Greece and Italy Are the Founders of Western Civilization - Why Is the EU Tormenting Them?

The past few days, I've been trying to make sense of the European Union's reaction to two important crises -- one inside the EU tself and the other pounding at its shores. Of course, the first is Greece, toward which the EU seems to be more a tormentor than a protector. The second is the wave of boat migrants that threatens to overwhelm Italy while the EU looks on from afar in seeming indifference both to its member state's plight and to the drowning migrants. My thoughts led me to consider the nature of the two countries being mistreated and ignored by the EU -- Greece, the "cradle of western civilization," and Italy, the birthplace of the Roman Empire that became Europe and the home of the Catholic Church and Renaissance that created the humanist values on which the modern western world is built. ~~~~~ Greece is being fleeced by inflexible ideologues and politicians who know she cannot survive their actions. Why? I don't know. But, Germany's leaders, in particular Chancellor Merkel's Finance Minister Schaeuble, seem to delight in bullying Greece. I don't often support the left, but Greece's socialist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is absolutely right to say "Enough." The EU position reminds me of a Mafia loanshark operation with Schaeuble and the IMF's Lagarde as the enforcers. In late breaking news yesterday, to keep Greece afloat, Tsipras has ordered local Greek government units to move their funds to the central bank. With negotiations over bailout aid deadlocked, Tsipras needs the cash for salaries, pensions and a repayment to the IMF. Greek bonds fell after the move, pushing three-year yields to a crippling 28.7%, the highest since the nation’s debt restructuring in 2012. The move shows that the Greek government's insolvency has become a liquidity problem as the country tries to make its May payment of over €700 million to the IMF. When Tsipras's finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, ruled out agreeing to the demands of Eurozone creditors -- that Greece continue its destructive austerity program in order to repay its Eurozone debt on schedule -- he said : “We are not prepared to carry on pretending and extending trying to enforce an unenforceable program which for five years now has steadfastly refused to produce any tangible benefits....a problem of insolvency for five years has been dealt with as a problem of liquidity." Well, the insolvency has become a liquidity problem because of the EU and IMF refusal to make bridge funds available to Greece, which is about to be swamped. One has to ask why Germany and the IMF refuse to compromise by stretching out loan repayments and forgiving some of the interest due. The only answer seems to be that they are indifferent to or want to see Greece fail. ~~~~~ And Saturday's capsized boat off Libya, followed by several more - with a death toll reaching 1,500 in 2015 - highlights another Mafia, from Africa and the Middle East and apparently largely Moslem, who are human traffickers operating in Libya and fleecing their victims before putting them on death boats, heading out into international waters, sending distress signals and then leaving the boats, sometimes with hundreds of migrants locked in holds. Each trafficker makes up to €80,000 per boatload. Where is humanity hiding? Not in the EU, whose leaders want to concentrate on keeping boats from leaving Libya by cracking down on traffickers. A noble goal, but it does nothing to save the lives of drowning victims who were fleeing disastrous conditions of war, persecution and starvation at home. Only Italy, helped by Malta, are out in the Mediterranean Sea close to Libya looking for survivors. Italy describes the EU Triton program as inadequate because it only patrols close to the Italian shoreline and has a budget only 1/3 that of Italy's effort. The European Union's foreign minister, Federica Mogherini, added migration as a last-minute emergency issue to an EU foreign ministers' meeting on Monday in Luxembourg. "Europe can do more and Europe must do more," Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, said Sunday. "It is a shame and a confession of failure how many countries run away from responsibility and how little money we provide for rescue missions." Some 8,500 boat refugees have been saved and taken to Italy since April 1. Last year, 170,000 refugees from Africa and the Middle East entered Europe through Italy, according to the UN. Some estimates suggest the number may triple this year, as political and economic stability in their home countries worsens. The European Council will meet on Thursday to discuss the problem, but its president says there are no short term solutions available. ~~~~~ The question is this. Is the EU deliberately encouraging the continuation of conditions that could destroy Greece and substantially weaken Italy? The perceived symbolic center of the EU is in the Northern tier. The Southern perimeter countries were sought originally as Eurozone members to grow the Eurozone faster and to have greater impact earlier. Perhaps now, as the entire Euro experiment falters because the North and the South are not compatible in a common currency based on Germany's high tech manufacturing economy, Germany is asking : “What have you done for us lately?” If we turn the question around, Chancellor Merkel has done very little except in a negative way for Greece, Italy, Spain and Ireland. They have become trading chips for what she and her EU seek. Power. Stability. Influence. Commercial Success. Here are some points to consider. ~~~~~ The EU needs dependable non-Russian sources for energy. Reaching an agreement or partnership with the Moslem world could provide a level of energy security worth the sacrifice of Greece and/or Italy, and it could also provide a guaranteed market of 1.4 billion people for German manufacturers. What quid pro quo could this partnership be based on? A strategic look at the Mediterranean Sea shows that the collapse of Greece, Spain, and Italy would give the entire Mediterranean coastline to the Moslems, with Iran and ISIS and other jihadist terror groups vying for control of all shipping lines - from the Suez, Black Sea, and Adriatic Sea into the Mediterranean and then through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Atlantic. Israel would be completely cut off from the West. The Suez Canal would be lost. Only France would have Mediterranean coastal access. So, if control of the Mediterranean is part of Iran's and the jihadists' aims and if Germany wants to buy them off in return for security for Northern "Fortress Europe," the sacrifice of the Southern perimeter might seem enticing. But, dear readers, Chancellor Merkel surely realizes that no deal agreed upon today with Iran or the jihadist world will be worth anything tomorrow. So, my guess is that the above scenario must be at least partially subliminal in the German and northern EU psyche. ~~~~~ Another component in the EU's indifference to Greece and Italy is undoubtedly religious and cultural. Greece, Italy and Spain have deeply Catholic Christian cultures. Northern Europe has long considered itself "post-Christian." While Greece, Italy and Spain fight off EU efforts to obliterate national identity by striving to preserve the Catholic and cultural aspects of their daily lives, Northern Europe is broadly indifferent to forced religious and cultural homogeneity. It may be that German and Northern EU antipathy to the problems of Greece and Italy, and eventually Spain, is deeply rooted in Europe's intellectual disdain for Christianity. That would make the inflexible attitude of the EU's Northern power centers toward the Southern perimeter recognizable -- it is the sense of European cartesian elites that Christian philosophy and theology are inferior. All Christians will recognize this attitude. In America it is the smug assurance of science that religion is inferior because it does not show up in a microscope -- not yet -- but the God particle research may soon put cracks in that argument. In Europe, the smugness is based on the sense that cartesian logic demands the denial of God, putting Greece, Italy and Spain on a lesser intellectual level. But the EU should not forget that without Christianity and its all-encompassing God of love, they would probably be much like the world of Islam -- unable to break out of their (teutonic and celtic) xenophobic tribal prejudices and fears in order to develop as they have under Christianity. Whatever the reasons, Chancellor Merkel and her EU need to prove that Europe is capable of united action to save the Mediterranean for the West and to demonstrate that the EU is part of western civilization by compassionately helping its patriarchs - Greece and Italy.