Ooh, be scared. The mighty Europeans are going to challenge Nato.

I guess they can all cut back on their vacations to finance a military. Yeah, like that's ever going to happen.

Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen has this post:

The Sunday London Times has a piece, by their Paris correspondent Charles Bremner on European politics which begins thus:
EUROPE'S self-inflicted wounds over Iraq will be on display tomorrow, when the leaders of France and Germany - dubbed the "Axis of Weasels" in America - start to try to lay the groundwork for a European Union military alliance that would compete with NATO.
Pardon me? An alliance which would compete with NATO? The only reason NATO exists is to protect France an Germany against an attack by the Soviet Union. Who are the Germans and the French going to protect themselves against? An attack by Luxembourg (which IS a member of NATO)?

The answer seems surprisingly obvious. I'm amazed that Galen didn't see it right off. The European Alliance would support those who would invade Europe. That way the Europeans can make money selling arms to the invaders and get the benefits of NATO bases subsidizing their local economies. The last time something like this happened was when Milo Minderbinder accepted a subcontract from the Germans to attack a bridge as to which he had a subcontract from the Allies to defend.