Right Wing Nut House

Gordon Cooper died last night.

For those of a certain age who grew up in a certain time, that news makes us feel very old indeed.

Gordon Cooper was one of Tom Wolfe’s “single combat warriors” described so eloquently in “The Right Stuff”. Wolfe compared the 7 Mercury astronauts to the “King’s Champions” of old who would venture forth before a battle to engage in single combat with his counterpart from the enemy. The winner of the contest would sometimes so discourage the enemy that they would quit the field of battle.

Alone, sitting atop the Atlas rocket (a midget compared to today’s mighty boosters) Cooper and the other Mercury astronauts took part in, what looking back on today, seems like a foolhardy venture. With no on board computer to speak of and an unproven rocket and space capsule Cooper and his fellow Mercury astronauts flung themselves into the unknown in, what Wolfe described as “The greatest death-defying stunt ever broadcast.”

Cooper was the last American to orbit the earth alone. Lt. Col Yang Liwei of China made a solo orbital flight in April of 2003.

The juxtaposition of Gordon Cooper’s death and the successful launch of Spaceship One is too perfect, too poetically just to simply pass off as one of those strange coincidences that life offers up now and then. It makes one realize that yes, perhaps there is order to the universe, a “grand design” as my fellow agnostics might speculate about. While at the same time-like the passing of other heroes from our childhood-it reminds us of our own mortality and allows for an introspection that we take advantage of far less often than we should.

For now, the future belongs to space ventures like Spaceship One. For a measly $200,000, you’ll be able to take a 20 minute sub-orbital flight and experience the thrill of weightlessness for 5-8 minutes.(I hope Richard Branson, who’s backing the space tourism venture, supplies plenty of vomit bags for the 50% of people who throw up when experiencing weightlessness!)

And what about the X-Prize? The $10 million won by Spaceship One designer Burt Ruttan and his company Mojave Aerospace Ventures covers less than half of the $25 million in development costs for the vehicle. While technically a brilliant achievement, the spacecraft falls short of revolutionizing space travel. It’s not launched from the ground but rather dropped from a plane. And being limited to suborbital flights of less than 20 minutes, it will for the forseeable future, be little more than a novelty, garnering headlines but not making much money.

Before dismissing the venture out of hand there are other, more exciting possibilities just beyond the horizon. Bill Sprague’s American Astronautics is building a larger vehicle that may, someday, achieve orbit. Sprague’s 30 years as an aerospace R&D engineer has investors interested…but not ready to commit. And that’s where the value of Spaceship One can be found.

If there is ever going to be a private sector manned space flight industry, there’s going to have to be some kind of track record for investors to have confidence in. Perhaps the value of space tourism will be to show venture capitalists that a market exists beyond tourism for manned spaceflight. Medical research, metallurgical breakthroughs, even something as pie-in-the-sky as mining asteroids could all be huge moneymakers by the middle of this century. This will not be acheived by government owned space programs which are, by their very nature, “risk averse” but by private companies whose desire to make a profit will lead to the next great leap forward in man’s quest to explore the unknown.

UPDATE:In an interview with Newsmax, Yossef Bodansky, director of research at the International Strategic Studies Association and director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as best-selling author of “Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America,”says we’re losing the war on terror.

“Despite the formulation of a correct policy by the Bush Administration, the war is in a dire state primarily because the U.S. intelligence community has repeatedly failed the White House by providing scant concrete data and wrong threat analysis.”

He cites the “institutional culture that taints and tilts analysis” for this failure.

Here’s the interview.

Robert Charles is a diplomat. A career foreign service officer, he recently visited Iraq to assist in training the new Iraqi police force. Flying in a helicopter over Bagdhad, Charles passed over some Iraqi’s who had come out of their houses…

“Below us, people come out into the streets. They are trying to process us as fast as we are them. They turn, pointing. Some smile. Are they pointing something at us? No, they are smiling and waving. Are they just waving and smiling? Yes. The soldier behind the machine gun sees them as well. He waves back.
Extraordinary. Did I really see this culture-bridging communication? Yes. Underscoring conversations with Iraqis in Baghdad, the majority of Iraqis and Americans in uniform speak a private language based on shared and unique knowledge — the language of hope.”

