Bitter Pill

Spain's government helped to obtain the release of an Iraqi-born Spanish businessman, who was kidnapped in Baghdad a few weeks ago. Presumably, his ransom was generous, adding more millions into the coffers of civilization's deconstructionists.

What Spain and other European countries ignore at their peril is that paying ransom to their sworn enemies is a prelude to larger, more unfortunate events. The ultimate hostage will be Western civilization itself. Could there be a time when a nuclear mullah will demand the installation of an Islamic theocracy in Spain, lest European cities randomly vaporize? How many Euros will that ransom be?

Europe is a fateful place. Fifty years of an American defense umbrella and coddling has made Europeans 'aggressively docile' -- it's almost an oxymoron, but there it is. They seek post-Cold War independence from the United States at the cost of slicing open their guts to the antithesis of their very existence -- Islamic terrorists. How very strange.

Europe's suicide might be acceptable if they weren't becoming accessories to civilization's demise. Americans and Europeans have much in common; it's difficult to see the rift between them grow to such grotesque proportions. Indulging terrorists and dictators, selling arms to China, wrapping themselves in nuanced multiple layers of plausible deniability regarding deals with A. Q. Khan's nuclear black market -- Europe is no peacenik, in spite of its harmonious bromides. It's pretense that it stands for goodwill and peace is a hair's breath away from an outright lie.

What a bitter pill it is to swallow.