Read this excellent article by Mark Steyn, as posted by DFME, about Europe with regard to the welfare supplied by the USA.

I was astounded when, after the targeted killing of Sheikh Yassin in Gaza, someone wrote to me that Israel had no right to do such a thing, because it endangered American troops in Iraq. I think that was more or less the wording, I can’t check because I deleted the e-mail long ago.

Now I can think of plenty of reasons for not killing Sheikh Yassin, although I wholeheartedly support that action and others like it, this is war and he was one of the main enemies, but I really fail to see the connection to American soldiers stationed in Iraq.

Some Americans get very annoyed with Israel when it doesn’t function solely with the USA’s interests in mind, as they see them, before its own, even if this endangers Israel’s very existence. They think that, if such a dilemma should arise, Israel should always choose to act against its own interest, because the USA is footing the bill.

That is a hard one to argue, moreover I don’t like to argue it, because I don’t want to be seen as ungrateful, when I’m not.

I believe Israel and all its citizens are very aware, on a very daily basis, of how much it owes the USA. The need to balance our security needs with USA interests is something that I am sure our leaders take very seriously. This claim by some Americans is therefore certainly worthy of our attention, even though on occasion it may seem to us a bit loopy.

I am continually amazed therefore, that these very same Americans seem to make no such accusations where Europe is concerned. In fact they utterly support Europe when it repeatedly damages the interests of the USA, that most generous of benefactors.

But how can this be? Defending Europe costs them a far greater percentage of their tax money than the defense of Israel. But these Americans seem to have no problem with the Europeans, who, unlike Israel and the Israelis, are quite convinced that they live their lives of quiet affluence and peace because they are better people, definitely far better than the Americans, and that their happy, relatively carefree existence has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that they are enjoying the military protection of the USA, paid for by the very American taxpayers they so despise.

Could it be that these particular Americans actually buy into the Europeans’ pompous and ridiculous belief of their inherent superiority over the Americans? Could it be that they too have forgotten that twice during the last century Europe plunged itself, and the whole world with it, into a nightmare of death and destruction, which only came to an end when the USA intervened?

Naaaah, these are educated people, they couldn’t be that idiotic.