Friday, April 15, 2005

The Quiet European

Hooray for Europe.

Or at least part of it, and for a reminder that Europe is more than just France, Germany, Giuliana Sgrena, and Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

European Union nations failed to agree Friday on lifting their 15-year-old ban on arms sales to China, a proposal that had drawn heavy criticism from the United States and exposed internal divisions.

Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden want to retain the arms embargo because of China's shaky human rights record. Germany and France have long urged fellow EU members to lift the ban, arguing it hampers development of political, strategic and economic relations with burgeoning China.


Emphasis added. Britain I knew we could count on for a sane vote. The Netherlands has been right there with the Brits in terms of being able to see the world realistically, and overcome the endemic Euro-horror at anything that might put them in the same corner with America. Sweden? I had no clue. Maybe they hit the wrong button on the vote board. But Denmark has long been on my list of overlooked, underrated, and courageous European nations.

The Danes, as The Adventuress (I got it right this time) reminds us, not only collectively gave the Nazi occupiers the finger in the 1940s, today they "are defying enforced Islamification, dhimmitude and sharia with equal strength."

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