere in Europe, and even the French in Algeria. They are badly led, I grant you, but they will get rid of those leaders when it becomes necessary, just as the Brits traded Chamberlain for Churchill.

[expatpat]

nast = nasty, of course.

[ExSoldier]

I'm a history teacher and history...especially recent history... is on my side. ALL of the events you describe happened in excess of two generations ago. The spine has been bred out of the Europeans. Helpless sheep, now.

[ExSoldier]

The most recent example you could possibly offer would be the Falkland Island war (itself 23 years ago) and the only comparison would be to our little dustup on Grenada. In no way can that compare to what amounts to a modern day crusade. Oh, by the way...remember that the Euro's lost all of those, too.

[attiladhun2]

You are forgetting one little important fact. Everyone of the instances you cite, the Europeans lost either politically or militarily (except for Britain, but WWII caused her to lose the empire, so in a sense they also lost). The Western Europeans are suffering from the same disease they had just before they were overrun by the Nazis--strategic malaise (kind of like non-economic Carterism). It is a form of denial that thinks a fanatical enemy can be reasoned with like a normal, rational human being. It is a disease that causes the one afflicted by it to be willing to buy safety and security at the price of making concessions to an insatible opponent who sees your willingness to capitulate for what it is--weakness. (As a consumate predator the fanatical opponent is not appeased by this capitulation but continues "to bite off hunks of meat" from the flanks of an even more weakened prey).
France suffered particularly from strategic malaise before WWII (nothing new), so that even though her forces were at par with the Germans (her navy was even larger and better equipped), she fell within 8 weeks. The EU is about to suffer a major political defeat if her leaders are not willing to stare cold, hard reality square in the face and do what needs to be done to defend their liberties.