Scathing indictment of Europe -- from a German

This link will take you to a scathing commentary by Matthias Doepfner, the CEO for Axel Springer, AG, a major German company. In it, Doepfner takes aim at Europe's 60-year history of appeasement, regardless of the cost:

Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to toothless agreements. Appeasement legitimized and stabilized Communism in the Soviet Union, then East Germany, then all the rest of Eastern Europe where for decades, inhuman, suppressive, murderous governments were glorified as the ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities. Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo, and even though we had absolute proof of ongoing mass-murder, we Europeans debated and debated and debated, and were still debating when finally the Americans had to come from halfway around the world, into Europe yet again, and do our work for us.

He notes that this appeasement generates spectacular hypocrisy, of the type that allows Europeans to treat Israeli self-defense as being morally equivalent to (or worse than) civilian-targeted suicide bombings. From there, he points to the hypocrisy surrounding the Iraq war:

Appeasement generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore nearly 500,000 victims of Saddam's torture and murder machinery and, motivated by the self-righteousness of the peace-movement, has the gall to issue bad grades to George Bush... Even as it is uncovered that the loudest critics of the American action in Iraq made illicit billions, no, TENS of billions, in the corrupt U. N. Oil-for-Food program.

But Doepfner's not done. He points out that this mentality goes on and on, with Europeans willing to abase themselves before people bound and determined to see to their destruction.

And now we are faced with a particularly grotesque form of appeasement... How is Germany reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic fundamentalists in Holland and elsewhere? By suggesting that we really should have a "Muslim Holiday" in Germany. I wish I were joking, but I am not. A substantial fraction of our (German) Government, and if the polls are to be believed, the German people, actually believe that creating an Official State "Muslim Holiday" will somehow spare us from the wrath of the fanatical Islamists.

Not surprisingly, he links this type of appeasement to Neville Chamberlains idiotic 1938 declaration that Europe would have "peace in our time." Also not surprisingly, he gives kudos to both Reagan and Bush as being the only two Presidents in this appeasement era not to fall victim to that mentality (and he notes that, while history remains to be written as to Bush, Reagan's mental and moral toughness achieved stunning victories):

Only two recent American Presidents had the courage needed for anti- appeasement: Reagan and Bush. His American critics may quibble over the details, but we Europeans know the truth. We saw it first hand: Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War, freeing half of the German people from nearly 50 years of terror and virtual slavery. And Bush, supported only by the Social Democrat Blair, acting on moral conviction, recognized the danger in the Islamic War against democracy. His place in history will have to be evaluated after a number of years have passed.

Doepfner concludes with a scathing, sneering indictment of the European mentality:

These days, Europe reminds me of an old woman who, with shaking hands, frantically hides her last pieces of jewelry when she notices a robber breaking into a neighbor's house. Appeasement? Europe, thy name is Cowardice.

I understand that this article is whizzing around the blogosphere, but I suspect that Europe's superiority complex will insulate it from this type of criticism, allowing it to continue on its suicidal path. Hat tip: The American Thinker