Arrested Development in Europe – the Same As It Ever Was During Cold War – RedState

In the late 1980s, I became interested in politics and foreign policy. It was the end of President Ronald Reagan’s second term. At this time, the Cold War was still ongoing, with a seemingly powerful Soviet Union facing off against the free world.

Except for the left of the free world, of course. I know you will be shocked to hear this, but leftists in the United States and Western Europe openly sympathized with communists.

The Reagan administration’s commitment to the development of nuclear weapons and the stationing of many U.S. intermediate nuclear missiles in Western Europe was particularly noted by leftists. Here is a typical description from a left-wing source:

The Reagan administration’s commitment to nuclear development and vague talk about nuclear war sparked widespread public concern and an explosion of popular protests. In the United States, the campaign to freeze nuclear weapons received widespread public support and gained the support of the Democratic Party. Anti-nuclear agitation was particularly strong in Western Europe. Centered primarily on the American deployment of cruise and Pershing missiles to Western Europe (planned for late 1983) and the Soviet deployment of SS-20 missiles to Eastern Europe (which had already begun), massive pro-disarmament protests broke out. In almost all Western European countries, antinuclear groups developed into mass movements and were supported by social democratic political parties.

READ MORE: Report: Our “ally” France has just taken another incredible step regarding the Strait of Hormuz

Ships crossing the strait raise another big question for France and could reveal cracks in Iran’s efforts

To deal with the incessant objection of these European leftists, the Reagan administration was finally forced to go a little lenient towards the communists:

To convince Europeans that we were not the warmongers that European peace protesters claimed to be, the Reagan administration adopted a less confrontational policy toward the Soviet Union. So when the Russians shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, brutally murdering hundreds of innocent passengers, President Reagan responded with empty rhetoric. When the Europeans provided subsidized credit to Moscow to finance the Siberian gas pipeline, Mr. Reagan backed away from his earlier threats to impose sanctions against Western Europeans. And it was Mr. Reagan who gave General Wojciech Jaruzelski (the Polish communist leader) undeserved international respectability – and subsidized credit that he desperately needed – by agreeing to Poland’s membership in the International Monetary Fund.

It is important to emphasize that the Russian communists and their allies have been very bad news. I understand that on American campuses today, and in New York City government, communism is described as a beneficent philosophy that gives rights to “each according to his needs” and rewards the poor – while punishing evil billionaires. But that’s just left-wing propaganda.

In reality, communism completely misunderstands human nature and creates a system in which everyone, except the party leaders, is poor. The system has no real democracy, no human rights, no freedoms for the people. Worse still, the Soviet Union was militaristic and vowed to “bury” us and carried out its threats with violence and terror, sponsoring communist rebellions around the world, including Western Europe.

All this was known to truly educated people. Yet Western European leftists either didn’t know this or, more worryingly, knew it but pretended otherwise.

At the time when I observed all this chaos in Western Europe, I was a teenager, but rather “conservative” for a teenager. I was the type of teenager who obeyed the rules, came home at the appropriate time, and didn’t talk to my parents and other authority figures.

Reading about the seemingly endless protests in Western Europe – which were as wild and crazy as modern left-wing “protests” against ICE or Israel are today – the thought occurred to me: These Western European voters, citizens of NATO members, were just a bunch of screaming, irresponsible teenagers. They counted on Daddy US to protect them from the big bad communist world, but they also took pleasure in rebelling against his authority. And they always tried to avoid any work that might be asked of them.

Well, now we can see that some things never change.

With the current war against Iran, Western Europeans remain stuck in arrested development. The Strait of Hormuz is a crucial waterway for international trade, particularly that of Western Europe. (But not so much U.S. trade.) Iran’s Islamic regime attacks ships passing through the strait, as it always does when in danger. This is a violation of international law. It also targets ships that have nothing to do with US-Israeli action against Iran. This is exactly the same thing they did near the end of their war with Iraq in 1988, prompting the United States to act to protect international shipping. And so, here’s what happened on Thursday:

Trump has asked his European and Gulf partners to take a more immediate role in ensuring passage through the strait – even threatening to leave the NATO alliance over their lack of aid. Key allies have pushed back, arguing that deeper involvement in Iran must wait until the danger subsides. “This is not our war. We will not allow ourselves to be drawn into conflict,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Wednesday, stressing that the priority remained “diplomatic and political measures” to restore transit security.

Western Europeans are so opposed to this war that Italy, Spain, France and the United Kingdom have even refused to let the United States use NATO bases on their territory and/or allow the United States and Israel to fly over their territory. And the “cheese-eating monkeys” are taking their capitulation to another, more ridiculous level, as RedState’s Nick Arama reported this week (see both stories linked above).

I firmly believe that the United States should ally itself with countries capable and willing to cooperate with us. We really don’t need a bunch of unruly teenagers as allies, rebelling against us and not wanting to throw their weight into the alliance.

What would you say, what are you doing here, for NATO, for Western Europeans?

Editor’s Note: For decades, former presidents did nothing but talk. Now, Donald Trump eliminates the Iranian threat once and for all.

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