Why Balkenende should talk a bit more about Srebrenica

Mark Steyn is on a roll:

'So the choice for voters on the Euro-ballot is apparently: yes to the European Constitution, or yes to a new Holocaust. If there's a neither-of-the-above box, the EU's rulers are keeping quiet about it. The notion that the Continent's peoples are basically a bunch of genocidal whackoes champing at the bit for a new bloodbath is one I'm not unsympathetic to. But it's a curious rationale to pitch to one's electorate: vote for us; we're the straitjacket on your own worst instincts. Or as the cute but gloomy Omar Naber, the Slovenian Eurovision entrant, put it in his Naberly way: "Come on; tie my hands so I can drown In lies, I bleed to death in your lap."'

'And, insofar as the past 60 years in Europe have been comparatively non-bloody, that's surely due to Nato and the American military presence, both of which your average EU apparatchik would scrap in an instant without worrying about Theresienstadts looming round the corner. The nearest to a latterday Theresienstadt was Yugoslavia and that didn't exactly reflect well on the EU. Jacques Poos, foreign minister of Luxembourg and as the holder of the rotating Euro-Presidency the Union's chief negotiator with the disintegrating Yugoslavia, told the Americans to butt out and declared: "The hour of Europe has come!" The hour of Europe came and went, and a couple hundred thousand corpses later the EU was only too grateful for the Americans to butt back in again.'

Although Steyn has never been a stranger to hyperbole he has a point. The Dutch let Srebrenica happen. A cabinet fell over that, albeit years later and only a few weeks before elections were to take place anyway. Dutch soldiers, mind you, who were at the mercy of French general Bernard Janvier, who basically told the Dutch soldiers to go to hell when they requested air support. How's that for European cooperation? We told the UN we could do it, but over 7,000 Bosniak men and boys died. It's one of the few examples of Europe having acted on its own, and I can't say it helps Balkenende to make his case.

Now, I'd rather be talking about the contents of a constitution which I've opposed for years, rather than discuss past war crimes, but you'll only have to scroll downwards to see at what level our government wants to pursue the debate. Well, at your service!

(Incidentally, that the VVD dared to include Srebrenica in this sick pro-EU commercial only indicates that they should read a book every now and then. This one will do.)

19:36

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Avoid a Dutch 9/11: support the constitution!

Just heard Balkenende and sidekick Donner suggest we can't fight terrorism without the European constitution. I'm sure Dutchman Gijs de Vries, who's in charge of Europe's anti-terrorism efforts, will be real glad to hear that. Anyway, I'm not going to waste any more words on our beloved prime minister. May Hermione transmogrify him into a cruise missile we could lob at Al Qaeda; that way "Harry Potter" would at least be useful. Urgh.

19:30

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This must be a conspiracy

The PR campaign to get the Dutch to vote in favor of the European constitution is run so incredibly bad that I wonder if it's their intention to get a no vote. For example:
• Did anyone think of the symbolism of inviting a German foreign minister on Dutch PBS to threaten us with another pan-European war, keeping in mind which country started the last two, and also considering this particular minister was in league with a terrorist group (the Rote Armee Fraktion) right until the moment it started to use violence? Now I don't mind the Germans - heck, when studying in Dublin, I had a German roommate - but I'm 29. There's still a sizeable number of people there that lived through at least part of WWII, and got raised in an anti-German atmosphere. They might not take so kindly to Joschka Fischer telling them what to do.
• Neither does it seem wise to have the Belgian prime minister trying to convince us we will lose influence in the EU if we don't go along with the constitution (never mind that agreeing to this constitution will do that, not voting against it) and threaten (there seem to be very few real arguments in favor, at least, I don't hear the proponents using them) the constitution might still go along even if we vote 'no'. Yeah, antagonize the Dutch even more will help. Incidentally, the results of the interview were accessible on the news service of cell provider Vodafone before it was alleged to take place, but otherwise than that, fair Dutch people, you're not observing a carefully orchestrated propaganda campaign, and you should trust denials of your government to that effect. Verhofstadt and Fischer regularly get involved in Dutch political affairs, like when... er...
• Come to think of it, the government slogan to promote Europe is 'Europa, best belangrijk'. This translates to 'Europe, well, I guess it's kinda important' and the slogan was widely ridiculed.
• Minority (Labour) leader Wouter Bos now says he wants a second referendum if the first one doesn't provide him with the 'yes' vote he desires. It's not that they don't take their constituents seriously, mind you, it's just that they, as our shepherds, want to make sure we make the right choice - no matter how long it takes... Unless, of course, we can also have a second referendum if the result is a 'yes'.

8:34

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