BILLMON ON SPAIN

See here:

Almost by definition, the war on terrorism is a joint venture, in which intelligence sharing, police cooperation, and quick responses are the critical factors, not who owns the most aircraft carriers. If the Europeans conclude the Bush administration isn't serious about fighting that kind of war, but would rather tilt at Middle Eastern windmills (or oil wells, as the case may be) they could decide their national interests would be best served by moving to the sidelines, and letting the Americans and Al Qaeda have at it.

The rest of the post is also provocative -- including the comparison of Bush to Kaiser Wilhelm (no, really!), which I don't have enough historical competence to judge one way or the other, but, as always, the arguments that Billmon makes are worth taking seriously.

I'm not sure that the Europeans really believe that they can "mov[e] to the sidelines," though. I received today a press alert from the German Bundesministerium der Justiz, in which the ministry puts pressure on the upper house of the German legislature to pass a law allowing for European cooperation on arrests and extraditions. It doesn't seem to me that German politicians are under the impression that they can avoid being the target of al Qaeda [or related groups], or that they can avoid the use of force abroad in appropriate circumstances (see here and here).

MORE: . . .unless, of course, Billmon is simply talking about European participation in Iraq, but my sense was that he was making a broader argument.