Europe's shame
On 13 August, Anatoly Medetsky and Anna Smolchenko of the Moscow Times wrote a story titled "Sarkozy Clinches a 6-Point Plan for Peace". The report contained this remarkable snippet: "Sarkozy, who in his usual manner gestured heavily during the news conference, said the plan they had come up with might not seem like much but that the most important task was to stop the fighting and bloodshed. 'It's not that I wasn't brave enough. It's much easier to write an editorial than to bring people closer,' he said." Eh?
Reading further, we learn that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev "reverted to the tough rhetoric usually heard from his mentor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, using the words like 'bastards' and 'hoodlums' at the news conference. (A recent public opinion poll found that Putin remains hugely popular because of his earthy language.)" Eh?
Two things: As soon as French President Nicolas Sarkozy left Moscow, the Russians ignored the plan and have treated it with contempt ever since. Secondly, the Euro MSM, matching its trans-Atlantic counterpart in dishonesty, spun the story to the effect that Sarkozy had negotiated an honourable deal and that Medvedev had behaved like a civilized leader. Wrong and wronger.
Today, Sarkozy, accompanied by José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, and Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, returns to Moscow to urge Russia to honour the plan negotiated a month ago. What a truly shameful moment in European history! The sight of these representatives of 27 democracies pleading with thugs is truly humiliating and it exposes the myth of Europe's much trumpeted "soft power". The reality is that when it comes to dealing with the Russian war machine, the EU lacks hard power and must make do with the opposite. In the eyes of Putin and Medvedev, however, soft power means no power. These muscular men equate soft with impotent. Seeing that both prefer "earthy language", they'll probably look Sarkozy, Barroso and Solana in the eye today and snigger, "You just can't get it up!" Chastened, our brave trio will then return to Brussels and emerge, solemn of mien, with another peace plan for our time. The flunkies will sing its praises, but we've been here before.
