As long as this kind of thing passes for diplomacy, why don’t we just go all the way? Have Bush give the finger live on BBC World new and say, “Attention so-called allies. We’ll do whatever the fuck we want, and you’ll LIKE it! Now if you’ll kindly rev up your European spin machines to start selling our brand of nonsense to your citizens. That is all. You may now return to eating cheese and surrending.”
Honestly, what the fuck is going on that this kind of thing can be done with a straight face? Why do we feel we can patronize the rest of the world like this? I’m very ashamed of my country right now.
It doesn’t surprise me. The tone has been “shut up and do what we tell you to” for quite a while now. It’s part of Bush’s “either you’re with us or your with the terrorists” rhetoric.
I have a “concern” here. If as SOME claim, the US is not doing these things, then it would be an easy matter to provide some proof or even encourage European oversight/surveillance, and there would be no need to tell our flunkies (I mean allies!) to back off. Maybe Rice and her bosses are just worried that if Europe rebels against us, all our “secret detainees” will have to be moved elsewhere or disposed of. A refusal to confirm or deny, coupled with a passive aggressive “back off” tone sounds pretty guilty. Oh well, we’ve already burned plenty of bridges. We may as well burn them all. (sarcasm)
His hubris is simple to understand. The man doesn’t listen to anyone except sycophants and his wife. Anyone who dares to say that something might not be perfect with anything he’s involved in is not allowed in his presence ever again.
This is SOP. A while back some Irish politicans and anti-war groups complained about the US troops using Shannon Airport. This was a problem as Ireland is meant to neutral and not facilitate either side in a conflict.
The US ambassador at the time came out and basically threatened the removal of all US business from Ireland if the troop movements were effected.
What’s going to happen if Europe doesn’t back off, though? Impose trade restrictions? Surely that’ll hurt US trade as much as European. Start a war? I highly doubt that.
When I was growing up, I read of people being taken to secret camps and tortured in the USSR. It never occurred to me that the USA would be doing that sort of thing today. Shame on the USA.
Odd, really. I didn’t see any quotes from Rice in that article that the US position was “back off”. That was entirely the characterization of the author of the article, based upon his conversations with an unnamed “European diplomat”. Nations in the EU have expressed concern about the treatment of terrorist detainees that the U.S. may or may not be holding in Europe, and she’s going over there to address these concerns, which is her job. Wouldn’t it be prudent to actually wait until we see what she says before breaking out the effigys and matches?
