Europeans: But don't simply scoff; for us the idea that you would spend $87 billion on fighting in Iraq while your own people don't have health care is preposterous.

Dumb American: But was the death rate this August higher in the Sunni Triangle or Paris? We believe that a nanny state is not only inefficient, but, when the temperature rises, downright lethal.

This war would be over far sooner if 350 million Europeans insisted on a modicum of behavior from Middle Eastern rogue regimes, rounded up and tried terrorists in their midst, deported islamofascists, cut off funding to killers on the West Bank, ignored Yasser Arafat — and warned the next SOB who blew up Europeans in Turkey, North Africa, or Iraq that there was a deadly reckoning to come from the continent that invented the Western military tradition. Indeed, European sophistication and experience, combined with real power, could be a great aid to the West in its effort to promote liberal and consensual governments outside its shores. But if they do not even believe in the unique legacy of their civilization, then why should we — much less their enemies?