November 20, 2003

LOOKIN' FOR LOVE IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES:

You Gotta Have Friends (THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, November 20, 2003, NY Times)

It is amazing, British officials say, how little the Bush team has done to shore up Mr. Blair for taking his hugely important (and unpopular) pro-war stance. Mr. Blair needs the U.S. to drop its outrageous steel tariffs, to provide a workable alternative to Kyoto, to hand over the nine U.K. citizens held in Guantánamo Bay (which is a big story here) and to let London play around with the E.U. on a European defense force, which is not a threat to NATO. But so far, he appears to be getting nothing.

Tony Blair was too principled for his own good. He was so convinced that the war was right, he never played hardball with the Bush team to get it to adopt the other policies needed to sustain British support, and which would also have increased Mr. Bush's authority throughout Europe.

  
And all we need is for Europe to drop its steel subsidies and to recognize that Kyoto is a non-starter in the U.S. and for Britain to turn away from the EU and toward an Anglosphere. This would destroy the authority of Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush in Europe, but, so what? Europe is a dead letter, the future lies elsewhere, let's move on.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 20, 2003 9:06 AM
Comments

Friedman is frustrating to read/listen to in that he is obviously a smart guy but he always come out with the standard liberal/Democrat talking points answer to the question.

Posted by: AWW at November 20, 2003 9:51 AM

Well, yes, I can understand that. If Bush had only offered Chretien more vacations in US resorts for Canadians paying Canadian dollars at par, we would have been there as well, proud people that we are.

Would have increased your authority in Europe, too.

Posted by: Peter B at November 20, 2003 9:59 AM

Giving Blair the 9 UK prisoners would seem like a good boost for him at little cost to us. So why not?

Posted by: Chris Durnell at November 20, 2003 10:36 AM

What do you do when the Pakistanis and Sauds, etc., ask for their citizens back?

Posted by: oj at November 20, 2003 11:02 AM

Friedman is a hack. The guy just blathers on and on. He turns a cutsey phrase like "no two nations with McDonalds has ever gone to war with each other"...blah, blah, blah.

Posted by: pchuck at November 20, 2003 11:46 AM

Increasing Bush's authority in Europe has nothing to do with real life.

The speech he made yesterday gives him all the 'authority' he needs, much more than the NYT could ever bestow on him. If Friedman wants conciliation, he should support Rodney King for President.

Posted by: jim hamlen at November 20, 2003 11:54 AM

Friedman is a deeply conflicted, NYC liberal who "knows" that a GWB administration is the best hope his city has to avoid being blown up by islamofascists. He admitted this early on when in the wake of 9/11 he felt comforted that we had that "scary" Donald Rumsfeld on out side -- someone who may actually inspire fear in the islamofascist enemy. Of course, it has been more than two years since 9/11, a lot of wine and cheese has been consumed since then in the ethereal circles of the Upper West Side he frequents, and the man has to show the intellectual mettle that won him Pulitzers, etc. So that's what we have been recently getting from him: obfuscaroty, intellectual self-stimulation (I believe this, on the other hand...).

For a contrasting view of the US-UK give and take, see David Frum's article on the Daily Telegraph.

Posted by: MG at November 20, 2003 12:21 PM

Where elsewhere?

You've written off Japan and China, Africa has reverted to its precolonialist savagery, Latin America is ungovernable and broke, and India is the last holdout in the world for easily controllable diseases.

Every one of those areas, with (in my opinion, Japan) is going to have to scramble just to get into the 20th century.

When wetbacks start crossing the Rio Grande heading south, I'll revise my expectations.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 20, 2003 1:17 PM

Africa is the far future, coastal China the mid-future, and India the near future, disease notwithstanding.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 21, 2003 2:39 AM
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