"John H" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 15:05:00 GMT, "Jim," wrote:

John H wrote:

On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 14:31:38 GMT, "Jim," wrote:

snipped

YOU WANT TO GO AROUND AGAIN?!?!?!?!? NO, I won't play your silly
game!
Try reading the thread again -- maybe slower so you might comprehend
something


The fact is that the US economy is the envy of most of the world. Bush
did it.

Stop whining.

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and
necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes

Mum John -- don't forget that "Most of the world" is holding US debt.

As to their opinion of Bush, there's a cartoon in todays paper --
showing bush getting back from his "successful" trip to Europe. He is
saying something to the effect that he sure impressed them, but he has a
bunch of "Kick Me" stickers on his back.

Well, I'd sure rather they be holding ours than us be holding theirs.

If you'd listened to Sen. Biden on Meet The Press today, you'd realize
that
Bush's trip was a resounding success!

http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn...t-steyn27.html
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
A week ago, the conventional wisdom was that George W. Bush had seen the
error of his unilateral cowboy ways and was setting off to Europe to mend
fences with America's ''allies.''



I think not. Lester Pearson, the late Canadian prime minister, used to say
that diplomacy is the art of letting the other fellow have your way. All
week long President Bush offered a hilariously parodic reductio of Pearson's
bon mot, wandering from one European Union gabfest to another insisting how
much he loves his good buddy Jacques and his good buddy Gerhard and how
Europe and America share -- what's the standard formulation? -- ''common
values.'' Care to pin down an actual specific value or two that we share?
Well, you know, ''freedom,'' that sort of thing, abstract nouns mostly. Love
to list a few more common values, but gotta run.

And at the end what's changed?

Will the United States sign on to Kyoto?

No.

Will the United States join the International Criminal Court?

No.

Will the United States agree to accept whatever deal the
Anglo-Franco-German negotiators cook up with Iran?

No.

Even more remarkably, aside from sticking to his guns in the wider world,
the president also found time to cast his eye upon Europe's internal
affairs. As he told his audience in Brussels, in the first speech of his
tour, ''We must reject anti-Semitism in all forms and we must condemn
violence such as that seen in the Netherlands.''

The Euro-bigwigs shuffled their feet and stared coldly into their
mistresses' decolletage. They knew Bush wasn't talking about anti-Semitism
in Nebraska, but about France, where for three years there's been a
sustained campaign of synagogue burning and cemetery desecration, and
Germany, where the Berlin police advise Jewish residents not to go out in
public wearing any identifying marks of their faith.

The ''violence in the Netherlands'' is a reference to Theo van Gogh,
murdered by a Dutch Islamist for making a film critical of the Muslim
treatment of women. Van Gogh's professional colleagues reacted to this
assault on freedom of speech by canceling his movie from the Rotterdam Film
Festival and scheduling some Islamist propaganda instead.

The president, in other words, understands that for Europe, unlike
America, the war on terror is an internal affair, a matter of defusing large
unassimilated radicalized Muslim immigrant populations before they provoke
the inevitable resurgence of opportunist political movements feeding off old
hatreds. Difficult trick to pull off, especially on a continent where the
ruling elite feels it's in the people's best interest not to pay any
attention to them.

The new EU ''constitution,'' for example, would be unrecognizable as such
to any American. I had the opportunity to talk with former French President
Valery Giscard d'Estaing on a couple of occasions during his long labors as
the self-declared and strictly single Founding Father. He called himself
''Europe's Jefferson,'' and I didn't like to quibble that,
constitution-wise, Jefferson was Europe's Jefferson -- that's to say, at the
time the U.S. Constitution was drawn up, Thomas Jefferson was living in
France. Thus, for Giscard to be Europe's Jefferson, he'd have to be in Des
Moines, where he'd be doing far less damage.

But, quibbles aside, President Giscard professed to be looking in the
right direction. When I met him, he had an amiable riff on how he'd been in
Washington and bought one of those compact copies of the U.S. Constitution
on sale for a buck or two. Many Americans wander round with the constitution
in their pocket so they can whip it out and chastise over-reaching
congressmen and senators at a moment's notice. Try going round with the
European Constitution in your pocket and you'll be walking with a limp after
two hours: It's 511 pages, which is 500 longer than the U.S. version. It's
full of stuff about European space policy, Slovakian nuclear plants, water
resources, free expression for children, the right to housing assistance,
preventive action on the environment, etc.

