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Neocons accused of undermining Europe
Europeans tend to blame Americans for everything: childhood obesity, financial turmoil, mindless television entertainment. Now Europeans are even blaming Americans — well, just neocon Americans — for Ireland’s recent rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, designed to make Europe stronger by streamlining the European Union’s balky bureaucracy.
The words were clear: “Europe has powerful enemies on the other side of the Atlantic, gifted with considerable financial means.” The speaker was France’s Europe Minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet, addressing a pro-European rally in Lyon, France last weekend.
According to Germany’s Der Spiegel newspaper, he was putting the blame for the Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty on some surprising shoulders: neoconservatives in the United States. “The role of the American neocons was very important in the victory of the ‘no,’ ” Jouyet said.
The newspaper said it has been alleged that U.S. funding helped support one of the most powerful groups campaigning against the treaty, Libertas. Libertas has said that its main gripe with the Lisbon Treaty is that it was anti-democratic and could undermine Irish business interests.
So why would American neocons want a rejection of the Lisbon Treaty? It’s not really clear from the article. But it does point out that John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said that the treaty would “undercut NATO,” something that would be a huge mistake.
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