Europe and America - together again

This article from the Economist analyses the prospects for renewing the Transatlantic Alliance - before it's too late.

Yet in the longer run the chances of better transatlantic co-operation may be greater than they seem at first sight. The reason is simple. For both Europe and America the long-term outlook is quite bleak. Global acceptance of American leadership has diminished both because of the Iraq war (and Guantánamo) and because of the rise of emerging powers with different ideas about how to order the world, some of which carry a whiff of 19th century great-power rivalries. Today’s Europe has little military clout, and is in demographic and (relative) economic decline.

A lot of articles on the economy and on the new administration coming to the US in January 2009 all take as a given that the power of the US, and indeed of "the west," is definitely on the wane. Some put the high-water mark back as far as 1948, although I would disagree with that. I think 1989 has at least as strong a claim. But there is no argument at all that the eight years of the Bush administration hastened the end for America, and a surprising number of pundits agree with me in pointing to Hurricane Katrina as the smoking gun that proved it to be so.

A potpourri of stories: Guantanamo, racial injustice and -- the hyphen?

Just some of the things I have been reading these days.

The War on Terra: Omar Khadr turns 21 still in Guantanamo and Andrew Sullivan muses on a president who has lost the plot.

Technology: The UK slights Open Source, and they may regret it.

Language pedantry: The OED reveals the hyphen is an endangered character.

Racial fault lines in the US: The Jena Six and the Presidential candidate. (And in case you don't know who the Jena Six are, here is a backgrounder.)

Deconstruct him

Under the marvelous title Dien Bien Fool (oh, how I wanted to steal that) journalist and blogging pundit Christopher Albritton in his blog Back to Iraq 2.0 takes on the job of addressing GWB's latest piece of imbecility (or at least the latest I know about, as I don't keep up with him as I should). I mean, of course, the address a few days ago to a VFW where he very clumsily attempted to use the "killing fields" of Cambodia 1975 as a reason to pursue the endless folly of the coalition quagmire in Iraq.
"Really, it’s hard to know where to start", he says. But he ends up here:

And finally Vietnam. In one speech, Bush had managed to drag out the knuckleheaded, right-wing argument that if only we’d stayed in Vietnam a little longer, we’d have won that sucker. If only the media and Democrats hadn’t been so hell-bent on undermining the troops…
This is a tricky subject for Bush, considering he spent the Vietnam years partying and “protecting” the Gulf of Mexico from the Viet Cong in a champagne unit of the Texas Air National Guard. It’s also tricky because war critics have spent the past four years comparing the quagmire or Iraq to the quagmire of Vietnam — which, I might remind you, we lost.

After addressing the again wrong-headed analogy of the aftermath of the US withdrawal from Vietnam, Chris also mentions "but the U.S. threw open its doors and took the “boat people” in. It has not done the same thing for Iraqis, instead forcing them to stay in a deadly cage or face the instability of life in Jordan and Syria."
The "killing fields" reference was very effectively dealt with by David Cortright on the blog "God's Politics" (Sojourner).

Deborama's WWW Number 7 - the Chimp-o-matic

Today's website of the week is available as a template add-on in Blogger, a flash add-on for your MySpace page or a "stuff" to add to your Google homepage. Chimp-o-matic is simply a very unflattering pic of GWB looking especially chimp-like, accompanied by one of his more boneheaded quotes, which changes daily. It has no redeeming social value whatsoever. And as its creator says, if you think GWB walks on water and heals the sick, this probably means that the terrorists have won.

Before the deluge

Could we be seeing the beginning of the end for the Bush administration? Could there be a premature departure in deepest shame, a la Nixon? We can but hope. It feels like the tipping point is just around the corner, and the feverish comment on the ins and outs is very alluring.
DH asked: what the heck kind of a name is "Scooter" for a grown man? "Frat boy," I answered.

Bush Adminstrations latest briefing from God

I just discovered "The Scoop", a gossip/weird news column on MSNBC. Two excellent items are to be found there today.
Is Bush getting apocalyptic advice? Only a good quote will suffice to show the true juiciness of this story, this one being from apocalyptic televangelist Jack Van Impe:
“I was contacted a few weeks ago by . . . Condoleezza Rice to make an outline. And I’ve spent hours preparing it. I will release this information to the public in September, but it’s in his hands. He will know exactly what is going to happen in the Middle East and what part he will have under the leading of the Holy Spirit of God. So, it’s a tremendous time to be alive."
Uh, right.