"To celebrate America’s Independence Day, I celebrated America’s independence – not just from George III but from the rest of what passes for the civilised world. You only have to listen to a couple of minutes of any BBC current affairs show or glance at the front pages of any Continental newspaper (or even, on particularly bad days, read selected Telegraph columnists) to realise that America is the western world’s odd man out, and has been increasingly since September 11th."
"Personally, I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m delighted the United States is “out of step” with, say, Belgium. Not because I’m Belgophobic. If the Belgians want to support the International Criminal Court, keep Saddam in office until his nuke arsenal is ready to fly, and continue subsidising Yasser Arafat’s pay-offs to the relicts of suicide bombers, that’s fine, go ahead, you’re an independent nation."
"[...] America is also an historical anomaly: the first non-imperial superpower. It has no colonies and no desire for any. For almost 60 years, it’s paid for the defence of the west virtually single-handed while creating and supporting structures – the UN, Nato, G8 – that exist only to allow its “allies” to pretend they’re on an equal footing. For “allies”, read dependencies: it’s because the US provides generous charity defence guarantees that the European governments have been free to fritter away their revenues on socialised health care and lavish welfare and all the other entitlements the Euro-progressives berate America for not providing for its own citizens. The non-arrogance of Washington is unparalleled in human history: it’s American muscle that tames Bosnia but it’s the risibly pompous Paddy Ashdown who gets to swank about the joint playing EU viceroy."
"In Washington, meanwhile, cooler assessments are being made. America knows now what multilateralism boils down to: There’s no point pooling resources with people who have no resources to pool. There’s no point getting together and forming a whole that’s less than the sum of your individual part."
"If that sounds “arrogant” to Europe, well, do something about it. You don’t want Bush to topple Saddam? Fine. Sign a mutual defence pact with Baghdad. You like Yasser that much? Send your mythical Rapid Reaction Force to guard Ramallah. That’s what real powers do. But sneering civil servants being patronising about colonials isn’t going to cut it. That argument was settled in 1776."
- Mark Steyn, "The Face of the Tiger", 2002
"Personally, I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m delighted the United States is “out of step” with, say, Belgium. Not because I’m Belgophobic. If the Belgians want to support the International Criminal Court, keep Saddam in office until his nuke arsenal is ready to fly, and continue subsidising Yasser Arafat’s pay-offs to the relicts of suicide bombers, that’s fine, go ahead, you’re an independent nation."
"[...] America is also an historical anomaly: the first non-imperial superpower. It has no colonies and no desire for any. For almost 60 years, it’s paid for the defence of the west virtually single-handed while creating and supporting structures – the UN, Nato, G8 – that exist only to allow its “allies” to pretend they’re on an equal footing. For “allies”, read dependencies: it’s because the US provides generous charity defence guarantees that the European governments have been free to fritter away their revenues on socialised health care and lavish welfare and all the other entitlements the Euro-progressives berate America for not providing for its own citizens. The non-arrogance of Washington is unparalleled in human history: it’s American muscle that tames Bosnia but it’s the risibly pompous Paddy Ashdown who gets to swank about the joint playing EU viceroy."
"In Washington, meanwhile, cooler assessments are being made. America knows now what multilateralism boils down to: There’s no point pooling resources with people who have no resources to pool. There’s no point getting together and forming a whole that’s less than the sum of your individual part."
"If that sounds “arrogant” to Europe, well, do something about it. You don’t want Bush to topple Saddam? Fine. Sign a mutual defence pact with Baghdad. You like Yasser that much? Send your mythical Rapid Reaction Force to guard Ramallah. That’s what real powers do. But sneering civil servants being patronising about colonials isn’t going to cut it. That argument was settled in 1776."
- Mark Steyn, "The Face of the Tiger", 2002
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