Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Kadafi - What a Guy!

One of the standard gripes that many Europeans have against the Americans is what they perceive of as us acting “in our interests”. This is usually applied to any dealings by the U.S. with unsavory world leaders, dictators, related business deals, etc., especially during the cold war, and usually because dealing with said character was the lesser of two evils. A perfect solution? Hardly. But there you have it. The world is complicated.

I really can’t count the number of times I have been in discussions when Europeans have brought up this issue. Man they love to bitch about this! They naturally expected the U.S. to always do what they perceived as the "right thing" in each situation. The implication being that European governments would not act like the U.S. government.

Now the EU is growing up, and growing up means decisions must be made on your own. Spain, France, all of those guys, now have to decide what is in THEIR best interests. Kadafi the dictator is in town and European leaders are lining up to kiss his ass, sell him services, sell him guns, buy oil, in short, everything in their interests.

Hey, I’m not saying it’s wrong necessarily... Making decisions in this complicated world is not easy. I just wish that the hypocrisy was recognized. But doubt it will be ....

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