The language of hope! It seems like I’m belaboring the obvious but I have to ask myself, why this “language of hope” fails to make it into our living rooms when the press reports what’s going on in Iraq? Mr. Charles has an interesting take on this. Writing about the exchange of waves at “100 miles per hour”:

“They know and share the same basic hope for democracy, freedom, sustainable security, a place safe for raising children, an end to violence and terror.
Moreover, they know their hope is shared. It is a remarkable thing to witness. It repeats itself. An electric current of belief runs between them — even at 100 miles per hour.
This symbol gives the lasting lie to all the negative media, with their preternatural focus on tragedy. Blood sells, waves do not.
These Americans and Iraqis share a wordless language — and a belief that seemingly transcends religion, ideology, culture, personal history, sadness, resentment, regret and impatience.
Something big and good is most assuredly happening. Most Iraqis know this is all about the future: their and ours — intertwined, worth the fight, worth keeping faith. They understand America’s sacrifice has been real, our intentions good. In a swirl of emotion, most Iraqis appreciate what is happening and who made it happen.”

“Blood sells. Waves do not.” It’s sort of like “dog bites man.” Aren’t the Iraqi’s supposed to like us? After all, we liberated them, didn’t we? It’s much more of a “story” to interview Iraqis who are mad at us and want us to leave than writing about soldiers building schools or playing with children.

Every network does stories on what’s going well in Iraq. The fact that they do ten negative stories for every one positive one is simply the nature of the beast. It’s news when people die…it’s not when children wave.

Mr. Charles’ column can be found here.

As US troops move into Samarrah in what is hoped is the long anticipated offensive against sunni insurgents and terrorists, several well repected and knowledgable columnists have written conflicting analyses of what’s going on in Iraq as well as offering strikingly dissimilar remedies on what can be done to improve both the tactical and strategic position of coalition forces.

Who do we believe?

Take Arnoud de Borchgrave, one of the more informed and knowledgable sources on terrorism writing today. De Borchgrave made his bones by uncovering the Bulgarian connection to the assasination attempt on the Pope and has written and traveled extensively in the mid-east. This column, so relentlessly pessimistic about the outcome in Iraq, should make even the most partisan amongst us (myself included) begin to think.

Then there’s Reul Marc Gerecht, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, who’s gloomy predictions about the radicalization of Sunni moslems-with the help of our erstwhile ally, the Saudi’s-point to a very bleak future indeed for a secular Iraq.

And Thomas Friedman whose informative books on the arab-israeli conflict are a must read for anyone who wishes to understand that troubled region, takes apart the Bush administration’s Iraq policy piece by piece until all that’s left is his conclusion that conservative politics were more at play than national security.

These are not the rantings of the paranoid left. These are three thoughtful men whose judgements we should respect and whose politics have been more often than not right or right of center.

But is it really all gloom and doom?

Check this column out by Ollie North. North, who’s shown in the past that he can be critical of the Bush Administration when it comes to mis-using his beloved Corp or mismanaging Fallujah, is much more optimistic. North has reported extensively from the front…the REAL front in Iraq, not the Green Zone in Bagdhad where most western reporters seem to have concluded that Iraq is in total chaos.

And what about the Iraqi’s themselves? Mohammed, Ali and Omar whose Iraq The Model has been an extremely reliable source of information regarding Iraqi hopes and dreams as well as local political developments which point to several key developments in Fallujah.

Does any of this really matter? I think it will only matter if the American people lose heart and succumb to the siren song of defeatism being sung by John Kerry and his strange coalition of “the wild-eyed and the petrified.”

Read this from Wesley Pruden or Chris Hitchens, one of the few leftists who’ve taken a principled position on the war on terror (in the process costing him longtime friends). And then, most poignantly, the 150 9/11 widows whose courage inspires us to not despair.

Thirty days to go before the election and we’re all going to have to decide. That’s what elections are about…that and the future.

UPDATE:, Here’s some feel-good news about Afghanistan.

As bad as things may be in Iraq, will elections on October 9 in Afghanistan give Bush the momentum again? (Superhawk shrugs his shoulders as if to say…”Time will tell…”

The battle of the Sunni Triangle has finally been joined as more than 5000 US and, more importantly, Iraqi troops have moved in to secure the city. First reports are encouraging and there can be no doubt of the outcome.

