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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SirRealist who wrote (82259)	3/14/2003 10:00:17 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

That's what I don't get. France, Russia and China have economic interests in Iraq. Polls of the sentiments in other nations should also be a clue. And next to Robert Byrd, I think Cheney & Rumsfeld have to be some of the oldest hands rattling around Washington. Why were they blindsided? Or were they not paying attention to the signs, choosing their own blind spots? Both, imo. I don't think they understand how nervous they make the Europeans, or how the Europeans make a secular religion out of "collective security and the League" (the thirties phrasing seems appropriate somehow). Nor did they expect France not merely to be a nuisance as usual but to take this opportunity to declare itself an outright enemy. Neither Rumseld, nor Saddam for that matter, are the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter is, what does the next international framework look like?

To: SirRealist who wrote (82259)	3/14/2003 10:07:47 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

You also have to factor in the influence of the European media. From Andrew Sullivan: THE BLIND EUROPEANS: My friend Bruce Bawer lives in Norway. He sends a missive about the appalling state of Norwegian media on the Iraq issue: You don't have to be pro-war to be appalled by the way in which European opinion on this issue has been formed. When I first moved to Europe I would've echoed the familiar refrain about American naivete and European sophistication. (Friggin' Henry James.) I realize now it's closer to being the other way around. We're at least trying to figure out how to deal with the real world. They've decided to buy into the comfortable pretense that the real menaces out there aren't real and that the only real danger is American arrogance. Reading the propaganda sheets here in Norway from day to day, the sense of flight from reality, the empty self-righteousness, the need to regurgitate anti-US cliches that everybody knows deep down are nonsense, the mindless reiteration of the word "peace," the refusal to take responsibility for ANYTHING, is staggering. So is the readiness with which the people soak up it all. It's scary how in a social-democratic country the very idea of taking responsibility is bred out of the race. And the concept of freedom isn't even on their radar.