Europe is jumping off a cliff in many ways - some slowly, some quickly. What I don't get is why so many think we should follow after, or worse yet, join hands and go over together.

And incidentally, for those who find Clinton's policies to be examples of conceeding to the international community, please note that Kosovo was never approved by the UN. Why you may ask? Because the Russians would have vetoed any action against Serbia. If Clinton had made Security
Council approval a prerequisite, we never would have invaded. So much for conceeding to international opinion.

Let's also make one other observation. Leaders like Lincoln or Churchill did not look for wide spread support in accomplishing their goals. They saw what the situation was and they were hell bent on doing what they had to do to resolve it. It wasn't always pretty but in the end they prevailed and we are better off because of it. Churchill himself said,"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something"

A real effort actually aimed at European public opinion to convince the world that this is important.

50 nations gave money in Madrid last week to rebuild Iraq. The whole world knows this is important. They only people that don't know it are France and Germany. But according to Matthew, the fact they don't know it is precisely what makes them qualified for the job???

...with assurance of some sort that this behavior will not be repeated again.

THIS IS WHY DEMOCRATS KEEP LOSING ELECTIONS. Matthew thinks the war on terror is a mistake we need to apologize for. The liberals think we did something wrong. We don't have to apologize. France and Germany need to apologize for selling Saddam weapons against U.N. sanctions! Only a liberal would say the U.S. should apologize for stopping a guy that has killed over a million people.

It's important to remember that our current policy has created a classic moral hazard problem for our allies.

Define Allies. Our allies have no moral problem with stopping a murderous dictator. Apparently France, Germany do.

At the same time, the jam we're now stuck in is one they specifically cautioned us against getting into.

Who is stuck in a jam? We lost more soldiers in Vietnam on a bad day then we have lost during this whole war and we are getting a lot more done here. The people that want America to fail keep saying we are in a jam. By no measure of history is this true.

If they bail us out now, the message will be that the US need no longer give allied opinions any consideration whatsoever since we'll know that when things go wrong we can get help. So they don't want to help us. But they do want us to succeed. And to succeed we need their help.

If France and Germany really wanted us to succeed they had every opportunity to help out. Again, rather than place blame on the people who sold Saddam weapons and wanted him to stay in power to kill more untold millions, Matthew places the blame on the U.S. (And one more thing... If we EVER reach a point in history where France and Germany need to "bail us out" we can freaking kiss it good-bye.)

The solution is to undertake a serious public commitment not to pull this kind of stunt in the future.
OH- So national defense is a stunt... See you in November.

Alternatively, regime change at home would bring a new president to power who doesn't have the baggage, unpopularity, and record of ally-snubbing that the current president has worked so hard to achieve.

The "regime change' line. To liberals George Bush is just as bad as Saddam Hussein. -- BTW who is unpopular? Did Matthew see the results in Kentucky? The DNC asked for a referendum on George Bush. They lost by 10 points. -- The Dems are self-destructing in a ball of America hating flames. Matthew is a typical blame America first liberal who wants us to give all power to those who want to see us harmed.

This is why dems keep losing elections. They are bad for America.

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