Recent polls show that Europeans consider the US a greater threat to global peace and stability than regimes such as Iran and North Korea, reports the FT. Bush called the result"absurd" and his host Wolfgang Schüssel, chancellor of Austria called it"grotesque."

Taken at face value, the polls are both absurd and grotesque. But the protest picture which accompanied the article (missing from the online version) clarifies matters in a most delightful way. The demonstrators carry a sea of placards reading"Gegen Krieg Und Kapitalismus" which translates in English to"Down with War and Capitalism." Below is a similar idea from a previous demonstration.

In other words, the demonstrators are self identified Marxists. They also waved Iranian flags demonstrating yet again the growing ties between the left and the Islamists noted recently in a French government report.

Indeed, the most useful way of understanding the European poll results is within the context of the Marxist/Socialist/anti-Globalist European outlook which prevails in large parts of Europe. When Europeans tell pollsters that the US is not a force for stability, they are not thinking exclusively of War in Iraq or even the larger War on Terror. They are also thinking of the consequences of globalization.

After all, Capitalism is based on constant innovation and creative destruction. Globalization is nothing more than Capitalism speeded up by technological development. Clearly, such a process does not enhance stability and, in as much as the US is an enthusiastic promoter of globalization, it acts as a destabilizing force. The same, of course, can be said about its promotion of freedom. When asked to choose between equality and growth, America chooses growth and freedom. Many Europeans do not. Members of the leftist/Islamist coalition certainly do not. For them real or pretend state managed"equality" trumps prosperity and freedom any day.

So, it's time for us to stop beating our chests looking for ways to appease the lovers of stability. Instead, we should hold our heads high for never have more humans lived in greater prosperity and freedom than at this day and age. And never had a single country done more to achieve this than the US.

It is no accident that the elections of a former East German as chancellor preceded the current transatlantic thaw or that the Hungarian, though betrayed in 1956, welcomed George W. Bush with a standing ovation. They experienced the reality of Marxist tyrannical equality, have no wish to do so again and they know the US is their best guarantor of their continued freedom. Those who have not or those who would like to force a more"just,""pure" or"submissive" life style on their fellow citizens know just as well that the US is their most formidable opponent.

Indeed, if Hungarians used to complain about America till 1991, it was for the same reason Middle Eastern democratic forces complain about it today. As far as they are concerned the US is not destabilizing enough. For it is to America as a liberating force that captives everywhere look up with hope.

Lorraine Paul - 6/30/2006

"The US....as a liberating force". Not at Guantanamo Bay they are not.

Not only "Bring the troops home" should be shouted from the rooftops, but "Free David Hicks" as well....

Shame, shame, shame!!! on the US Government leaders.

Ralph E. Luker - 6/23/2006

Of course! Of course! The guy in the shorts is dressed just like a mullah. Natural allies in all things.