Normandy and All That

...France, of course, has not notably refrained in past decades from criticism of a variety of U.S...

...Die Zeit's Josef Joffe even suggested that the notoriously inharmonious year of 2003 in European-U.S...

...And perhaps those sophisticated Europeans will have to endure another four years of a president who likes to wear jeans and tote a chainsaw through the brush of West Texas...

...Added Lipkin, "Fundamentally there is a mood, 'Anything but Bush.'" Europeans sympathetic to the U.S...

...Indeed, as the northern coast of France prepared to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the D -Day landings of June 1944, so was much of the region...

...In his own address he preferred to evoke the grand rhetoric of the French intelligentsia, a rhetoric that has been sharply secular since the French Revolution...

...The D -Day celebrations brought out much of the deep commonality of feeling that still exists in Europe over the U.S...

...are a boon...

...policies in Central America, from Cuba to Nicaragua...

...SEPTEMBER 2004 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 21...

...The political elites have committed to take care of its citizens and in return for that they extract 44 percent of gross domestic product from society...

...commitment to Europe...

...But the implications of immigration for Europe go far beyond economics...

...like Poland provoked Chirac to sneer that those countries had missed an opportunity to "keep silent...

...Intoned a chaplain of the Normandy Veterans' Association, "At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them...

...For those who are happy that the U.S...

...Europe, however, remains prickly about the composition of its culture...

...They tell of the pitching deck, the whistles of shells from the battleships behind them, the white jets of water from enemy fire around them, and then the sound of bullets hitting the steel ramp that was about to fall...

...In London's Daily Mail, columnist Melanie Philips inveighed against "the programme of the political class—signing up to the European Project, mass immigration, multi-culturalism, abolishing Britain's historical constitution...

...Translation: if they wanted to express any views on foreign policy, they should talk to France first...

...Not only did he go too far," sniffed Chirac, "he ventured into territory which is not his concern...

...foreign policy establishment who regard the prospect of such a force as a death-knell to NATO...

...D -Day as a warrant for U.S...

...engagement in For the U.S., the most annoying aspect of its rift with Europe over NATO has been the unwillingness of major European NATO member-states to contribute to the rebuilding or even the pacification of Iraq...

...Translation: Immigrants to Europe are a drain on productive forces, while immigrants to the U.S...

...Since 1999 the Turks have been knocking eagerly on the door of the European Union, petitioning membership and arguing, not without reason, that by virtue of NATO membership they have been part of the West for several decades already...

...While the grandiose selfimage of European elites continued to project Europe as a global superpower rivaling the U.S., the ordinary people of Europe had less ambitious dreams...

...For those enamored of the nanny state, that statistic should be encouraging...

...I hope that this occasion will bring to rest many of those memories" of cross-channel conflict...

...While the grandiose self-image of European elites continued to project Europe as a global superpower rivaling the U.S., the ordinary people of Europe had less ambitious dreams: how their nationalist soccer teams might prevail over a coterie of boorish foreigners...

...What will that 74 percent figure be by then, he wonders...

...F OR ALMOST THE ENTIRETY of the post-World War II period, of course, what kept Europe and the U.S...

...No, the red cross of St...

...Eyes right...

...It would be like me telling the United States how to run its affairs with Mexico...

...Parts of Europe are palpably becoming Islamic...

...The landing in Normandy justified the recent interventions in Kosovo, in Afghanistan and in Iraq, even without Security Council authorization...

...ACK IN Montgomery-Colville, the Duke of Gloucester had puckishly observed that one of Monty's ancient ancestors had been second in command of a Norman army that traveled in the reverse direction in 1066...

...Not many Europeans thought this was a valid analogy, not even in Britain where Tony Blair's friendship with George Bush seems to have reignited a gallic phobia of the Anglo-Saxons that dates to the era of General de Gaulle...

...involvement in Iraq, not to mention perennial European criticism of Israel, perhaps Americans could be forgiven for not knowing that...

...He said, "Only the ones who made that crossing can know what it was like...

...I don't think we are in a position to make moral judgments...

