BRUSSELS -- In the wake of the crisis meeting of the European Union's Population Board, EU ministers have called on the United States to begin an emergency airlift of "population uncontrol" measures to the European Union's shrinking native populations. European historians are likening the crisis to West Berlin's cry for food and medicine following the Soviet blockade in 1948.
The United States Congress has agreed to fund and supply air drop shipments of Viagra and oysters, using NATO aircraft, to key areas of thirteen European countries where native Europeans are still sizeable minorities.
"The logistics of the drops are key," said General James L. Jones, the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe and the Commander of the United States European Command, who will head the mission, code named Operation Oyster, from the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Mons, Belgium.
"If we inadvertently supply immigrant populations instead of actual Europeans we will exacerbate rather than ameliorate the problem. The way I read it that would be bad," said Jones.
"The latest demographic analyses are graphic: without outside assistance Europe as we know it will cease to exist within the next 50 to 75 years -- just a blink of the eye in the context of the storied history of 'old Europe,' which is, not uncoincidentally, becoming old Europe even as this report is being written," Wolfgang Lutz of the Vienna Institute of Demography, a part of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
The EU Population Board is also calling for the Roman Catholic Church to take the unusual step of extending its ban on artificial birth control beyond its own adherents to "lapsed Catholics, unbelievers and infidels." Although the Board says it recognizes that this measure may have limited impact, it feels it may help create "an uncomfortable atmosphere regarding birth control use among the general population," which may have some utility in increasing birthrates.
Air drops are necessary, rather than standard military truck convoys, experts say, because of residential patterns in most European urban areas as well as the necessity of hitting remote rural areas.
"Most native European populations are essentially held hostage inside their old cities ringed by large complexes of subsidized housing filled primarily with immigrants, legal and other than legal," said Belgium's Louvain-la-Neuve University professor and demographer Michel Loriaux.
"As the recent French riots have shown, traversing these areas in land vehicles can be extremely hazardous," said Dr. Loriaux.
"It's funny how this whole thing has turned three sixty. The feared population bomb of the 1970's has turned out to be a dud. Now the military that used to bring us wars as a primitive form of population control is being asked to use its bombers as storks flying in the babies," said demographer Loriaux.
The countries receiving assistance are Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
In an extremely rare instance of Franco-American military cooperation, the French will prepare the oysters for eating by sautéing them in a light sauce béarnaise . The French are also providing a supply of barrel fermented off-dry Chardonnay, which is nicely balanced and complex, and works well with Viagra.
Copyright 2006, Douglas Salguod
