Why does Europe Hate American Redux

Bruce Bawer has perhaps the best, most comprehensive take on the Western European "hatred" of America that I have read in a long time. It is actually a review article for the Hudson Review and is quite long. Too long to quote, but I highly recommend it. The best part is his summary of the thesis of Robert Kagan's Of Paradise and Power:

that the "paradise" of peace and prosperity Europe now enjoys is made possible, quite simply, by American power. Provided with "security from outside," Europe requires no power of its own; yet protected "under the umbrella of American power," it’s able to delude itself that power is "no longer important" and "that American military power, and the ‘strategic culture’ that has created and sustained it, is outmoded and dangerous." European leaders, says Kagan, see themselves as inhabiting a post-historical world in which war has been rendered obsolete by the triumph of international "moral consciousness"; yet most of them:

do not see or do not wish to see the great paradox: that their passage into post-history has depended on the United States not making the same passage. Because Europe has neither the will nor the ability to guard its own paradise and keep it from being overrun, spiritually and well as physically, by a world that has yet to accept the rule of “moral consciousness,” it has become dependent on America’s willingness to use its military might to deter or defeat those around the world who still believe in power politics.

In short, though the U.S. makes Europe’s "paradise" possible, "it cannot enter the paradise itself. It mans the walls but cannot walk through the gate . . . stuck in history, [it is] left to deal with the Saddams and the ayatollahs, the Kim Jong Ils and the Jiang Zemins, leaving most of the benefits to others." And when it does address those threats, furthermore, it feels Europe’s wrath, for "America’s power and its willingness to exercise that power—unilaterally if necessary—constitute a threat to Europe’s new sense of mission." If Europe’s intellectual and political elite was briefly pro-America after 9/11, it was because America was suddenly a victim, and European intellectuals are accustomed to sympathizing reflexively with victims (or, more specifically, with perceived or self-proclaimed victims, such as Arafat). That support began to wane the moment it became clear that Americans had no intention of being victims.

Take a half-hour and read the whole thing.