Six-and-a-half years ago, I stood in front of the burnt-out shell of Bosnia's National Library in Sarajevo and felt deeply ashamed to be a European, writes Frank McDonald
After all, here was a European capital city that had been under siege for longer than Leningrad - and we Europeans did nothing to relieve the appalling plight of its people or save their irreplaceable Islamic manuscripts.
It took US fire-power to lift that murderous siege and US diplomacy to cobble together the Dayton agreement, which brought the war in Bosnia to an end.
I was reminded of this shameful episode on a recent visit to Ethiopia. Under the chandeliers of Addis Ababa's lavish Sheraton Hotel, an Irish doctor working with GOAL gave me an earful about the looming war against Iraq. "Why doesn't Europe do something to stop it?" she asked. "Why doesn't Europe stand up for itself?" I had to explain that "Europe" doesn't see itself as an entity, at least not yet. Despite the euro freely circulating in 12 of the 15 EU member states, "Europe" has no meaning when it comes to the most important issue of all - war and peace.
A disconsolate Romano Prodi, the European Commission's President, said earlier this month: "Either we speak with a single voice, or there will be no voice for Europe." Just a few days earlier, five member-states - Britain, Denmark, Italy, Portugal and Spain - had signed a letter stressing the value of the long-standing bond between "Europe" and the US. Other countries critical of President Bush's policy on Iraq, notably France and Germany, were not asked to sign it. Even the Greek EU presidency was kept in the dark.
It is profoundly significant that the names on the letter included three countries - the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland - which will soon join the EU. All three are unashamedly pro-American. Like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, they have sound historical reasons to be wary of Russian expansion, not least because they recently suffered under the yoke of the Soviet Union. Who better to protect them now than good ol' Uncle Sam? Hence the rush by many of the former central and eastern European countries to join NATO, even before joining the EU.
What happened in Bosnia has been noted by the political elites in Budapest, Prague, Warsaw and other capitals in the former Soviet empire. These representatives of the "new Europe", as the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has called it, saw how pusillanimous the leaders of "old Europe" proved to be in confronting Serb aggression. Why should they be even remotely interested in a common European security and defence policy when they can seek ultimate protection, through membership of NATO, from the world's only remaining superpower?
It is also very significant that the three candidate EU countries that signed the pro-US letter all believe that a second UN Security Council resolution on Iraq is not essential, that they would probably support unilateral action by the US and Britain in the absence of such a resolution and that they might even participate themselves, at least symbolically, in a US-led attack on Iraq. So, indeed, might France. Despite its diplomatic posturing on the issue, a French aircraft carrier is now steaming towards the Gulf; the French don't want to be left out of any divvy-up of Iraq's oil.
Germany has suffered US opprobrium for its insistence on a second UN resolution and its declaration that, even then, it will not participate militarily in the US effort to crush Saddam Hussein. Austria, Finland and Sweden - all neutral countries - have taken a similar stand. Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands - all NATO members - would have reservations, strong or otherwise, about supporting US action in the absence of a second resolution. Greece and Luxembourg might support action in certain circumstances, while Italy, Portugal and Spain would almost certainly row in behind the US.
Where does Ireland stand? With the most globalised economy in the world, so heavily dependent on inward investment - particularly from the US - could we really have said No to American troops and munitions being transported through Shannon? Not to have made the airport available would have run the risk of scary Donald Rumsfeld throwing another temper tantrum, as he did in Munich last weekend, when he lashed out at France, Germany and Belgium for stalling NATO plans to protect Turkey in the event of war against Iraq.
So "Europe" has nothing to say about the war. It is just the Tower of Babel, speaking in tongues - all of them different. Some of those who voted twice for the Nice Treaty, including myself, did so because we believe that "Europe" should become a power in the world, offering a viable, more caring alternative to brazen US imperialism.
And, yes, that would involve all EU member-states, including Ireland, signing up for a common security policy - however much this would be deplored by defenders of Irish "neutrality", all of them no doubt currently campaigning against a US-led attack. But the chances of "Europe" separating itself from the US have been dealt a potentially lethal blow by EU expansion to the east.