Barry Farber
Wednesday, July 13, 2005

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  The British were not braver than the French at the Battle of Waterloo. They were merely brave five minutes longer. Perhaps today's Americans have that same little edge.

All of Europe knows the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. All of Europe knows a democracy in Iraq would be a major political gift to the world. Why, then, does America reap so much hostility for removing an evil dictator's ability to make other people miserable and dead?

Europeans seemed willing to put up with America every time we liberated THEM. Why don't they pitch in now and help us liberate others? All of Europe knows "the deal." They know it like a nursery rhyme that came with mother's milk. Here's the deal.

Adolf Hitler was evil. He did terrible things to Germany even before he conquered almost all the rest of Europe and did still more terrible things. Thanks to Britain's valiant stand all alone from mid-1940 to mid-1941, the astounding power of an angry and resurgent Russia, and America's entry into the war, the Nazi evil was smashed.

A chastened Europe vowed "Never again!" And the auction for action began. Europeans tried to outbid each other on precisely when Hitler should have been stopped.

"We shouldn't have waited for him to invade Poland," moralized the indignant European. "We should have all gotten together and attacked him the day he broke the Munich Pact and took ALL of Czechoslovakia instead of merely the Sudetenland."

And that European was instantly out-moralized by the European who said: "Why wait?! We should have attacked Nazi Germany the day they annexed Austria!"

And that European was out-moralized by the European who said: "Nonsense. Austria would have been too late. We should have moved in when Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland in open violation of the Versailles Treaty."

And then the REAL moralists spoke up. "You all seem to be impressed only with overt military acts. Why didn't decent civilized people intervene after Kristallnacht when Germany declared open and violent war against her own Jews?"

If there were ever a "Moral Olympics," the committee would never have to choose any specific country. Anyplace on the continent of Europe would do.

After victory over Hitler, America and a necklace of west European countries formed NATO, whose motto, "An attack on one is an attack on all," guaranteed that weaker nations could no longer be swallowed whole one by one. And the hand wringers of Europe wailed in 50 different languages how awful it was that good nations saw what Hitler was doing and themselves did nothing. And how vital it was that mankind never make that same mistake again.

America did that same wailing in English. The only difference is Europe didn't mean it and America did – at least a little!

At this point the heckler in the rear of the hall shouts out that Europe through NATO did, indeed, intervene to try to save the Moslems from Serbian vengeance in the old Yugoslavia's regions of Bosnia and Kosovo. Sorry. We've just revisited the tenth anniversary of the United Nations' disgustingly puerile non-effort to prevent the mass massacre at Srebrenica. Kosovo is still in political, ethnic and geographical limbo.

Take a look at America and Britain and the thirty-odd members of the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq. That, folks, is deposing a dictator and beginning the heavy lifting toward democracy.

So, why does Europe flee from Europe's own oft-proclaimed recipe on the proper way to confront evil? Why does Europe spit venom upon those who try to implement that recipe?

A European movie star once explained to me on radio why she would never want to know if her husband were cheating with another woman. "If I don't know," she explained, "or if I can convincingly PRETEND not to know, I don't have to do anything. I don't have to take any action. If I know, and if all in my immediate world KNOW that I know, then I have to act. And I most likely will not WANT to act."

Let's do a little thought-experiment. Which would you prefer: being forced to rise and avenge an insult in a bar, or not having any insult that required avenging in the first place? Would you prefer standing up to evil and risking your life, or not seeing any evil at all?

Europe is old. (Sorry, Mr. Rumsfeld. Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are also old. They're not our true allies because they're "new"; they're our true allies because they know we stood up to their communist oppressors.)

We're all too willing to honor the "walls" around countries, walls within which what goes on is, by international courtesy and diplomatic pre-agreement, that country‘s own business. Those walls may be imaginary, but they're very real. Those walls may be invisible, but you can't see through them. More accurately, you could always, if you preferred, PRETEND you couldn't see through them.

Until now.