Most of the so-called constitution isn't in the least bit constitutional.
That's to say, it's not content, as the U.S. Constitution is, to define the
distribution and limitation of powers. Instead, it reads like a U.S. defense
spending bill that's got porked up with a ton of miscellaneous expenditures
for the ''mohair subsidy'' and other notorious Congressional boondoggles.
President Ronald Reagan liked to say, ''We are a nation that has a
government -- not the other way around.'' If you want to know what it looks
like the other way round, read Monsieur Giscard's constitution.

But the fact is it's going to be ratified, and Washington is hardly in a
position to prevent it. Plus there's something to be said for the theory
that, as the EU constitution is a disaster waiting to happen, you might as
well cut down the waiting and let it happen. CIA analysts predict the
collapse of the EU within 15 years. I'd say, as predictions of doom go,
that's a little on the cautious side.

But either way the notion that it's a superpower in the making is
preposterous. Most administration officials subscribe to one of two views:
a) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater; or b) Europe is a
smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater where the whole powder keg's
about to go up.

For what it's worth, I incline to the latter position. Europe's
problems -- its unaffordable social programs, its deathbed demographics, its
dependence on immigration numbers that no stable nation (not even America in
the Ellis Island era) has ever successfully absorbed -- are all of Europe's
making. By some projections, the EU's population will be 40 percent Muslim
by 2025. Already, more people each week attend Friday prayers at British
mosques than Sunday service at Christian churches -- and in a country where
Anglican bishops have permanent seats in the national legislature.

Some of us think an Islamic Europe will be easier for America to deal with
than the present Europe of cynical, wily, duplicitous pseudo-allies. But
getting there is certain to be messy, and violent.

Until the shape of the new Europe begins to emerge, there's no point
picking fights with the terminally ill. The old Europe is dying, and Mr.
Bush did the diplomatic equivalent of the Oscar night lifetime-achievement
tribute at which the current stars salute a once glamorous old-timer whose
fading aura is no threat to them. The 21st century is being built elsewhere.



You're spending too much time on the SciFi channel or in rec.boats.

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary
to resolve it."
Rene Descartes

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 01:26:13 GMT, "Jim," wrote:

John H wrote:
On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 00:33:31 GMT, "Jim," wrote:


John H wrote:


On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 23:33:32 GMT, "Jim," wrote:



John H wrote:


On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 18:45:53 GMT, "Jim," wrote:




John H wrote:




On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 14:29:32 GMT, "Jim," wrote:





JimH wrote:


Well in the strict definition of the word mess -- Iraq is a mess because
the US bombed most of the infrastructure all to hell.


Bull****. In almost every case the infrastructure is better than before the war
started.





In the mode I intended it, Iraq is a mess because we have accomplished
little, at a loss of 1500 lives, Billions of Dollars, infinite loss of
respect from both the countries of the middle east, and out former
allies in Europe.


Bull****. Most of the world would agree that the changes to the mideast amount
to a very significant accomplishment.





As for Osama -- he was declared to be our primary target following 9/11.
It's been well over 3 years and we haven't got him -- probably because
of the distraction of Iraq.


More bull****. It took the police and FBI twenty plus years to catch the BTK
killer in Wichita. What the hell are you folks going to bitch about when Osama
*is* caught? Ninety percent of your whining rationale will be gone.





Do *YOU* think Iraq is a well ordered, well run place you might like to
vacation to?


I suppose it would be better off if the Iraqis were getting killed and dumped at
the rate of 30,000 =/- per year?

Would you like to vacation in Kosovo?

Jimcomma, you lost the election. Your whines and rants do nothing to serve your
liberal interests.

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes


Here is the DRAFT of an OFFICIAL report John -- Suggest you read what
our own Center for Strategic and International studies has to say.

http://www.sftt.org/PDF/article01042005a.pdf

Chapter 1 Failures in recognizing the growth and character of the
insurgent threat

Chapter 2 Evolving threat tactics and pressure on government forces

Chapter 3 The evolving nature of the insurgency


Were mistakes made? Yes. Could we have done better at recognizing the insurgent
threat? Yes.

