While the PM-elect in Spain said yesterday that his views on Iraq were more aligned with Kerry, he has no trouble at all making sure that Kerry understands all the commas and apostrophes of his position.
Spanish Leader Rebuffs Kerry on Iraq Pullout
On Wednesday, expected U.S. Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry also urged Zapatero to reconsider, saying he should "send a message that terrorists cannot win by their acts of terror."
"Perhaps John Kerry doesn't know but I am delighted to explain to him that my commitment to the return of the troops dates from before (last week's bombings)," Zapatero said in an interview with Spain's Telecinco television.
"If the United Nations doesn't take up the reins of the situation, if there isn't a rethink of the chaotic occupation in Iraq, of course the Spanish troops are coming back to Spain," he said.
Asked exactly what the United Nations had to do, Zapatero gave conditions he had not previously stated:
"The U.N. must take political charge of the situation in Iraq, there must be a rethink of the occupying forces, new forces must participate and, of course, there must be a commitment that we will act within a framework of international legality...," he said.
Yet another US Politician thinking that he owns the agenda. Pay attention son, the world is different from what you assume, don't get your ass bitten any sooner than you have to.
And while we are at it, looks like the Poles are starting to speak a little Spanish as well.
Via the Agonist Poland may withdraw Iraq troops
President Aleksander Kwasniewski, a key Washington ally, said Thursday he may withdraw troops early from Iraq and that Poland was "misled" about the threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
His remarks to a small group of European reporters were his first hint of criticism about war in Iraq, where Poland currently has 2,400 troops and with the United States and Britain commands one of three sectors of the U.S.-led occupation.
"Naturally, one may protest the reasons for the war action in Iraq. I personally think that today, Iraq without Saddam Hussein is a truly better Iraq than with Saddam Hussein," Kwasniewski told the European reporters.
"But naturally I also feel uncomfortable due to the fact that we were misled with the information on weapons of mass destruction," he said, according to a transcript released by the presidential press office.
Earlier in the day, Kwasniewski said Poland may start withdrawing its troops from Iraq early next year, months earlier than the previously stated date of mid-2005. He cited progress toward stabilizing Iraq.
Oh yes, that's right, the CPA has been so successful in stabilising Iraq that we can all go home earlier than we planned. Riiiight.
And for a long term view on all this, check this that arrived from a friend this morning.
The underlying assumption is that the United States itself represents these universal values, and that freedom to pursue happiness, to elect our own leaders and to trade in open markets, should be shared by all, regardless of creed, history, race or culture.
Some might question whether America is as shining an example of these good things as is often claimed. Nonetheless, spreading them around is certainly a more appealing policy than propping up "our" dictators in the name of realpolitik. Still, history shows that the forceful imposition of even decent ideas in the claim of universalism tends to backfire - creating not converts but enemies who will do anything to defend their blood and soil.
Such was the response two centuries ago of the German-speaking areas of Europe when Napoleon's armies invaded them under the banner of universal freedom, equality and brotherhood. Napoleon was a despot and his Grande Armée could be brutal, to be sure, but his reforms were mostly beneficial. Religious freedom was established, government efficiency improved, and the Napoleonic legal code has served continental Europeans well for two centuries.
Yet France's armed intervention was deeply resented. Some nativist reactions were relatively benign: romantic poetry celebrating the native soul, or a taste for folkloric roots. But in other cases the native soul, especially in Germany, turned sour and became anti-liberal, anti-cosmopolitan, and anti-Semitic. Some 19th-century nativists claimed that Napoleon was a Jew. This was not just because he liberated the Jews from their ghettoes and declared that France would be their homeland, but also because universal ideals, promising equality for all, have often been associated by nativists with rootless cosmopolitanism, which in their eyes is synonymous with Jewishness.
As soon as Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, the liberal laws he instituted in Prussia were annulled. And a century later, the resentments planted by Napoleon's armed liberation sprouted their most bitter fruits in Nazi Germany.
Ian Buruma, a professor at Bard College, is co-author of the forthcoming "Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies."
But then, Bushco will not have to deal with those particular fruits of their actions, why the rapture will have intervened for sure by then.