What Bush expects from our European allies

Now.. that's a Good European Ally

Condi the Lightweight is once again in one of those image-making trips around the world, this time in Europe where she is trying to make sure that our allies understand that Uncle Bush knows what's good for them. So what's really the Big Deal if we established a few secret detention centers a.k.a. "tortue chambers" in some of the former communist states in eastern Europe (didn't we win the Cold War to get rid of their torture chambers?) that have joined the European Union? We did kidnap a German citizen who we had suspected of terrorism, doing one of those "renditions" (after we tortured him we discovered that he wasn't a terrorist. Never mind...) but the Germans and the other Europeans should understand that we did it for their own good. And, yes, the CIA abducted a radical Islamic cleric in Italy and flew him to Egypt where he was tortured and also made a phone call to his radical Moslem pals in Italy and warned them to run away. Apparently this was all done as part of a deal with the Egyptian security agencies (aren't we supposed to be "democratizing" those guys?) and we lied about it to our Italian allies who are pissed off. Sorry about that but you'll get over this. Yes, the Europeans were opposed to our stupid Iraq adventure which ended up creating chaos in Mesopotamia and helped create a training ground for terrorist there who are now radicalizing the Moslems in Europe. In short, the Middle East is Europe's geo-strategic and geo-economic backyard and we are making a mess out of it (Imagine if the EU would have done the same thing in Mexico and Central America or tried to invade Venezuela). But we are the hegemonic power in the Middle East, and as I noted in a previous post we are basically telling the Europeans that we are in the driver's seat there and if they'll be Good Boys we'll allow them to change the oil and the tires or maybe even drive the kids to school. And we throw them a few crumbs. They can help maintain order on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt but they shouldn't play an activist role in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And the EU-3 can try to reach a deal with the Iranian on the nuclear issue but don't expect us to make concessions (like removing the embargo against Iran). All of which doesn't explain why our European allies don't trust us very much. That's a realy mystery.