March, 2002

The turmoil credited to September 11th and the Enron collapse has provided unprecedented peacetime cover for political shenanigans and Europe is perhaps more aware of this than America. Constitutional aberration is a home turf issue, if an issue at all in a largely distracted citizenry, but Bush's willingness to charge in where angels fear to tread has Europe nervous. Nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, as a friend of mine once said. The phrase stuck with me. The global room is full of rocking chairs.

For Europe, there are two primary issues, the first threatening sovereignty and the second, survival of our species as free men. They are inexorably connected. Donald Rumsfeld has, with the acquiescence of the President, pried the lid off the nuclear box. No administration has dared to do that in the fifty-eight years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No thinking man, Republican or Democrat, has dared to pronounce a first-strike intention. If such plans were ever contemplated, and some say they were, it was done in the darkest corner of contingency planning. The Rumsfeld direction to the Pentagon is announced from the pages of the New York Times, not as a blazing headline, but as casually as reporting the outcome of a football game. It's a sign of the blindness with which we follow leaders in times of stress. What the hell are we doing to merely tap a finger nervously? Why aren't we out in the streets?

Europe's nerves are fidgety over our stated willingness to go alone wherever we see fit and with whatever weapons are needed, recently and presumably to include nuclear. Europe is not alone in this, the anger more pronounced in the Middle and Far East, but Europe is the nearest the world comes to being of notice to Americans.

But for Europeans, sovereignty is an issue, a nation's ability to control its own internal affairs without Americans chasing all over the place, guns drawn. To put this in perspective, there is considerable homeland American support for the IRA and the IRA continues to cause mischief for Britain. It has over a long period, including bombings in London and considerable loss of life to British citizens and military. I wonder how Americans would react if Tony Blair announced his intention to root out IRA cells in America by "whatever force is needed," including the landing of special forces, assassination and the destabilization of our government.

Under the Bush rules of engagement, the Arab countries might react to our continued support of Israel and neglect of Palestine. Or is that what they've done?

But of course Britain hasn't the power to do that. Nor has any other country in the world today. We stand alone at the top of the pile, the biggest, meanest dude in town and no one can resist our power unless they slip like cowards in the back door and ram our buildings with hijacked planes. Yet they have done just that. And like the meanest dude in town, blinded by rage, stung by a low blow, we strike out and strike back and strike a few old scores in the meantime and, watching us strike, Europe is nervous. Europe knows about colonial empires, knows about crusades, knows about the dangers of destabilized governments, knows about conflagrated cities and fleeing populations. Europe feels America has yet to learn, shielded as we were through two world wars by geographic happenstance. And it makes them nervous, nervous as a cat.

All of this nuclear irresponsibility and disdain for sovereignty is being played out under cover of a distracted world. America distracted by 9/11 and Enron, Europe distracted by its EU efforts and the unveiling of the Euro, the Middle and Far East in political turmoil, South America collapsing, Africa dying and Japan in free fall. Distracted times allow the McCarthys and Rumsfelds in America to grasp unprecedented power and run places that take decades to recover. McCarthy defiled our right to be constitutionally left the hell alone. George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld are letting loose the dogs of tactical nuclear strikes in the name of right and might. The difference between a strong man and a mad man is restraint. Europe will demand restraint, for all the good it will do them.

Americans should and must demand no less.

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