Washington — Inquisitive cisatlantic observers are wondering,
what gives with this sudden Belgian-French-German entente
against the United States and — so it appears — against Turkey?
History might remember it as the Entente Non Cordiale. To
be sure, the dyspeptic members of this entente feel imposed upon by
the advance of the McDonald’s hamburger over their own famously
slow cuisine. Then too they fear for their children given the
growing presence of Disney’s agents in their weary, aging lands.
But what could they possibly have against Turkey? Turkish fast food
is unheard of and no threat to the eating habits of Europe. Nor is
the Turkish entertainment industry in any way subversive to
European morals. In fact most Turks doubt the Belgians, French or
Germans have morals. Actually the entente’s disagreeable
members are merely trying to display their capacity for mischief.
They do it in a vainglorious way, but that is typical of them.
Old Europe is abundant with pompous poseurs. Unremarked in the
current pother over the entente’s discourtesies towards
the United States is the presence in these countries of millions of
pro-Americans. In France Jean-François Revel, following the
footsteps of his now deceased friend and colleague the philosopher
Raymond Aron, has written a fine book, L’Obsession
Anti-Americaine, defending the United States and decrying
anti-Americanism. It has made him a very busy man as France’s many
pro-Americans importune on him to speak out all over Europe. He is
not alone. The tradition of the pro-American European is long and
strongly rooted, led through the years by such capable harassers of
the bovine European intelligentsia as Malcolm Muggeridge and Luigi
Barzini.
The establishment European intellectuals have always been
superficially anti-American but even their anti-Americanism is
rarely very deep unless it is uttered by true leftists, for
instance Jean-Paul Sartre. That flabby existentialist was a major
spokesman for anti-Americanism in the 1950s and 1960s. Yet remember
that during World War II, as historians have now discovered, Sartre
and his lady friend Simone de Beauvoir were very comfortable
inhabitants of Nazi-occupied Paris. They lolled in the fashionable
cafes with Nazi officers and bicycled in the countryside. As the
historian Alistair Horne writes, they lived “apparently undisturbed
by war or occupiers-while also freely publishing their works.” They
were practically collaborators. While a small handful of French
writers and artists resisted the Nazis, the cowardly Sartre joined
left-wing groups such as the Comité Nationale
d’Ecrivains. There, Horne quotes another modern historian as
writing, the fashionable left-wingers were “less interested in
resistance than in drawing up lists of other writers and
journalists whom they would proscribe and silence after the
war.”
When it came to sensible defense of peace and freedom in the
Twentieth Century there were not many Europeans who were up to the
task. Belgium’s place in the Entente Non Cordiale is
particularly interesting. At the outset of Europe’s two world wars,
Belgium served as the doormat upon which the Germans wiped their
feet before hurling their armies upon the French. Both times, if
memory serves, the Belgians were neutral, but that did not stop the
Hun from marching on them and Belgian neutrality only inspired the
French to trust that the Germans would not attack them through
neutral territory.
Now we see the same complacency in Germany and Belgium that
characterized France in its catastrophic Twentieth Century wars.
This time the threats to Europe are not marching armies but
terrorist attacks that can take place at any moment. And what is
the response of the Entente Non Cordiale? Its leaders will
split hairs in an acrimonious debate with the nation that saved
them twice, and if one includes the Cold War three times. It is an
absurd debate.
Secretary of State Colin Powell has demonstrated Iraq’s menace
and its friendliness with terrorists. Every rogue state on earth
will think twice about menacing the civilized world once Saddam
Hussein is out of the way. That means terrorists will have fewer
sanctuaries and less opportunity to murder innocent people.
Doubtless most people on this side of the Atlantic and on the other
side recognize this fact. My prediction is that hours after the
departure of Saddam Hussein the Entente Non Cordiale will
suddenly become the Entente Cordiale. It members will
still be uneasy about McDonald’s and Disney, but they will be very
glad that the more adult nations of the world acted so
prudently.