...At the same time, European critics seem to resent the palpable dynamism of the American economy, and in particular of the American immigrant contribution to American prosperity...

...And perhaps Americans would agree that the U.S...

...But even in Europe, not everyone was signing on to a perspective on culture, society, and international politics increasingly influenced by political correctness and a smothering dose of social democracy...

...In the past fifty years in Europe a contract has emerged between political elites and the citizen...

...The French especially have long bemoaned what they have called "the Coca-Colonization" of Europe by American popular culture...

...Boudewijn Johannes van Eenennaam, the ambassador to the U.S...

...I don't think Europeans and Americans are far apart in terms of what each wants in international order," said Jonathan Lipkin...

...Some in Europe detect far more sinister intentions behind the creation of such a force...

...Keeping time for the marchers was the parade band of the King's Division, decked out in ceremonial uniforms that seemed to go back to the British army of Kitchener's day after the Battle of Omdurman (in which young Winston Churchill was a cavalry officer) in 1898...

...intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq...

...relations was as much a split among Europeans as a European split with the U.S...

...Security has been the bedrock of the transatlantic relationship for over half a century," said Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Elizabeth Jones at a briefing for foreign journalists last year...

...Commentator Mark Steyn has dryly noted that Holland, where the figures citing Israel as the greatest danger reached 74 percent, will by the year 2020 have more Muslims in its under-18 population than adherents of any other faith, or non-faith...

...had been "somewhat contemptuous" of Europe and unaware of its major involvement in international affairs...

...Europeans respond to that with more than a touch of irritation...

...Asked if he had any concerns about the future of Europe, Antony Burgmans, chairman of the Anglo-Dutch food conglomerate Unilever, one of the biggest corporations in Europe, had this answer: "Yes...

...It has been noted that while 10 percent of the American population are immigrants, the immigrant percentage of Americans who work is 11.7 percent...

...That prospect has clearly alarmed many in the U.S...

...Bush, in keeping with his strong Christian faith and his preference for particular illustrations over grand, sweeping themes, spoke of some of the most vivid moments of D -Day itself...

...and Europe should, in the words of van Eenennaam, "stand shoulder to shoulder" and conduct business in a friendlier way rather than "shouting back and forth over the ocean, as we did last year for example...

...That leaves very little incentive to be entrepreneurial...

...an even blunter sentiment...

...Not North Korea, or Iran, or Islamic terrorism...

...Research has indicated it is the greatest ambition of 60 percent of Europeans to make it to retirement...

...Oxonian don David Hine, fellow in politics at Christ Church, ascribed to European analysts of the U.S...

...Isn't that horrifying...

...focused almost entirely on hostility towards President Bush...

...In fact, more European nations, numerically, sided with the U.S...

...The Europeans in general," he said, "like to hope that these Texans won't stay in Washington forever...

...By contrast, while 10 percent of Holland's population of 16 million are immigrants, the immigrant percentage of Holland's workforce is SEPTEMBER 2004 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 19 NORMANDY AND ALL THAT a paltry 3.4 percent...

...John's Gospel (15:13) had been used the day before by the British chaplain at the other Colville...

...Besides, when it comes to prisoner abuse, what we French did in Algeria was pretty terrible...

...Ninety-six...

...When President Bush a little too eagerly championed their application at a press conference in Ankara in June 2004, however, France's President Chirac rapped him sharply over the knuckles in public...

...Eighty-five percent...

...I personally think Bush has been chastened?' But perhaps he hasn't been...

...And what about the larger cross-ocean debate...

...But for the U.S., the most annoying aspect of its rift with Europe over NATO has been the unwillingness of major European NATO member-states to contribute to the rebuilding or even the pacification of Iraq...

...Hanging across the coastal road that strings together all of the points on the 50-mile invasion area was a sign that read, "Welcome to our liberators...

...Writing in support of the U.S...

...Of course, it depends...

...The celebrations included commemorative parachute jumps and a special celebration at Pegasus Bridge, a key Normandy objective of British parachute troops not long after midnight on June 6, 1944...

