Unilaterism = Acting without France
Watching President Bush's excellent State of the Union Address, I noted that no matter how many countries Bush listed who supported the US over Iraq, it wouldn't be anything but a unilateral mission for liberals without the support of the 'right' people, The French. Maureen Dowd demonstrates that about as well as I could ever have hoped in the New York Times:
You wonder how many votes [Bush] scared off with that testosterone festival: the taunting message, the self-righteous geographic litany of support? The Philippines. Thailand. Italy. Spain. Poland. Denmark. Bulgaria. Ukraine. Romania. The Netherlands. Norway. El Salvador.
Can you believe President Bush is still pushing the cockamamie claim that we went to war in Iraq with a real coalition rather than a gaggle of poodles and lackeys?
Let's see the President's list again:
Some critics have said our duties in Iraq must be internationalized. This particular criticism is hard to explain to our partners in Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, the Netherlands -- (applause) -- Norway, El Salvador, and the 17 other countries that have committed troops to Iraq. (Applause.) As we debate at home, we must never ignore the vital contributions of our international partners, or dismiss their sacrifices.
Britain, Australia, Japan, Italy, Spain, Poland, South Korea - a huge number of the leading nations in the world - are 'poodles and lackeys'? How ignorant can one get?
Bush continues:
From the beginning, America has sought international support for our operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we have gained much support. There is a difference, however, between leading a coalition of many nations, and submitting to the objections of a few.
But for Dowd and her fellow travellers, submitting to the objections of a few is exactly what diplomacy must be about. By elevating France to level of moral titans, their President's decision the deciding factor in whether every conflict should or should not be waged, liberals hope to erect an almost insuperable barrier to America acting globally in Western interests. What is perhaps worst about this is that the list of nations supporting the Second Gulf War is dominated by those whose peoples best understand freedom, because in the twentieth century they spilt blood, tears and sweat to achieve it, or because they were denied it by decades of Soviet socialism. In the period when Britain and the United States waged ground and air war on Nazis and Communists in Germany, Korea, Vietnam, Chile and Nicaragua, when Poland declined to collaborate with the Nazis and then waged internal war on Soviet Communism, when Romania was executing its socialist tyrant, Germany invaded all her neighbours and attempted genocide and France prostrated herself before the Third Reich but left NATO. Given that history, should we even be surprised which countries from that list liberals deem exclusively worthy of setting Western foreign policy?
Thanks to Right Wing News for the link.
