LETTER FROM EUROPE: Munich Fest
Gedmin, Jeffrey
LETTER FROM EUROPE JEFFREY GEDMIN Munich Fest UNICH'S ANNUAL SECURITY policy conference once called Wehrkunde, roughly "military science"—has become a fortress. It takes place at the...
...Ifyou found a film on sex abuse in Germany on television it would not mean that all Germans are pedophiles...
...Angry demonstrators, opposed to war against Saddam Hussein, marched on the city...
...policy on Iraq had been the right thing to do...
...or that Republicans are deeply divided between realists and neocons on the project of democratizing the Middle East...
...No one seemed to be interested in Bush's genocidal policies...
...Bad government has kept women in the Middle Ages, economic development, education, science and technology are in a shockingly deplorable state...
...We're talking about democratization—decent and accountable government—as the way to get after terrorism's "root causes...
...Fischer went out of his way to make clear that his government firmly believed that German-French attempts to try to undermine U.S...
...Poor Natan Sharansky was traveling through Europe recently with videos from Syrian television that showed raw anti-Semitic docu-dramas (like Jews killing Christian boys for blood for their baking...
...But make common cause and grand strategy with our European friends...
...This year, a block from the conference hotel, a motley crew of about two dozen gathered around a scraggly older gentleman, who ranted via mega-phone about the world's leading terrorist who had arrived at Bayrischer Hof...
...That's the spirit in Paris and Berlin...
...The cafes were full on this afternoon...
...They meant Donald Rumsfeld...
...Now the Germans and French conclude, "Hey, never again...
...On this Rummy and Fischer, if you followed their Munich speeches, see eye to eye...
...Or for that matter, that Fischer himself says now "we have to join together to win the peace," while categorically rejecting the idea of German troops helping Iraq (even if NATO opts to engage there...
...Can you think of one EU leader apt to answer the same...
...It takes place at the Bayrischer Hof hotel, in the heart of the Bavarian capital, minutes' walk from the town hall with its famous Glockenspiel and the Hofbraeuhaus...
...Without credentials, you'll not get within a block of the 19 NATO defense ministers, assorted foreign ministers, parliamentarians, editors and pundits who hole up for two days discussing the state of transatlantic and global security affairs...
...The inspectors had basically disarmed Saddam, the country is now a mess, democracy is pie in the sky...
...Next time we have to outflank the Americans 42 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 2004 (pick the Brits off early and blackmail the Poles and the Spaniards...
...Around the corner, at the square in front of the town hall, three middle-aged fellows were handing pamphlets on American war crimes—"Das andere America...
...Never mind that the Bush administration has not yet contemplated how we will pay for our muscular foreign policy in a second term...
...The Middle East is surely the place where in the last half century our differences have been the greatest...
...Imagine, we walk away thinking, "Hey, this guy Saddam violated 17 UN resolutions over 12 years, he attacked neighbors, gassed his own people, lied to the arms inspectors and while he may not have had stockpiles, he was up to his eyeballs with dual-use facilities, procurement networks and clandestine laboratories...
...This year he opened by calling for better transatlantic cooperation and a common strategic vision, including for the Greater Middle East...
...The cause is a worthy one...
...One unimpressed television executive said tome, "So what...
...Last year German foreign minister Joschka Fischer delivered a strident appeal against regime change in Iraq...
...Said the Secretary of Defense, "Israel is a small, democratic country surrounded by a large number of neighbors, who have opined from time to time that Israel be put into the sea...
...It is not an unimportant detail...
...There's also the matter of Israel...
...Enter NATO's budding new grand strategy—promoting security and democracy in the Greater Middle East, apparently...
...There was one small catch...
...The Europeans are talking about modernization, a code word for contracts and more governmental aid...
...So we work out the kinks...
...Last year in Munich there was real rage in the street...
...The weather was unseasonably mild...
...Jeffrey Gedmin is director ofthe Aspen Institute Berlin...
...In Munich Rumsfeld was asked by a Palestinian participant about American hypocrisy and why we permit the threat posed by Israel's nuclear capability...
Vol. 37 • March 2004 • No. 2