Are the Iraqis better off now than under Saddam? Yes. Have major changes
occurred in the political processes of Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia,
Palestine, Lebanon, Libya, and, most recently, Syria? Yes.

So you keep up your whining if it makes you feel better. Please note the *past
tense* used throughout your cited report.

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes

Funny thing the Iraqis, Afghans, Libyans, Syrians, Lebanese,Palestians
(well maybe palestinians) don't seem to think so.

How many letters have come in thanking us?


You won't see any thanks in what you watch or read. Remember, it must be
anti-Bush. Therefore nothing good can be shown.

Even on Faux news??????

How many bombers have tried to drive us out?


I believe they're killing many more Iraqis now, especially in or around mosques.

More is a relative thing -- we are still loosing about 5/week; and
that's 5 too many for Me!

Wake up.

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes


Fox news shows the good, the bad, and the ugly. But, like all news it holds to
the credo, "If it bleeds, it leads."

One is too many. Three thousand in twenty minutes is also too many. Without some
significant changes in the mideast, which are occurring, it will happen again.
Better a few now, than thousands upon thousands later.

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes

"Better a few now, than thousands upon thousands later."

Every one we kill has brothers, cousins, friends ready to avenge him.
That's been their way of life for thousands of years.

Don't forget those (is it 700?) virgins they get for killing an infidel.

(Wonder what the women get?)

I believe we were discussing them killing us or their countrymen, not us killing
them.

You are right, each Iraqi killed by al-Zarqawi's crew has brothers, cousins,
friends ready to avenge him. The insurgents are building up a strong hate group
in Iraq. Eventually they'll do themselves in.

Now, stop whining and sniveling, you're sounding like Krause.

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes

Nice article, thanks.



On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 21:21:36 -0500, "P. Fritz"
wrote:


"John H" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 15:05:00 GMT, "Jim," wrote:

John H wrote:

On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 14:31:38 GMT, "Jim," wrote:

snipped

YOU WANT TO GO AROUND AGAIN?!?!?!?!? NO, I won't play your silly
game!
Try reading the thread again -- maybe slower so you might comprehend
something


The fact is that the US economy is the envy of most of the world. Bush
did it.

Stop whining.

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and
necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes

Mum John -- don't forget that "Most of the world" is holding US debt.

As to their opinion of Bush, there's a cartoon in todays paper --
showing bush getting back from his "successful" trip to Europe. He is
saying something to the effect that he sure impressed them, but he has a
bunch of "Kick Me" stickers on his back.

Well, I'd sure rather they be holding ours than us be holding theirs.

If you'd listened to Sen. Biden on Meet The Press today, you'd realize
that
Bush's trip was a resounding success!

http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn...t-steyn27.html
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
A week ago, the conventional wisdom was that George W. Bush had seen the
error of his unilateral cowboy ways and was setting off to Europe to mend
fences with America's ''allies.''



I think not. Lester Pearson, the late Canadian prime minister, used to say
that diplomacy is the art of letting the other fellow have your way. All
week long President Bush offered a hilariously parodic reductio of Pearson's
bon mot, wandering from one European Union gabfest to another insisting how
much he loves his good buddy Jacques and his good buddy Gerhard and how
Europe and America share -- what's the standard formulation? -- ''common
values.'' Care to pin down an actual specific value or two that we share?
Well, you know, ''freedom,'' that sort of thing, abstract nouns mostly. Love
to list a few more common values, but gotta run.

And at the end what's changed?

Will the United States sign on to Kyoto?

No.

Will the United States join the International Criminal Court?

No.

Will the United States agree to accept whatever deal the
Anglo-Franco-German negotiators cook up with Iran?

No.

Even more remarkably, aside from sticking to his guns in the wider world,
the president also found time to cast his eye upon Europe's internal
affairs. As he told his audience in Brussels, in the first speech of his
tour, ''We must reject anti-Semitism in all forms and we must condemn
violence such as that seen in the Netherlands.''

The Euro-bigwigs shuffled their feet and stared coldly into their
mistresses' decolletage. They knew Bush wasn't talking about anti-Semitism
in Nebraska, but about France, where for three years there's been a
sustained campaign of synagogue burning and cemetery desecration, and
Germany, where the Berlin police advise Jewish residents not to go out in
public wearing any identifying marks of their faith.

