Is Europe being run by Cowards?

A very straight-forward and striking article has surfaced in Australia's national daily newspaper, The Australian.
On August 1st, a writer for the Australian Mathias Doepfner,wrote that Europe has weakened itself through appeasement.
In his article, he says:

Europe still hasn't learned. Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, European appeasement, camouflaged behind the fuzzy word equidistance, often seems to countenance suicide bombings in Israel by fundamentalist Palestinians.

Similarly, it generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore the almost 500,000 victims of Saddam Hussein's torture and murder machinery and, motivated by the self-righteousness of the peace movement, to harangue George W. Bush as a warmonger.

This hypocrisy continues even as it is discovered that some of the loudest critics of US action in Iraq made illicit billions - indeed, tens of billions - of dollars in the corrupt UN oil-for-food program.

Today we are faced with a particularly grotesque form of appeasement. How is Germany reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic fundamentalists in The Netherlands, Britain and elsewhere in Europe? By suggesting - wait for it - that the proper response to such barbarism is to initiate a Muslim holiday in Germany.

He goes on to say:

Instead of defending liberal values and acting as an attractive centre of power on the same playing field as the true great powers, the US and China, it (Europe) does nothing. On the contrary, we Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to the supposedly arrogant Americans, as world champions of tolerance, which even Germany Interior Minister Otto Schily justifiably criticises.

I have talked to many people here in America who are fed up with the attitudes. Attitudes that smell of isolationism, arrogance...and appeasement. That overall belief that since we are WAY over here in the strongest nation in the world, we are untouched by what's happening in those "foreign" countries. When we are faced with a direct attack or affront, most Americans fight back, some don't. Some prefer to appease. Some prefer to "understand" the Terrorists and offer consilatory gestures to sooth their feathers.
From what I read in this article, America is a proud nation but it stands to lose its courage through cowardice in dealing with terror. This is NOT the way to go.

Doepfner summed up the overall attitude of Europe in his final paragragh.

These days, Europe reminds me of an old woman who, with shaking hands, frantically hides her last pieces of jewelry when she notices a robber breaking into a neighbour's house. Appeasement? That is just the start of it. Europe, thy name is Cowardice.

I hope this will label will not be hung on us. Europe needs to "Grow a Pair" and America had best check its Big Brass Balls every now and then to make sure they are still there.