Europe's leftist elites

Martin Peretz sums up the problems faced by modern Europe:

Europe is also making the disenchanting journey from social democracy, but via a different route. Its elites had not foreseen that a virtually unchecked Muslim immigration might hijack the welfare state and poison the postwar culture of relative tolerance that supported its politics. To the contrary, Europe's leftist elites lulled the electorates into a false feeling of security that the new arrivals were simply doing the work that unprecedented low European birth rates were leaving undone. No social or cultural costs were to be incurred. Transaction closed. Well, it was not quite so simple. And, while the workforce still needs more workers, the economies of Europe have been dragged down by social guarantees to large families who do not always have a wage-earner in the house. So, even in the morally self-satisfied Scandinavian and Low Countries, the assuring left-wing bromides are no longer believed.

Unfortunately, the Europeans seem to be a little too late realizing what a diaster Islamic immigration has been for their continent.

Around the Blogosphere:

The Norwegian military reports on Theo Van Gogh: The Al-Qaeda connection

The Islamic Iceberg

In Europe, new force for recruiting radicals

I Have a Bad Feeling About This, Captain Picard