Transatlantic Politics

Politicians the world over have to be marveling at Nancy Pelosi's ability to bribe her fellow congressman and have it portrayed in the American press as "a triumph".  Well done, Nancy.  All it took was $20 billion (with a B) in earmarks and other vote-buying schemes to convince her fellow Democrats to vote for the Iraq appropriations bill:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has demonstrated she can pile on enough pork to bribe enough Democrats to cobble together a bare, partisan majority to "send a message" that has no chance of becoming law. Congratulations…

The lengths that Democratic leaders had to go to win their "triumph" betrayed its cynicism. To get her narrow majority of 218 votes, Ms. Pelosi and Appropriations Chairman David Obey had to load it up like a farm bill: $74 million for peanut storage, $25 million for spinach growers, $283 million for dairy farmers–all told, some $20 billion in vote-buying earmarks of the kind Democrats campaigned against last year.

From The Wall Street Journal 

Not only has Pelosi proven the hypocracy of the Democrats' earlier promise to rid Washington of this sort of vote-buying and corruption, she has significantly hindered the overall war effort (not just the funding of it) by flatly stating when U.S. troops will withdraw.  She has taken the management of the war out of the hands of the U.S. military in Iraq and instead imposed an arbitrary timeline on our troops in the field from 3,000 miles away.  Has anyone ever heard of winning a war by declaring your intent to withdraw?

Even more sad (or ironic, depending on your point of view) is that the passage of this bill will accomplish nothing - 0 - zip - nada here in the U.S.  The passage of this bill in the Senate is highly unlikely and President Bush has already declared his intention to veto the bill if it reaches his desk in the unlikely scenario that it does pass the Senate.  What this bill actually accomplishes is that it sends the clearest message yet to those who would defeat our efforts in Iraq that we are preparing to abandon the place in the near future.  Once again, well done Nancy.

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There’s a witty editorial in the yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (requires subscription) about Angela Merkel’s totally softened policy-making. The title "Angela Schroeder" says it all, the current holder of the EU-presidency has actually more resemblance to her predecessor than to what she initially was supposed to stand for: closer US-German relations, stronger NATO involvement, "less government", cutting taxes, economic reform.

Upon assuming the presidency of the bloc in January, Ms. Merkel decided to use this rare opportunity to shape the Brussels agenda for six months to advance the softest of all soft policies: to revive the European Constitution.
(…)The EU’s real challenges are elsewhere: enlargement to the Balkans and Turkey, economic reform, the incomplete single market, terrorism, immigration, energy security to name only a few. Any of those would have proved more challenging for Ms. Merkel — and so much more beneficial for the EU.

Instead of immigration or energy security, Ms. Merkel has given in to the green obsession (despite her center-right orientation) currently so trendy in the EU: gas emission targets that are merely "PR gimmicks" - 20% by 2020 - when just 2 of the 15 old EU member states are on track to meet the Kyoto protocol. On issues like Iran, Merkel has also visibly given in to her Social-Democrat predecessors and members of cabinet. If one year ago, she was comparing Iran’s rhetoric to the Nazis, now she softened the tone and let her Foreign Minister and Schroeder’s former chief of staff do the talking. In Afghanistan, NATO is "fighting uphill" because of her refusal to move the 2700 troops out of the stable north to the more dangerous south.

The latest Merkel disappointment involves American plans to expand its missile defense shield. Poland and the Czech Republic are in talks with Washington to install radar and missile sites to better protect the U.S. and Europe against an Iranian missile attack. To stir up nationalist furies at home and pressure the Poles and Czechs, Vladimir Putin lashed out against the missile plan, knowing full well this limited system could never put a dent in Russia’s own nuclear threat. Germany’s foreign minister immediately rushed to the defense — of the Kremlin. Mr. Steinmeier accused the U.S. of supposedly failing to inform Russia about the missile plans.
Ms. Merkel could have set her foreign minister straight for resuscitating the Schröder-style coddling of Moscow. But she, who grew up in East Germany, only seconded him. Ahead of a trip to Warsaw last week, the chancellor said, "We, and I will say it in Poland, prefer a solution within NATO and also an open discussion with Russia about it." The Germans aren’t so concerned with NATO cohesion in Afghanistan. In this case, the countries directly involved are the ones to decide.

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Aren’t they lovely, the European Members of Parliament? Or should I say “EUROCIALISTS”? They just adopted a report on alleged secret CIA prisons in Europe, based on no facts, no proofs, just media reports and allegations. But hey, in Strasbourg, France, the home country of anti-Americanism, who cares about real evidence?
The author of the report, an Italian Socialist by the name of Giovanni Fava said that “We must be vigilant that what has been happening in the past five years may never happen again”. No, indeed. Instead of secret renditions, we prefer terrorist attacks and plots. They’re much safer, really.
Luckily there were some common-sensed people, but unfortunately not in majority. Here the statement of center-right MEP Jas Gavronski (also Italian):

“The EPP-ED Group today…could not support the final report…because of its lack of any proof to sustain the allegations of wrongdoing by Member States. It is disheartening, however, to see that speculations and loose assumptions have been allowed to fill the void where the facts should have been stated.”

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