Excerpt:
For Bush, it’s a win–win situation. If the Palestinians elect the Hamas crowd, he can say, ‘Fine, I respect your choice. Call me back when you decide to put self-government before self-detonation.’ If they opt for plausible state and municipal legislators, Bush will have re-established an important principle: that when the Americans sign on to nation-building they do so only to bring into being functioning democratic, civilised states — as they did with postwar Germany and Japan. Who’s to say it couldn’t work in Palestine? Not being a colonial power, the Americans don’t have that win-a-few-lose-a-few attitude — here a Canada, there a Zimbabwe — that the British have. So the Bush plan is perfect: heads we win, tails you lose. That’s also how some of these other international questions are being framed: heads, the International Criminal Court will be modified to our satisfaction; tails, we won’t have to do any more lousy UN peacekeeping.
The question Matthew Parris might like to ask as he weeds his borders is why could no European leader make a speech like that? How did it come about that the entire EU reflexively stuck with an aging terrorist who cancelled the last scheduled elections? Which bear is really the one with the little brain? The one who in under three weeks has changed the dynamic of the Palestinian question? Or the one whose gags are as stale as his world view?
Europeans expend an awful lot of energy explaining why nothing can change: it’s ‘absurdly ignorant’ even to suggest getting rid of Arafat; it’s preposterous to pursue ‘crackpot’ (John Simpson) plans for missile defence because it would ‘humiliate’ the Russians. But Bush went ahead, and the Russians are fine about it, and Yasser’s packing, and, behind the scenes, the Aussies and Canucks and not a few others are relieved that the unilateralist cowboy has killed Kyoto. Bush tosses a pebble in the water and the ripples spread across the lake; the EU drops a huge rock of conventional wisdom and it sinks without trace. I’ve said before that, if America is Coke, the world could use a Pepsi. If the EU doesn’t have the will to fulfil that role militarily, it could at least try to do it intellectually, with a bit of fresh creative thinking about some of these issues. But instead it clings to 1970s terrorists, 1970s missile treaties and 1970s environmental doom-mongering. Poor old Europe: never mind walking the walk, it can’t even talk the talk.
Posted on 07/11/2002 11:13 AM Central by white trash redneck
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Excerpt:
Sources close to Senator John McCain, speaking on condition of anonymity, have signaled over the weekend that he will not seek reelection as Arizona's senior elected official in the next election cycle, 2004. Various factors were cited, including health, dwindling popularity amongst the state's GOP voters, and lack of cash-on-hand in his reelection war chest. Mr. McCain suffers from recurrent melanoma, and has undergone several surgeries since his failed year-2000 Presidential candidacy, for treatment and removal of the virulent form of skin cancer. It is not known when Mr. McCain plans to make a formal announcement. |