Europeans As Ever, Anxious to Flee In the Face of Danger

U.S. at Odds With Allies on Mideast Conflict
Citing Civilian Casualties, European Nations and U.N. Eager for Cease-Fire

By Robin Wright and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 20, 2006; Page A17

The United States faces growing tensions with allies over its support of Israel's military campaign to cripple Hezbollah, amid calls for a cease-fire to help with the mounting humanitarian crisis.

European allies are particularly alarmed about the disproportionately high civilian death toll in Lebanon. They are also concerned that the U.S. position will increase tensions between the Islamic world and the West by fueling militants, playing into the rhetoric of Osama bin Laden and adding to the problems of the U.S.-led coalition force in Iraq.

"What there needs to be now is a cessation of hostilities," U.N. Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown told reporters yesterday. "The Middle East is littered with the results of people believing there are military solutions to political problems in the region." He said civilians are "very unfairly bearing the greatest brunt of the conflict."

The fragile Lebanese government has pleaded for a cease-fire, and France has urged the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution calling for an end to hostilities, proposing political and security measures. France also has called for "humanitarian corridors" to guarantee safety for civilians fleeing areas under fire.

Might I remind our readers, this is the same Mark Malloch Brown who whined that

[The United States] "prevailing practice of seeking to use the U.N. almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable...You will lose the U.N. one way or another."

No great loss says I. The U.N. has long been an ineffectual organization whose seeming sole purpose is to provide a forum for jealous nations to bash the United States for keeping them free from oppression and endeavoring to assist them in becoming civilized nations. Malloch also whined:

"Much of the public discourse that reaches the U.S. heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News."

This of course is the old threadbare claim that people in the "heartland" of America are rubes who cannot think for themselves, cannot evaluate world events, and are somehow less than equal to the illuminati of Europe, like Malloch himself.

Now when faced with an implaccable foe whose only interest is the total annihilation of the State of Israel and the imposition (by force if necessary) of a world-wide Islamic State (according to their own standards), Europe is crying "Surrender!" once again.

Europe has lost its soul and its way. States like Germany and France truly deserve the moniker of "Old Europe."

Full Story: Europe's "Peace At Any Cost" Policy

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