The ''violence in the Netherlands'' is a reference to Theo van Gogh,
murdered by a Dutch Islamist for making a film critical of the Muslim
treatment of women. Van Gogh's professional colleagues reacted to this
assault on freedom of speech by canceling his movie from the Rotterdam Film
Festival and scheduling some Islamist propaganda instead.

The president, in other words, understands that for Europe, unlike
America, the war on terror is an internal affair, a matter of defusing large
unassimilated radicalized Muslim immigrant populations before they provoke
the inevitable resurgence of opportunist political movements feeding off old
hatreds. Difficult trick to pull off, especially on a continent where the
ruling elite feels it's in the people's best interest not to pay any
attention to them.

The new EU ''constitution,'' for example, would be unrecognizable as such
to any American. I had the opportunity to talk with former French President
Valery Giscard d'Estaing on a couple of occasions during his long labors as
the self-declared and strictly single Founding Father. He called himself
''Europe's Jefferson,'' and I didn't like to quibble that,
constitution-wise, Jefferson was Europe's Jefferson -- that's to say, at the
time the U.S. Constitution was drawn up, Thomas Jefferson was living in
France. Thus, for Giscard to be Europe's Jefferson, he'd have to be in Des
Moines, where he'd be doing far less damage.

But, quibbles aside, President Giscard professed to be looking in the
right direction. When I met him, he had an amiable riff on how he'd been in
Washington and bought one of those compact copies of the U.S. Constitution
on sale for a buck or two. Many Americans wander round with the constitution
in their pocket so they can whip it out and chastise over-reaching
congressmen and senators at a moment's notice. Try going round with the
European Constitution in your pocket and you'll be walking with a limp after
two hours: It's 511 pages, which is 500 longer than the U.S. version. It's
full of stuff about European space policy, Slovakian nuclear plants, water
resources, free expression for children, the right to housing assistance,
preventive action on the environment, etc.

Most of the so-called constitution isn't in the least bit constitutional.
That's to say, it's not content, as the U.S. Constitution is, to define the
distribution and limitation of powers. Instead, it reads like a U.S. defense
spending bill that's got porked up with a ton of miscellaneous expenditures
for the ''mohair subsidy'' and other notorious Congressional boondoggles.
President Ronald Reagan liked to say, ''We are a nation that has a
government -- not the other way around.'' If you want to know what it looks
like the other way round, read Monsieur Giscard's constitution.

But the fact is it's going to be ratified, and Washington is hardly in a
position to prevent it. Plus there's something to be said for the theory
that, as the EU constitution is a disaster waiting to happen, you might as
well cut down the waiting and let it happen. CIA analysts predict the
collapse of the EU within 15 years. I'd say, as predictions of doom go,
that's a little on the cautious side.

But either way the notion that it's a superpower in the making is
preposterous. Most administration officials subscribe to one of two views:
a) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater; or b) Europe is a
smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater where the whole powder keg's
about to go up.

For what it's worth, I incline to the latter position. Europe's
problems -- its unaffordable social programs, its deathbed demographics, its
dependence on immigration numbers that no stable nation (not even America in
the Ellis Island era) has ever successfully absorbed -- are all of Europe's
making. By some projections, the EU's population will be 40 percent Muslim
by 2025. Already, more people each week attend Friday prayers at British
mosques than Sunday service at Christian churches -- and in a country where
Anglican bishops have permanent seats in the national legislature.

Some of us think an Islamic Europe will be easier for America to deal with
than the present Europe of cynical, wily, duplicitous pseudo-allies. But
getting there is certain to be messy, and violent.

Until the shape of the new Europe begins to emerge, there's no point
picking fights with the terminally ill. The old Europe is dying, and Mr.
Bush did the diplomatic equivalent of the Oscar night lifetime-achievement
tribute at which the current stars salute a once glamorous old-timer whose
fading aura is no threat to them. The 21st century is being built elsewhere.



You're spending too much time on the SciFi channel or in rec.boats.

