Having wrecked the Special Branch, writes Kevin Myers, demoralised the middle ranks, caused a mass flight of the experienced officer class in the old RUC, and permanently instituted sectarianism in its replacement force, PSNI, Chris Patten was back in Ireland last week slyly attacking the US.
His admonishments went down well, as US-bashing has tended to go down well over much of Europe for the last few months - oh, you know, stuff on the lines that the US is naïve, has no sense of history, is obsessed with military might.
It is obsessed with military might. It is right to be. The history of the world shows that political systems which do not defend themselves vanish, either because of internal turbulence or outside aggression. Merely because you have democracy doesn't mean it can't disappear when circumstances change. Argentina, Germany, Mexico, Austria, Czechoslovakia: they all thought democracy was there to stay. It wasn't, simply because their ruling classes didn't do anything to defend it, assuming it would last for ever.
|Lightly armed garrison
Nothing does; and political institutions survive only because those who run them not merely are determined to defend them, but are prepared to spend treasure to do so. A lightly armed garrison is one that sooner or later is bound to fall; and this is precisely what Europe has become.
Worse, under half a century of US protection, it has grown sleek and sanctimonious, and feels free to lecture the US regularly on such matters as poverty and the environment.
Europe is the richest aggregation of peoples in world history. Within the auspices of Pax Americana, it has embarked upon the greatest amalgamation of states ever envisaged; yet the deeper defence implications of such a union of rich countries remain risibly neglected. The French produce one fighter; the Spanish, the British and the Germans another. Neither has stealth capacities. European armies are equipped with every kind of weapon, every variety of tank and armoured car. And this, despite the membership of either NATO or the Western European Defence Union. Far from having inter-operable services, Europe hasn't even got inter-operable screwdrivers.
Who stopped the war in Bosnia? Who stopped the one in Kosovo? Well, you know who. Not us. In neither case was Europe able to do anything at all to curtail these wars, though we are rather good at wringing our hands; and there was the disturbing suspicion that the French were following an independent, pro-Serbian agenda throughout, as if France was still able successfully to conduct meaningful and separate policy in European countries far from its borders.
France has got a single aircraft carrier which can just about float, but won't go anywhere. While they were designing the Charles de Gaulle, the French refused all offers of assistance from the only successful makers of nuclear aircraft carriers in the world - the US. Now the Americans can watch this sad turkey behave with the maritime characteristics of the airport of that name rather than of an aircraft carrier, and murmur through their teeth: well, sorry guys, but don't say we didn't warn you.
French health service
The French provide the quintessential difference between pampered Europe and realistic America. Their health service is probably the best in the world; not merely is it provided on demand, but it actively seeks you out. Doctors visit all children every month in their homes, as a matter of routine, and equally routinely prescribe a range of medications to be shoved up the bottom, including homeopathic ones, all paid for - naturally - by the state.
Sounds great, doesn't it? And it is great, if you like the sort of high-taxation regime which is required to pay for such nannying folly. Which is why France is slipping down the economic tables, 12th at the latest count and still falling, why French economic growth is stagnant, why inward investment in France is falling year on year, why a quarter of a million French immigrants are working in London - and why, finally, an entire generation of children is being expensively nurtured into lifelong hypochondria.
Europeans are still infants squabbling in the nursery, bawling that Big Uncle Sam downstairs doesn't take them seriously. And that's true. He doesn't. Why should he? Why should he seek France's, or Germany's or Italy's permission to confront delinquent regimes across the world which are a regional threat, or which, as a matter of policy, harbour and give succour to terrorists?
Application of force
Yet the reality is that, far from the US wanting to go it alone, it actually prefers companionship in the application of force away from its shores. It did so in Vietnam, and it is doing so in Afghanistan, where its troops are operating with New Zealand, Australian, Canadian and British special forces.
Anything familiar about that line-up? Does it remind you just the eensiest-teensiest bit of the alliance of 60 years ago? That tells you not just how little Europe has learned after half a century of defence dependency, but also how far it must travel before it can be taken seriously as a military ally, never mind - God bless the mark - before it gets the right to be consulted on the implementation of US foreign policy.
That policy may not always be right; most people in Ireland disapprove of the Cuban trade boycott, and in as much as I understand it, I would share that opinion. But so what? Why should the Americans take any of us Europeans seriously? In terms of military technology, we are two generations behind the US. However, in terms of suppositories, the EU probably leads the world.