This may be an attempt to preempt any effort by the terrorists to mount some kind of Iraqi version of a “Tet” offensive in hopes of affecting the American Presidential election. If so, it’s a brilliant tactic. If, in the next week or so, US and Iraqi troops being moving into other areas currently under the control of the terrorists, it should clear the way for the UN to set up the voter registration apparatus that will allow most of the sunnis to participate in the January elections. This is critical if the Iraqi government is to have “street cred” with people in those terrorist occupied cities.

What’s even more encouraging comes to us courtesy of Iraq The Model. They report that various elders of local tribes have pledged to assist the coalition in cleaning out not only Fallujah, but other areas as well.

“…sources confirmed that a meeting was held between the chiefs of Al Hamamda tribe in Ramadi, Al Juboor in Tikrit, Al Gareer in Yousufyia and a branch from Al Janabyeen in Latifyiah to discuss situations in Fallujah, the flow of terrorists from outside Iraq into the city and the role of clerics in provoking violence and justifying murder and kidnap in the name of Islam. The chiefs showed determination to end this situation either peacfuly or by force.”

This is good news indeed. It’s becoming more and more apparent that the Iraqi people are willing to fight for their freedom. Tribal loyalties in the sunni triangle are extrememly important. For years, these tribes benefited from the former regime as Saddam sought to cement his power by bestowing favors on tribes who demonstrated loyalty. And now the sunnis-who are more secular in their orientation-have pledged to fight with the new government to clear out the religious fanatics and jihadists who’ve taken over.

The coming offensive is going to be bloody. Already, indications in Samarrah are that dozens of civilians were killed along with the terrorists. I think the big question for Allawi and his government is will they be able to stay the course despite the innocent blood that’s going to be spilled. Looking at their track record in Najaf, I’m not very encouraged. However, it may be that this time Allawi means to see military action through to its conclusion.

I don’t think he has much choice…he’s running out of time.

UPDATE: Glen Anderson of Instapundit makes some good points with other links.

I decided to wait until morning to blog the debate so that I could get a feel for what most of the pajama people and the MSM thought about it. (This is really amazing because you’d be surprised how much agreement is out there). I don’t know if this is due to people reinforcing one another’s position or whether independent viewpoints tend to converge. Whatever the reason the consensus seems to be as follows:

1. Kerry won. Not by a lot but by enough that he will probably get a bounce out of this. Bushteam must counter this QUICKLY before the snowball starts to roll downhill and Kerry gets momentum. If that happens, expectations skyrocket for second debate for Bush. I think he’ll do better in townhall forum…maybe even decisvely.

2. Kerry didn’t contradict himself…remains to be seen if he can keep this up for more than 24 hours…Bushteam should be ready to pounce if he strays.

3. Bush looked “mad” or “annoyed.” I don’t know how that will play. Being less than 90 miles from Peoria, I think the effect will be more subconcious and add to the impression that Kerry looked Presidential.

4.Bush got a few good zingers in re: Kerry flip flops…especially when talking about $87 billion and Kerry’s vote to go to war. Kerry’s problem outlined by Dick Morris is that he can’t defend BOTH voting to go to war AND opposing it. The basic incoherence of this position may not be obvious but contributes to impression of Kerry as indecisive.

Gallup says Kerry won…but internals are VERY interesting. Bush still WAY up in who could handle Iraq (54-43) and likability…and undecideds went 10% for Kerry and 12% for Bush! These numbers could change in 24-48 hours-which is why Bushteam must blanket airwaves with quotes from debate vs. Kerry quotes from campaign that show him flip flopping.

All in all, best debate I’ve seen since Carter-Reagan in 1980. Much more substantive than 2000 and, for once, neither candidate made any huge gaffes that will be replayed over and over on MSM.

UPDATE: Funny cartoon here.

Looks like Kerry’s comment about preemption having to pass some sort of nebulous “global test” may come back to haunt him. If we don’t see some sort of campaign commercial from Bushteam in next 72 hours with that sound bit in it, they’ll have missed a golden opportunity.

They start lining up before the sun rises. Men from all walks of Iraqi life. Older men in their forties and young men who look like they come straight from the playing fields of their schools. They come for two reasons; money and pride.

They come to serve the new Iraq.

They come even though they’re targets in an extraordinarily bloody war where their enemies routinely cut off the heads of their friends and neighbors. They are targets and they know it. The terrorists drive car bombs into the long lines waiting to sign up for the police and security services and dozens of their friends and relatives are killed or injured.

And still they come to line up before the sun rises to serve the new Iraq.

