somedaybitch

holyfrellmedead, i'm torqued. i link the source of the torquage, a NYT op-ed in who's conclusion i do not, on the surface, disagree and yet infuriates me nonetheless, and a seemingly unrelated reader email that explains my torquage far better than i. getting really tired of the havingitbothways nonsense. and Roger Simon agrees.

the torquage:

I'm sorry for inflicting these horrific photos on you. But the real obscenity isn't in printing pictures of dead babies - it's in our passivity, which allows these people to be slaughtered.

During past genocides against Armenians, Jews and Cambodians, it was possible to claim that we didn't fully know what was going on. This time, President Bush, Congress and the European Parliament have already declared genocide to be under way. And we have photos.

This time, we have no excuse.

eta: and i notice that he leaves out Bosnia, Rwanda, Afghanistan and Iraq. perhaps they don't make his point "cleanly" enough.

from this original article. photographs not pretty.

and the "explanation"

UPDATE: Reader Kjell Hagen emails:

Many Americans discuss this. My input as a European (comment also left on Austin Bay´s comment section):

As a pro-US, pro-Iraqi liberation European, I would say both are right, but mostly Steyn. Yes, it was a defeat for Chiraq and Scroder. And, yes, Chiraq is corrupt and unloved even by the French. But, the French and a large part of Europe envy and resent the US and its power, just as much as Chiraq does. This will go on. Europe will never play together in any significant way militarily, with the US. And Europe will never build any worthwhile military capacity, given the political, economical and technological limits that Europe faces.

NATO´s big idea was to stop the Soviets. It worked, and it is finished. What is left is the girlfriend-like rhetoric, that Steyn points out. I think we will see an environment which is more like pre-WWI, with each larger power playing as best it can in its own interest, and with alliances shifting on a case-by-case basis. E.g., we see that in Lebanon, the US and France are allied to get the Syrians out.

from this discussion at Instapundit.

Europe will never play together in any significant way militarily, with the US. And Europe will never build any worthwhile military capacity, given the political, economical and technological limits that Europe faces.

so why is it always our fucking fault then?????? we see this stuff, we think it blows, we wait, hoping for the mechanisms in place in the international community to do something and then we're motherfucked by said community after its gotten so bad that we have to come in and clean it up. or there's the alternate scenario....we don't wait for said international community because we know they aren't going to do anything of consequence, and then we're motherfucked because we act unilaterally.

make up your minds already. people are dying.
/rant