America, Europe and bad consciences

This article provides a thoughtful analysis of the ideological divide between Europe and America, and why the European model is, on the whole, better. However, I have to take issue with this:

Europe's inability to block the massacres of Bosnia and the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo reveal the shortcomings of its nonmilitary preferences when faced with a challenge to its own moral imperatives.

The author is right about Bosnia, where for too long no major power, European or otherwise, took decisive action, and only self-interested Croatian military intervention combined with the patient efforts of a lot of anonymous UN bureaucrats rescued some kind of peace with dishonour. America was non-existent in the Bosnian conflict, but they can be excused on the grounds that it really had nothing to do with them. On the other hand, in Kosovo, it was Europeans who dragged America kicking and screaming into the war. American administrations are not averse to killing foreign civilians collateral damage, but at that time the prospect of GIs coming home in zipper bags was unconscionable.

A number of conscience-stricken European leaders played their part, but most of all it was Tony "Pit-bull" Blair who, by pledging an indefinite number of British fatalities, dragged NATO into the war (this in itself should be enough to dispell the popular myth that Blair is Bush's poodle - he is rabid in his own right, whtehr the cause is just or laughable). Kosovo was a small example of how the international community can intervene in a war that is already happening, in order to prevent crimes against humanity. Iraq, though superficially similar, is the exact opposite.

Anyway, I still recommend reading the article, which has many good things to say about domestic as well as foreign policy.

Where is Thomas Jefferson when you need him?

I know I am getting a reputation on LJ as a Europhile anti-American pundit, but please allow me one more question.

Given that a large number of Americans are strongly opposed to their government's Middle-East bloodlust;

Given that a large number of Americans believe with good reason that the last presidential election was fraudulent;

Given that the current American government exists largely to promote the interest of the few against the many, believes in the principle of one dollar, one vote, and is a quagmire of corruption and nepotism comparable to the England of George III;

Where is the revolution?

I see many demonstrations of popular dissent, and I welcome them, like most people in the free world. But I see no strikes, no civil disobedience, no calls to arms. The current protests are a dim reflection of what we saw in the 1960s. Please read once more your Declaration of Independence. Call a strike. Boycott American goods instead of French goods. Destroy government property. Invade military bases. Physically harass a congressman. You used to be able to do it.

When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.