When Europe heard about, for example, Nazi Germany's beating of leftists, jailing of journalists, smashing of Jewish shops and burning of synagogues, sterilization of "undesirable" woman and, the opposite, the forced mating of the tall, blonde, "Aryan" women with similar men, the European instinct was NOT "C'mon, fellows. Let's go break it up!" All of Europe knew what was going on in Nazi Germany before World War II, but, since their aptitudes and appetites were far from rallying their people and their armies and invading Nazi Germany, they chose to respect "the wall."

"Ah, yes, what we hear is terrible," the good Europeans said to one another. "But how can we know how much is true? How can we know how much is exaggerated? How can we know how much is the whining of the political losers?" And that attitude protected "good" Europe's mental health as it proceeded to enjoy life and do nothing to confront Nazi Germany despite outrage after outrage.

The postwar Berlin Wall was at least tangible. The "wall" I speak of prevented – and continues to prevent – neighbors from intervening even in the most egregious atrocities of other countries. Who's doing what about Sudan's Darfur? Or Burma's SLORC? Or the slaughter in Sri Lanka?

There's a border, a sovereign nation on the other side, many tales, much hearsay, some proof, some doubt; and we curl up fetally (and fatally), protecting our sanity by saying "Alas, what can we do? That's "over there!" The "wall" is a prescription drug that protects our sanity as we live our happy lives knowing full well of the wanton slaughters going on in many places.

And, indeed, once upon a time, that "wall" separating one country from another could be formidable and comforting. It was possible to order another cocktail and say, "The Jews complain of their treatment in Germany." "The Kulaks complain of their treatment under the new Soviet communism." "The Loyalists are telling awful stories about their treatment by the Franco forces in Spain, but, alas, who can really tell?"

And that worked as an excuse against action from the beginning of history until just the other day. Now, however, thanks to news channels international and constant, the Internet, e-mail, cell phones, blogs, cheap long distance, satellites in all their wizardry, and, of course, stepped-up travel, commerce and construction, those walls have become transparent. We're now in that painful period between being able to allow ourselves "not to see" and having our faces mashed so deep into barbarities we can barely breathe.

A Norwegian grandfather, as one random example, could be excused for not really knowing how bad the Nazis were until they took Norway. His grandchildren today can no longer "wonder" if the mass graves and torture chambers of Saddam's Iraq are true. Or the genocide in Darfur. Or the mental illness that kills 2 million North Koreans by starvation while below an imaginary borderline in South Korea markets and stomachs are full. Or Robert Mugabe's unspeakable cruelty to his own people in Zimbabwe.

Sorry, friends. The walls are see-through-able now. The truth is all out there on the world's front porch where the goats can get it.

So, America was the first to do what every single European swore he wished his nation had done against Nazi Germany. We went in and deposed Saddam Hussein. Did we do it idealistically because he was such a brute? Of course not. But 9/11 changed the rules enough to permit America to knock off a dictator to make sure that, after the loss of ANOTHER American-deposed dictatorship in Afghanistan, terrorists couldn't use the hospitality of Saddam Hussein against America or anybody else.

9/11 enabled America to plunge in and enact Europe's dream! And instead of "Hooray for America!" we get opposed and insulted. I understand. It can be emotionally destabilizing when your excuse for inaction evaporates and you're suddenly faced with no choice except to enact your noble pretensions (meaning fighting) or admit to yourself you're a moral failure.

Bless the Europeans who joined the Coalition. Pity the ones who did not. They need a lot of love.

God knows America has embraced its global share of voluntary blindness and decided not to see through the walls into the political prisons and torture chambers of Central and South America and elsewhere.

We're not that much better than those recalcitrant Europeans. We're not that much smarter than they are. We're not that much braver than they are.

We're just better, smarter and braver than they are by about five minutes!

Editor's note:
If you love Winston Churchill – you'll love NewsMax's "Churchill Collection" – Check it out – Click Here Now
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Heroes of 1942 – the year that turned the tide in World War II