Old Europe Stared at Her Breakfast

( US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld dismissed those European countries which opposed the US attack on Iraq as only 'Old Europe' ) Old Europe stared at her breakfast, buttered her croissant, sipped coffee which tasted like a gun and blinked her grey eyes to restore the sun. Old Europe grasped at the old A.J.P. Taylor line, 'but in politics the impossible always happens' more and more, hoped for example, that the fact that the 'plant' for weapons in Northern Iraq was shown on the BBC an empty ex-Media Centre, and miles away a plain village, hoping not to be bombed, because by mistake young Colin, who apparently mistook often, used its name at the UN as that of the 'plant', would be accepted as a fact and then protected, thought Old Europe as her France loved to protect facts, as her Germany to act, or her Belgium to be. But, she reflected, in doubt and in debt, the future is not an ally over the sea which just needs to be convinced but a masked soldier, dead to Agincourt, Darmstadt, Verdun, wanting oil and meat and not understanding how a continental breakfast keeps the blood in your head, your brain not your gut. Old Europe set her spine straight in the doorway sun. Her hand crumbled bread as if it were old bone.