Applebaum on Why England Still Sleeps

Anne Applebaum knows more about anti-American feelings than just about anyone else. As the Pulitzer-winning author of Gulag, this brilliant multilingual author described in awesome detail just how horrific the Soviet social experments under Stalin ended up, killing millions in god-forsaken frozen hells north of the Arctic Circle. Applebaum starts out:

The dislike of America, the hatred for what it was believed to stand for – capitalism, globalisation, militarism, Zionism, Hollywood or McDonald's, depending on your point of view – was well entrenched. To put it differently, the scorn now widely felt in Britain and across Europe for America's "war on terrorism" actually preceded the "war on terrorism" itself. It was already there on September 12 and 13, right out in the open for everyone to see.

Applebaum is far too generous to the degenerate otiose slackers on the continent and in the UK. They really hate us because we WON THE COLD WAR and they were on the winning side, but in the back seat. The Poles, Czechs and Ukrainians love America for what it is, a nation dedicated to freedom. The Eurotrash are dedicated to 35-hour weeks and the old saying "work is the curse of the drinking classes."

Anne is a gentlewoman, a real class act and is a bit out of her element with the largely Bolshie types at the WaPo. And she is from another planet compared to the lumpen-nomenklatura of the Guardian, Independent, BBC and other chronic leftist chattering-class guidebooks. These barnacles on the ship of the UK have never, ever forgiven the US for trashing the USSR and gelding the PRC via Reagan's Star Wars spending. What sticks in their reptilian craw is that Margaret Thatcher was encouraged by Reagan to trash the TUC and other impedimenta of the loony leninist left---and lead the UK back into prosperity, and Thatcher-lite New Labour.

After pointing out that at least Bush is doing things to counter the assault on western values by self-exploding Islamic fanatics, Applebaum points to the lassitude and smug lethargic attitudes of the EU core and avers:

Instead of pointing fingers, the fifth anniversary of 9/11 might be a good time to reverse course. If "war on terrorism" has become an unpopular term, then call it something else. Call it a "war on fanaticism". Or – as we used to say in the Cold War – call it a "struggle for hearts and minds" in the Islamic communities of Europe and the Middle East. For whatever it's called, it won't succeed without both American and European support, without American and European mutual sympathy. And whatever it's called, if it fails, the consequences will be felt on both sides of the Atlantic.

Twice in the last century, the US has intervened to bail out the arrogant feckless eff-ups in the formerly influential parts of western Europe. We don't want to or have to keep them safe, this time from their own heedless mindless self-absorbed arrogance.