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary
to resolve it."
Rene Descartes


John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes

John H wrote:
On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 01:26:13 GMT, "Jim," wrote:


John H wrote:

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 00:33:31 GMT, "Jim," wrote:



John H wrote:



On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 23:33:32 GMT, "Jim," wrote:




John H wrote:



On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 18:45:53 GMT, "Jim," wrote:





John H wrote:





On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 14:29:32 GMT, "Jim," wrote:






JimH wrote:


Well in the strict definition of the word mess -- Iraq is a mess because
the US bombed most of the infrastructure all to hell.


Bull****. In almost every case the infrastructure is better than before the war
started.






In the mode I intended it, Iraq is a mess because we have accomplished
little, at a loss of 1500 lives, Billions of Dollars, infinite loss of
respect from both the countries of the middle east, and out former
allies in Europe.


Bull****. Most of the world would agree that the changes to the mideast amount
to a very significant accomplishment.






As for Osama -- he was declared to be our primary target following 9/11.
It's been well over 3 years and we haven't got him -- probably because
of the distraction of Iraq.


More bull****. It took the police and FBI twenty plus years to catch the BTK
killer in Wichita. What the hell are you folks going to bitch about when Osama
*is* caught? Ninety percent of your whining rationale will be gone.






Do *YOU* think Iraq is a well ordered, well run place you might like to
vacation to?


I suppose it would be better off if the Iraqis were getting killed and dumped at
the rate of 30,000 =/- per year?

Would you like to vacation in Kosovo?

Jimcomma, you lost the election. Your whines and rants do nothing to serve your
liberal interests.

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes


Here is the DRAFT of an OFFICIAL report John -- Suggest you read what
our own Center for Strategic and International studies has to say.

http://www.sftt.org/PDF/article01042005a.pdf

Chapter 1 Failures in recognizing the growth and character of the
insurgent threat

Chapter 2 Evolving threat tactics and pressure on government forces

Chapter 3 The evolving nature of the insurgency


Were mistakes made? Yes. Could we have done better at recognizing the insurgent
threat? Yes.

Are the Iraqis better off now than under Saddam? Yes. Have major changes
occurred in the political processes of Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia,
Palestine, Lebanon, Libya, and, most recently, Syria? Yes.

So you keep up your whining if it makes you feel better. Please note the *past
tense* used throughout your cited report.

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes

Funny thing the Iraqis, Afghans, Libyans, Syrians, Lebanese,Palestians
(well maybe palestinians) don't seem to think so.

How many letters have come in thanking us?


You won't see any thanks in what you watch or read. Remember, it must be
anti-Bush. Therefore nothing good can be shown.

Even on Faux news??????


How many bombers have tried to drive us out?


I believe they're killing many more Iraqis now, especially in or around mosques.

More is a relative thing -- we are still loosing about 5/week; and
that's 5 too many for Me!


Wake up.

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes


Fox news shows the good, the bad, and the ugly. But, like all news it holds to
the credo, "If it bleeds, it leads."

One is too many. Three thousand in twenty minutes is also too many. Without some
significant changes in the mideast, which are occurring, it will happen again.
Better a few now, than thousands upon thousands later.

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes

"Better a few now, than thousands upon thousands later."

Every one we kill has brothers, cousins, friends ready to avenge him.
That's been their way of life for thousands of years.

Don't forget those (is it 700?) virgins they get for killing an infidel.

(Wonder what the women get?)


I believe we were discussing them killing us or their countrymen, not us killing
them.

You are right, each Iraqi killed by al-Zarqawi's crew has brothers, cousins,
friends ready to avenge him. The insurgents are building up a strong hate group
in Iraq. Eventually they'll do themselves in.

After killing how many of our sons and daughters? AND assuming the
dip**** in the oval office doesn't go after Iran, or Syria and bring
more into the fray

Now, stop whining and sniveling, you're sounding like Krause.

Always the cheap shot -- not much maturity here John.

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes

John H wrote:

Nice article, thanks.



On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 21:21:36 -0500, "P. Fritz"
wrote:


"John H" wrote in message
. ..
On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 15:05:00 GMT, "Jim," wrote:

John H wrote:

On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 14:31:38 GMT, "Jim," wrote:

snipped

YOU WANT TO GO AROUND AGAIN?!?!?!?!? NO, I won't play your silly
game!
Try reading the thread again -- maybe slower so you might comprehend
something


The fact is that the US economy is the envy of most of the world. Bush
did it.

