Maybe They Were Right After All

One of the criticisms we heard leveled against Europe during the run-up to the Iraqi invasion was that they were cowardly, lacking the spine to stand up and do the right thing. At the time, I figured it was just bluster, the typical tantrum that the Duh-bya regime throws when it doesn’t get its way. After all, they couldn’t conceive of the possibility that their “evidence” was in any way flawed...

Now, however, I’m beginning to think they may have been onto something. France and Germany just agreed to forgive and/or restructure a substantial portion of Iraq’s debt, in exchange for... nothing. No revision of the order to bar them from bidding on contracts, no greater role in Iraq’s reconstruction, nothing. Dominique de Villepin may be saying elsewhere that debt forgiveness is dependent on independent Iraqi governance, but as far as we know, that ain’t what Chirac agreed to. And apparently, all Schroeder managed to do was make sure German concerns over the contracts issue was “clearly expressed.” The spin is that France and Germany want to start repairing relations with the United States; have they learned nothing from seeing this administration in action over the past few years? Bush’s cronies will gladly take whatever you offer, and then screw you — that’s what they do. It’s why the Democratic party is in such piss-poor shape: They keep trying to offer a “bipartisan” olive branch, and the Republican hobgoblins take their concessions and offer nothing in return.

Yes, I know that a stable Iraq is in Europe’s own best long-term interests. But hello! You’ve actually got something to use as leverage against the neofascist machine, and you collapse altogether. Say what you will about the Russians, but you sure as hell don’t see them rolling over like this.

Looks like we’ll have to stop little George all on our own.

In other news, my “Dean for America” bumper sticker managed to piss of some baseball-capped yokel in his pickup this morning. He’s screaming out his window, waving a newspaper — USA Today, the newspaper of true intellectuals. I naturally offered a one-fingered salute in return, all the while entertaining fantasies that he’d stop, get out of his truck, and enter into a physical confrontation. After all, I had his license plate number; it’d have been worth physical injury to know that I could have put a room-temperature IQ like this in jail for the holidays. And if the timing worked out right, he might be serving his final sentence around election time.

You know, I think I may have hit on a strategy here...