...At Oxford's privately owned foreign affairs research and consultancy company Oxford Analytica (whose subscribers include the CIA and the Chinese Communist Party), Jonathan Lipkin, senior editor for Europe, spoke of an "antagonism" towards the U.S...

...On Omaha Beach, just below Colville, Americans took far worse casualties than the British and other allies on D -Day, and Presidents Reagan and Clinton both showed up in 1984 and 1994, respectively, to honor their heroism...

...The French cabdriver taking me from the Normandy port of Uistreham to Caen was in a lyrical mood...

...France, along with Germany, and in a curious side-eddy of European politics, Great Britain, has for a few years advocated the creation of a European quick reaction military force independent of NATO command...

...George, patron saint of merry old England...

...The Union Jack...

...Well, given the French and German chorus of opposition to U.S...

...I F ONE THING HAD BECOME CLEAR in the previous 18 months of U.S.-French relations, it was that the "humanist values" of the two countries had parted company...

...regard that sentiment as part envy, part cultural disdain...

...DAVID AIKMAN NATO remains the strongest element of the U.S...

...barked modern-day British sergeant-majors as the veterans, demonstrating a surprising vigor in their parade gait, passed the reviewing stand...

...With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO suddenly seemed like an alliance without a purpose and the European Union a market without a common value 20 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 2004 system...

...That final quote from St...

...together was a shared apprehension of Soviet aims in Europe...

...Those words struck few chords in Europe...

...The letter in support of American policy in Iraq signed in February 2003 by new entrants to the E.U...

...intervention in Iraq in a column on the D -Day commemorations, France's "new philosopher" Andre Glucksmann opined that "the right of people to be liberated from extreme despotism, the right to D -Day, overcomes the usual respect for borders and the ancient principle of sovereignty...

...Did Americans know, he asked rhetorically, that Europe "through its common foreign, security and defense policy [was] taking its global responsibilities seriously...

...bore the brunt of NATO resolution on the Balkan conflagration, Europe is not returning the favor now that the U.S...

...He added, "And there were Bibles, many Bibles, mixed with the wreckage of war...

...is under pressure in the Middle East...

...The European Union circle of gold stars...

...officials are irritated that, after the U.S...

...In a recent poll, 59 percent of Europeans thought Israel was the greatest threat to world peace...

...In Montgomery-Colville, a French seaside village that changed its name in honor of the famous British general, Britain's Duke of Gloucester was on hand to preside over a march-past—surely the last one for most of the octogenarians present—of 1,200 British veterans of the British assault upon Sword Beach...

...In June this year, Bush and Chirac buried their mutual differences at least long enough for each to strike graceful notes in their speeches to the thousands of assembled veterans and family members...

...Imagine where that might lead," said Susan Philips, a pro-Israeli commentator living in Ireland...

...The long-standing U.S...

...If Chirac paid attention to that biblical reference, he did not register it...

...If a European military force separate from NATO were in existence, it might well volunteer to oversee a settlement of the Arab-Israeli dispute...

...from the Netherlands, which assumed the chairmanship of the European commission in July, told reporters that month that the U.S...

...and Canada in 2003 added more millionaires to their population than Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia combined, that European statistic is probably proof that the European project is spiraling down into economic unreality...

...role in ending the Nazi occupation...

...He spoke reverentially of "the humanist values that have shaped the destinies of France and America," which were "the genius of our peoples, the heart and soul of our nations...

...How unfortunate for them...

...ok David Aikman's books include Great Souls: Six Who Changed a Century (Lexington Books) and Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power (Regnery Publishing...

...seems a tradition assured of survival over the next few decades...

...approach to Iraq than with the opposition view articulated by France and Germany...

...Even as those words were being printed, flags were suddenly sprouting from British car antennae and working class backyards...

...Our boys had carried in their pockets the book that brought into the world this message: Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends...

...Gallic prickliness towards the U.S...

...Israel...

...The following day, June 6, was the occasion of the Bush-Chirac visit to the other Colville, where 9,387 crosses and Stars of David commemorate the American sol18 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 2004 DAVID AIKMAN diers who died during the entire, 80-day Normandy campaign...

...Most interesting, perhaps, was the philosophical approach taken by each leader...