Stop whining.

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and
necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes

Mum John -- don't forget that "Most of the world" is holding US debt.

As to their opinion of Bush, there's a cartoon in todays paper --
showing bush getting back from his "successful" trip to Europe. He is
saying something to the effect that he sure impressed them, but he has a
bunch of "Kick Me" stickers on his back.

Well, I'd sure rather they be holding ours than us be holding theirs.

If you'd listened to Sen. Biden on Meet The Press today, you'd realize
that
Bush's trip was a resounding success!

http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn...t-steyn27.html
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
A week ago, the conventional wisdom was that George W. Bush had seen the
error of his unilateral cowboy ways and was setting off to Europe to mend
fences with America's ''allies.''



I think not. Lester Pearson, the late Canadian prime minister, used to say
that diplomacy is the art of letting the other fellow have your way. All
week long President Bush offered a hilariously parodic reductio of Pearson's
bon mot, wandering from one European Union gabfest to another insisting how
much he loves his good buddy Jacques and his good buddy Gerhard and how
Europe and America share -- what's the standard formulation? -- ''common
values.'' Care to pin down an actual specific value or two that we share?
Well, you know, ''freedom,'' that sort of thing, abstract nouns mostly. Love
to list a few more common values, but gotta run.

And at the end what's changed?

Will the United States sign on to Kyoto?

No.

Will the United States join the International Criminal Court?

No.

Will the United States agree to accept whatever deal the
Anglo-Franco-German negotiators cook up with Iran?

No.

Even more remarkably, aside from sticking to his guns in the wider world,
the president also found time to cast his eye upon Europe's internal
affairs. As he told his audience in Brussels, in the first speech of his
tour, ''We must reject anti-Semitism in all forms and we must condemn
violence such as that seen in the Netherlands.''

The Euro-bigwigs shuffled their feet and stared coldly into their
mistresses' decolletage. They knew Bush wasn't talking about anti-Semitism
in Nebraska, but about France, where for three years there's been a
sustained campaign of synagogue burning and cemetery desecration, and
Germany, where the Berlin police advise Jewish residents not to go out in
public wearing any identifying marks of their faith.

The ''violence in the Netherlands'' is a reference to Theo van Gogh,
murdered by a Dutch Islamist for making a film critical of the Muslim
treatment of women. Van Gogh's professional colleagues reacted to this
assault on freedom of speech by canceling his movie from the Rotterdam Film
Festival and scheduling some Islamist propaganda instead.

The president, in other words, understands that for Europe, unlike
America, the war on terror is an internal affair, a matter of defusing large
unassimilated radicalized Muslim immigrant populations before they provoke
the inevitable resurgence of opportunist political movements feeding off old
hatreds. Difficult trick to pull off, especially on a continent where the
ruling elite feels it's in the people's best interest not to pay any
attention to them.

The new EU ''constitution,'' for example, would be unrecognizable as such
to any American. I had the opportunity to talk with former French President
Valery Giscard d'Estaing on a couple of occasions during his long labors as
the self-declared and strictly single Founding Father. He called himself
''Europe's Jefferson,'' and I didn't like to quibble that,
constitution-wise, Jefferson was Europe's Jefferson -- that's to say, at the
time the U.S. Constitution was drawn up, Thomas Jefferson was living in
France. Thus, for Giscard to be Europe's Jefferson, he'd have to be in Des
Moines, where he'd be doing far less damage.

But, quibbles aside, President Giscard professed to be looking in the
right direction. When I met him, he had an amiable riff on how he'd been in
Washington and bought one of those compact copies of the U.S. Constitution
on sale for a buck or two. Many Americans wander round with the constitution
in their pocket so they can whip it out and chastise over-reaching
congressmen and senators at a moment's notice. Try going round with the
European Constitution in your pocket and you'll be walking with a limp after
two hours: It's 511 pages, which is 500 longer than the U.S. version. It's
full of stuff about European space policy, Slovakian nuclear plants, water
resources, free expression for children, the right to housing assistance,
preventive action on the environment, etc.

