THE DIFFERENCE

 I was just reading some more of Kurt Schlichter over at Townhall and was struck by the unbalanced nature of his disdain for the euroweenies. I don't disagree with him, in fact I'm fully onboard with his characterization of Europeans of the NATO flavor but that was the difference between the two of us otherwise near peers. He served our country in Europe where we imagined that the soldiers and staffs merely grazed from one decent posh restaurant to the next with long interludes spent drifting down the Rhine or Danube stopping for a sip of wine every 5 minutes and this was contrasted with our days and nights in the Desert or afloat in the most dangerous body of water in the world.

Where the real difference was though came after 1990 and Desert Storm. Everywhere we went we were greeted warmly and if we did find ourselves in a posh hotel at breakfast on our way to a conference at an embassy or headquarters any number of tables would send over free pots of delicious coffee and pick up the check for everything. We kind of stood out in our camouflage uniforms because despite my best efforts, OPNAV simply refused to adopt Hotel Camouflage patterns.

The people in Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE liked us. To be honest I sensed more than tolerance for me when I was there even back in 1984, 1985, 1988 and 1989 but it was warmer and friendlier after we rolled back Saddam. If you contrast the Colonel's experience in NATO it was mostly with liberal dimwits with egos the size of planets that didn't like Americans on principle, hated soldiers; and that is our former allies. Our old enemies have elephant memories and let's not kid ourselves, they did not like us but tolerated us because we kept the Russians out. Then they dropped the act.

Europe is on a track they don't recognize now and they don't know it. They think they have some sort of hold on Americans that they really don't. The fossils that liked Europe are mostly dead and all are out of power now. Their kids were the Euro-explorers and they got their fill of a Europe much closer to the current form of Western Europe and none of them are interested in fighting and dying for it. The current war fighters fought alone in the sandbox and watched as their "allies" did nothing at all for year after year. I suppose I can't really fault them for that because it was all for nothing but still, it left marks that never go away. They didn't make any friends there. None. 

We can actually see what the Europeans have for a refined advanced military and found that almost none of it was fit for battle and certainly none of it came in large enough chunks to be useful for more than about 30 seconds of combat.

I don't suppose it's an altogether bad thing to raise your children to hate war and despise those that prepare for it but it sort of relies upon a solid iron core of disciplined warriors you can call your own to leap to your defense if and when the next war comes and Europe doesn't have that, hasn't had it for about 40 years and has really torqued the only people on the planet that had, up to this point, been prepared to fight and die for Europe.

Well guys, not anymore. Kurt isn't wrong and the truly sad thing is that now any country in NATO that even attempts to rearm for 21st century war is going to be destroyed by its own allies, the media and of course the Russians for being warmongers. It's going to look very much like what happened the last time lax Europeans tried to rearm before the obvious looming war that wasn't just on the horizon, it was right there. Of course, Europeans simply don't comprehend how pathetic their military situation is without the US.

The good news for Europe might be that nobody wants what they have other than hordes of the military age arab muslims they have let into their countries in overwhelming numbers. Well, them and all the African military age muslims they have let into their countries. Oh well, from here it looks like a real problem but I'm sure I'm wrong. Nothing to worry about, really.

Really.