The Soviet Union was even closer. Interestingly, I do not know a single European -- today -- who does not believe he/she always wanted the Soviet peoples to be free, and that Europe did the most to make this freedom come true.

Moe:

They're kidding themselves, eh?

That 'stability' thing has worked so well in the last century or so hasn't it? It didn't really work after the Congress of Vienna so that notion that it would work now is beyond stupid.

Nature isn't stable. History isn't stable. Man isn't stable. Why should anyone think that we can make international affairs in any serious way stable?

In the eyes of the EU folks until someone flies an airplane into the Louvre or blows up the International Court of Justice at The Hague, there really isn't anything to get all upset about as far as the war on terror goes. After all, outside of a few train bombings in Madrid, al Qaida hasn't done anything bad to them, and those bombs took out a conservative Spanish government, so even there you've got mitigating circumstances.

(Of course, you do have the militant Islamic roving gangs threatening people on the continent, but that's their version of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's defining deviancy down, since it's a gradual decline instead of a sudden shock to the system, like 9/11 was. It's also akin to the story about putting a frog into a pot of water and then slowly turning up the water so he's unaware of the temperature rise until he boils to death.)

Ditto Bart. There's no stability this side of the grave.

If they hadn't dithered for 4 or 5 years in the Balkans, things might (would) have been different. And if Bush Sr. had knocked their collective heads together in 1991, things surely would have been different.

No room for complaints now.