Most of the so-called constitution isn't in the least bit constitutional.
That's to say, it's not content, as the U.S. Constitution is, to define the
distribution and limitation of powers. Instead, it reads like a U.S. defense
spending bill that's got porked up with a ton of miscellaneous expenditures
for the ''mohair subsidy'' and other notorious Congressional boondoggles.
President Ronald Reagan liked to say, ''We are a nation that has a
government -- not the other way around.'' If you want to know what it looks
like the other way round, read Monsieur Giscard's constitution.

But the fact is it's going to be ratified, and Washington is hardly in a
position to prevent it. Plus there's something to be said for the theory
that, as the EU constitution is a disaster waiting to happen, you might as
well cut down the waiting and let it happen. CIA analysts predict the
collapse of the EU within 15 years. I'd say, as predictions of doom go,
that's a little on the cautious side.

But either way the notion that it's a superpower in the making is
preposterous. Most administration officials subscribe to one of two views:
a) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater; or b) Europe is a
smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater where the whole powder keg's
about to go up.

For what it's worth, I incline to the latter position. Europe's
problems -- its unaffordable social programs, its deathbed demographics, its
dependence on immigration numbers that no stable nation (not even America in
the Ellis Island era) has ever successfully absorbed -- are all of Europe's
making. By some projections, the EU's population will be 40 percent Muslim
by 2025. Already, more people each week attend Friday prayers at British
mosques than Sunday service at Christian churches -- and in a country where
Anglican bishops have permanent seats in the national legislature.

Some of us think an Islamic Europe will be easier for America to deal with
than the present Europe of cynical, wily, duplicitous pseudo-allies. But
getting there is certain to be messy, and violent.

Until the shape of the new Europe begins to emerge, there's no point
picking fights with the terminally ill. The old Europe is dying, and Mr.
Bush did the diplomatic equivalent of the Oscar night lifetime-achievement
tribute at which the current stars salute a once glamorous old-timer whose
fading aura is no threat to them. The 21st century is being built elsewhere.



You're spending too much time on the SciFi channel or in rec.boats.

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary
to resolve it."
Rene Descartes



John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes

And the point of this?

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 14:08:30 GMT, "Jim," wrote:

John H wrote:

Nice article, thanks.

Snipped

And the point of this?

To thank Jim H for the article he posted. Unlike most of the hate rhetoric you
post, it actually provided some information.

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 14:06:32 GMT, "Jim," wrote:

Some snipped

I believe we were discussing them killing us or their countrymen, not us killing
them.

You are right, each Iraqi killed by al-Zarqawi's crew has brothers, cousins,
friends ready to avenge him. The insurgents are building up a strong hate group
in Iraq. Eventually they'll do themselves in.

After killing how many of our sons and daughters? AND assuming the
dip**** in the oval office doesn't go after Iran, or Syria and bring
more into the fray

Addressed previously.

Now, stop whining and sniveling, you're sounding like Krause.

Always the cheap shot -- not much maturity here John.

The posting of the cheap shots you continuously post don't reflect much maturity
either. And, they are very reminiscent of the crap Harry posts (or at least used
to).

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes

"John H" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 14:06:32 GMT, "Jim," wrote:

Some snipped

I believe we were discussing them killing us or their countrymen, not us
killing
them.

You are right, each Iraqi killed by al-Zarqawi's crew has brothers,
cousins,
friends ready to avenge him. The insurgents are building up a strong
hate group
in Iraq. Eventually they'll do themselves in.

After killing how many of our sons and daughters? AND assuming the
dip**** in the oval office doesn't go after Iran, or Syria and bring
more into the fray

Addressed previously.

Now, stop whining and sniveling, you're sounding like Krause.

Always the cheap shot -- not much maturity here John.

The posting of the cheap shots you continuously post don't reflect much
maturity
either. And, they are very reminiscent of the crap Harry posts (or at
least used
to).

John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into

I am beginning to think Jimcomma is a Krause sockpuppet.

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 11:40:50 -0500, "JimH" wrote:

I am beginning to think

doubtful

bb

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 16:55:28 GMT, bb wrote:

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 11:40:50 -0500, "JimH" wrote:

I am beginning to think

doubtful

bb

witty
John H

On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD,
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes