PRESTOPUNDIT -- "Kerry in Cambodia" Wall-to-Wall Coverage

Steyn on Germany. "Right now, Germany plays host to 175,000 Americans - military personnel plus their families - and reducing that number to 80-90,000 would leave a big hole in an economy that's already looking like a Swiss cheese. See the recent story in Bild: "Can't We Do Anything Any More in Germany?" Also the cover of Der Spiegel: "Germany: A Joke." The joke keeps getting better. Karl Peter Bruch, a state official in Rhineland-Palatinate who's lobbying the Americans to change their minds, put it this way: "We realised that our installations are in grave danger. And then came the question, what can we do to make us more attractive?" "Our" installations? As Daffy Duck famously remarked after losing yet another verbal duel with Bugs Bunny and getting his bill shot off: "Hmm. Pronoun trouble." As to what Germany can do to make itself more attractive to the Yanks, how about this? Spend less time running around playing Mini-Me to Jacques Chirac's Doctor Evil. Just a thought ..

America's main "overstretch" lies not in Afghanistan or the Horn of Africa, but in its historically unprecedented generosity to its wealthiest allies. "The US picks up the defence tab for Europe, Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia, among others," I wrote. "If Bush wins a second term, the boys will be coming home from South Korea and Germany, and maybe Japan, too." Well, the second term is not quite here. But America has already quit Saudi Arabia, and plans for South Korea and Germany are well advanced. When scholars come to write the final chapter in the history of the European continent, the six-decade US security guarantee will be seen as, on the whole, a mistake. Not for America, but the Continentals. The so-called "free world" was, for most of its members, a free ride. Absolving wealthy nations of the need to maintain credible armies softens them: they decay, almost inevitably, into a semi-non-aligned status.

.. if Don Rumsfeld wants a light, mobile 21st-century military, the last place to base it is the Continent: given that the term "ally" is now generally used in the post-modern meaning of "duplicitous obstructionist", it's not unlikely that any future Saddamesque scenario would see attempts to throw operational restraints around the use of US forces in Europe. This weekend, for example, nearly 60 per cent of French electors voted Socialist, Communist, Fascist or Green. Most of the rest voted for the "ruling centre-Right" - ie, Chirac. Does that sound like an "ally" that's ever again likely to grant overflight rights to the USAF? Better a nice clean flight plan direct from Missouri or Diego Garcia.

.. Germany has a shrinking economy, an ageing and shrivelling population, and potentially catastrophic welfare liabilities. Yet the average German worker now puts in over 20 per cent fewer hours per year than his American counterpart, and no politician who wishes to remain electorally viable would propose closing the gap. Germany, like much of Europe, has a psychological investment in longer holidays, free healthcare, early retirement, unsustainable welfare programmes, decrepit military: the fact that these policies spell national suicide is less important than that they distinguish Europe from the less enlightened Americans.

.. Germany has paid $132 billion and then some to France, Belgium, Italy and co in net EU contributions. And, as predicted, bankruptcy looms. From Belgian steel to Italian agriculture to French colonial subventions, the entire European project has been financed by Germany. Even a rare fellow contributor such as Britain owes its brief romance with the Common Market to German success: in stagnant pre-Thatcher Britain, the business community looked enviously across the Channel and figured that yoking the British economy to Europe would cut 'em a little piece of that rich German stollen. But there's no stollen left to steal: Germany is the sick man of Europe, and too risk-averse to try any cure other than sugary placebos such as the dismal "Year of Innovation" Mr Schröder has declared 2004 to be. He has appointed an Innovation Council. The first sign of a genuinely innovative culture is that it's too busy innovating to have an Innovation Council .. ". More MARK STEYN. UPDATE: DVH -- Lovin’ Europe by Leavin’. Posted by Greg Ransom | TrackBack