STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

Today's sob story: A L Kennedy in the Guardian explains why, as a "leftwing American", he no longer feels at home in America. Actually, I can relate to this: being a pro-European I'm increasingly finding that the anti-war sentiments of my fellow Europeans are putting me off the whole European enterprise. Once, I'd have had positive thoughts about a common European foreign policy, but if the price of that is following the lead of the French - forget it. Here's his analysis of current American insanity:

Clinton, having more adult concerns, downgraded the project. George Jr has, naturally, pleased his pals in the armaments industry by cranking up the spending, even though the only part of any system that might conceivably be made to work won't guard against mass missile launches, biological or chemical attack, multiple warheads or any attack not made by missile. Still, it can be guaranteed to destabilise international relations for at least the rest of the decade.

Ah yes, Bill Clinton, the same Bill Clinton who had the opportunity to get his hands on Osama bin Laden after the 1993 WTC attack (not to mention a great deal of free intelligence on al-Qa'eda, all thanks to the Sudanese government) and turned down the offer; the same Bill Clinton who received an offer from the Saudis to bug bin Laden's mother when she went to Afghanistan to see him - and turned it down; the same Bill Clinton who was too busy dealing with the consequences of his "adult concerns" to bother with such trivialities as US national defence - oh you mean that Bill Clinton? Apparently US presidents only spend money on defending their country to please their "pals in the armament industry"; well, yeah - if Norway blew a couple of billion on a missile defence system I might be persuaded that this was the Norwegian government's motive, but then Norway isn't the Great Satan, an object of loathing for Islamofascists everywhere, and hijacked planes haven't been dropping on downtown Oslo of late. And the much-vaunted missile defence system, which according to Kennedy doesn't actually work, nonetheless is capable of "destabilising international relations for the rest of the decade." But Kennedy isn't afraid it won't work - he's afraid it will work: why, if the US was semi-invulnerable to nuclear missile attack, they'd be free to engage in all kinds of interventions around the globe, without fear of large-scale retaliation. Holy crap!