An American View of a European View of the American Election

In an article I found online tonight, Jonathan Freedland writes in the Guardian that Europe, and in his view the world, will be deeply disappointed in America and Americans if we don't elect Barack Obama in November. (here's a link to the article: The World's Verdict Will be Harsh if the US Rejects the Man it Yearns For).

I first ran into the "European View" of American politics when I lived in Ireland in 1985-6, during the Reagan Years. I knew several Irishmen who felt that the American elections were too important to be left to the American electorate. Their point, which has some merit, is that they in Europe, and indeed most of the world, are very much impacted by who occupies the White House. They didn't like Ronald Reagan as President. They felt he rattled the sabre too much. And it's certainly no secret that Europeans, and much of the world, don't like the incumbent.

The reader of this blog knows that I don't like the incumbent and that I favor Senator Obama over Senator McCain. At the same time, I lack an appreciation of the "European View," or the World View, if you want to expand the European View the way Mr Freedland does.

In my view, Europeans want to control the US while using the US to do their dirty work, and in my view Americans won't have that. Europeans love to look down on America and Americans while happily taking our money and our military protection. I think it's time Europe, which prides itself on being a world player, step up and be a world power. Right now, the US is the only military power in NATO. Great Britain and France can do a little bit on their own, but not much. The rest of NATO cannot leave its borders without US military assistance.

Europeans love to tell us how to use our military power, but they refuse to have any of their own. They love to tell us where we need to send peacekeepers (see Kosovo), but they cannot send any peacekeepers anywhere on their own without our logistical support. Their presence in Afghanistan is because we foot most of the bill. We fly them in and out, and we supply them.

My view, and I think the view of most Americans, is that Europeans need to pay what we pay for the military that protects them (from Russie, for example) before they can have any say in what we do or who we elect. And they need to get off their high horse about who we elect.