Ooooph

Paul Krugman steps to the plate this morning in his Op-Ed, on the heels of a Francophobic frenzy the past couple of days. You can't always rely on Krugman for an enormous amount of substance -- this goes, it seems, with most of the New York Times editorials -- but you can consistently rely upon his coherently incisive invective to rouse you from the stupor that the contemporary American media cannot help but induce. Coming from an "insider," who is viewing these things unfold from the "outside," with unease and, quite frankly, a large measure of embarassment, Krugman's concluding thoughts ring true for me:

Meanwhile, here's how it looks from Paris: France was willing to put ground troops at risk — and lose a number of soldiers — in the former Yugoslavia; we weren't. The U.S. didn't make good on its promises to provide security and aid to post-Taliban Afghanistan. Those Americans, they are very brave when it comes to bombing from 10,000 meters, but they expect other people to clean up the mess they make, no?

And French officials have made no secret of their belief that Mr. Bush wants to invade Iraq not because he is truly convinced that Saddam Hussein is a menace, but because he'd rather have an easy victory in a conventional war than stick to the hard task of tracking down stateless terrorists. I'm not saying they're right; I have no idea what Mr. Bush is really thinking. But you can understand their point of view.

In the days ahead, as the diplomatic confrontation between the Bush administration and the Europeans escalates, remember this: Viewed from the outside, Mr. Bush's America does not look like a regime whose promises you can trust.

A new blogger, a Canadian expat now living in Leuven, who is, methinks, insanely smarter than I, Scott Martens has some good insights on the Euro-perspective, as well. Very well worth checking out, should you be troubled at all by the tenor of America's foreign policy, even with its allies no less, these days.

EDITORIAL UPDATE: I didn't realize that this post was all out of whack until very late into the evening. I tidied up the links at the beginning, and found my opening phrase.