CROCODILE TEARS
New York Post | 3/10/03 | RALPH PETERS

I SPENT last month in Africa, pausing for a
respectful visit to Robben Island, the former
prison that confined Nelson Mandela for two
decades. It was aphysically beautiful setting
spoiled by humankind´s past intolerance and by the
crocodile tears of European tourists.

Young and old, the German, French and Dutch
visitors deplored what had been done to one of the
great men of the last century - who remains a
powerful, if aging and erratic, voice in the cause
of freedom. I certainly shared their regret at the
suffering imposed on Mr. Mandela and his comrades.

But I wanted to smack the lot of them and yell,
"What about the Iraqis? Don´t they matter, you
smug, little hypocrites?"

As deplorable as conditions were on Robben Island
during the imprisonment of South Africa´s
champions of freedom, they were civilized compared
to the treatment of uncounted thousands of Iraqis
at the hands of Saddam and his henchmen.

I do not underestimate the crimes of the apartheid
regime. Yet, despicable though that government
was, it didn´t use nerve gas on thousands of men,
women and children, torture children in front of
their parents, rape wives infront of their
husbands, exterminate entire families and clans on
a whim, or slaughter minority populations.

Those Euro-trash tourists were right to mourn what
had been done. But why on earth didn´t they care
about the present sufferings of their fellow human
beings?
The sorry truth is that Europeans love to cry over
corpses, but won´t lift a finger to prevent the
killing in the first place. They shake their heads
over the Holocaust, though their parents were
happy enough to pack the local Jews offto
Auschwitz.

The French grudgingly accept that their
intellectuals defended Stalin long after evidence
of his crimes came to light, but they avoid the
issue of how many of their thinkers and artists
admired Hitler and profited from the Occupation
(French cafes and cabarets boomed under the
Nazis).

Was there ever an African dictator the French
didn´t adore? The Dutch criticize America´s
military as trigger-happy, but their own troops
didn´t fire a shot in defense of the Muslims of
Srebrenica, who they had been tasked to protect
and whose slaughter was the worst single massacre
on European soil since the end of the Second World
War.

When I served in Europe in the ´70s, Chairman Mao
prefigured Viagra in his effect upon the European
Left. Of course, the Soviet Union remained noble
and virtuous until the end, its failure to
construct heaven on earth explained away by
American scheming and malevolence. Today,
Europeans dismiss their historical guilt toward
Jews by insisting that Israel is as bad as Nazi
Germany -a Big Lie worthy of Hitler and Goebbels -
while cheering on Israel´s genocidal enemies.

What can we do in the face of such a profound lack
of honesty, morality or even decency? How can we
work constructively with those for whom evidence
only matters when it supports their prejudices?

What shall we make of those who would let millions
die at the hands of tyrantswhile accusing America
of aggression for opposing the killers?

The short answer is: Not much. In the longer term,
though, we must accept the fact that states such
as France and Germany have declined to the
mentality of yesteryear´s Mexico, blaming the
United States for all their failures and defining
themselves not in positive terms, but merely as
the anti-America.

We must accept, from today onward, that America
shall often need to act alone or with a handful of
courageous allies. Increasingly, we will need to
do that which we recognize as strategically and
morally necessary, disregarding those states, in
Europe and elsewhere, that weep so readily for the
dead while caring so little for the living.

We must accept the world´s jealousy as a given and
must not become distracted by attempts to placate
European racists who refuse to set high standards
for governance in developing states. Indeed,
nothing so abets tyranny and oppression today as
French and German condescension toward black,
brown or yellow populations - and their unspoken
conviction that nonwhites remain inferior.

When Robert Mugabe, the Stalin of Zimbabwe, is
welcome in Paris, while the French government
takes pains to insult Colin Powell, you have a
very clear illustration of the ethics of French
diplomacy. The current wave of jokes about the
French are ill-judged only in the sense that the
French impulse toward racial totalitarianism is no
laughing matter. Ask the populations of Ivory
Coast or Rwanda. Or Algeria. Or of the brown and
black suburbs of Paris.

Of course, sincere allies will always be welcome
in this new century of struggle between
post-modern freedoms and the bankrupt
sur-realpolitik of Paris and Berlin. And we must
distinguish, of course, between Europe´s
freedom-loving frontier states, either on the
Atlantic periphery or in the east, and the
twilight states of "Old Europe."

Our natural allies are those who either have
pioneered democracy, such as Britain, or who have
struggled long and hard for their freedom -
Poland, Hungary, Spain and so many others who
suffered under Communism or fascism.

Saddam looks very different to a Romanian or
Latvian than he does to a German or a Frenchman.
The Frenchman sees a tantalizing business
proposition, while, as a friend of mine serving in
the Gulf remarked, "The Germans can´t help loving
Saddam. He´s a dictator with a mustache . . ."

Beyond Europe, America´s efforts to face down
tyrants are resisted by -surprise! - tyrants. The
United Nations never had the strategic relevance
its partisans insist Washington´s liberation of
Iraq will destroy. We should not seek to harm the
U.N., but we cannot prevent it from slashing its
own wrists.

We Americans can expect neither gratitude,
understanding nor support from the baroque regimes
of France, Germany and their fellow travelers.
Chancellor Schroeder? Bill Clinton without the
moral fiber. President Chirac? The mouth of de
Gaulle, the soul of Petain, and the morals of a
pimp. Humanitarian Belgium? Yeah, just ask the
Congolese. The European anti-war movement?
Necrophiliacs licking the corpse of Josef Stalin.

Europeans will always be willing to weep over the
dead. The United Statesmust take a stand for the
living. In Iraq. And beyond.