More than 700 Iraqi police have been killed since the fall of Saddam. The training is hard but the pay is good. An Iraqi policeman can earn $165 a month, which is above average for the country. And with unemployment running near 50%, one would think that getting recruits would be easy.

It is. But not because of the money. And they don’t enlist to help the Americans. They do it because they love their country and want to fight for the chance to have a say in what goes on in their lives. Even though the terrorists target them. Even though they recieve threats either left on their doors or whispered to them by neighbors. Even though they worry about what would happen to their families of they got killed in the line of duty.

Still, they come. They come for pride and patriotism. And they come because they want to serve.

The USA Today article can be found here.

Great article here by John O’Sullivan about American policy in Iraq. Very thoughtful, very clear. Wish Bush could say it like this.

President Bush and I sat down at the table to study for our debate thursday night with John Kerry. As usual, George took the seat against the wall-the one where you could BOTH study and watch TV. And since Monday Night Footbal was on (Redskins-Cowboys no less) I envied both his nimbleness and foresight which gave him such an advantage in our friendship.

“This debate’s on foreign policy? I asked incredulously? “How the hell did you get Kerry to come in the same room with you and debate something he doesn’t know anything about?”

“I’m just gonna let ‘im debate himself.’ said George with a self satisfied smile. “No need to say anything I haven’t been saying for the last few months, no sir.” George looked up from his pad of yellow legal paper and briefly watched the Redskins score another touchdown. “Kerry’s had more positions on Iraq than a west Texas prarie dog has holes.” he said. “Gonna be as easy as sweatin’ on a summer sunday.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a strategy.” I said. “He sounds mad on TV. Maybe he’ll try to come over and beat you up.”

George laughed a little. “That’s where I had my daddy’s good buddy Jimmah Baker outfox those eastern liberal fancy pants. Ole John can’t come out from behind his lectern and approach me like internet boy tried to 4 years ago.”

“Gonna be like shootin’ crappies in a can.”

The following is a list, by no means complete, of questions that still remain to be answered about Rathergate:

1. Who gave Burkett the documents?

This one’s a toughie. There’s been a lot of speculation in the blogosphere that the documents were created as early as February. A PDF stamp on one of the docs uses Feb. 6 as a creation date. Others point out that, if the docs were created on a general use computer like those found at Kinkos, the PDF stamp could be in error due to technical issues that involve not resetting the date/time stamp after a meltdown. What we know for sure is suspicious. Newsmax reports that an April 27 Kerry press release mentions “verbal orders” to suspend Bush for missing the flight physical dated Aug. 1 as a “fact.” One of the memos cites Killians “verbal orders” of Aug 1 to suspend Bush and includes the relevant AF Manual provision. So does the Kerry press release!The Kerry release did not cite news sources for these “facts” but rather “Aeronautical orders”…”

Perhaps the Kerry press release references a Bush TANG document dump that occurred in Mid-February. Efforts to secure any relevant material from White House documents that were released then have not been successful. At the very least, this connection is very curious. More than 4 months before Rathergate, the Kerry campaign had chapter and verse of Bush’s failure to obey “verbal orders.” It is therefore possible that the documents were fabricated between the time Bush’s TANG records came out in Februrary and the April 27th Kerry press release. This brings us to another question…

2. How did the fabricator have such detailed knowledge of Bush’s TANG records?

It isn’t just the terminology, font, typefacce etc. that’s suspicious it’s the fact that SOMEONE HAD DETAILED KNOWLEDGE OF BUSH’S TANG RECORDS TO MAKE THE FABRICATIONS BELIEVEALBE!

Bill Burkett isn’t this smart or clever. Whoever fabricated the documents would have had to pore over Bush’s TANG records and come up with the appropriate dates, personnel, situations, and perhaps most importantly, the tone and tenor of the memos that would match what’s known of Killian. (Remember, both granny Knox and General Strong said the memos “sounded” like Killian.) I’ve tried my limited best to search for these docs on the net and can’t find them. I’ve searched both candidates web sites as well as the White House site…no go. We know that the easiest way to get these documents (if they’re not on the net) was through 1 of 2 places: either someone from the press who was researching these docs or one of the campaigns. I may be wrong on this but if this would be true, it sure would be a curious coincidence.

3. What did the Democrats know and when did they know it?

Former Gore campaign aid Tony Coehlo claims that he heard of these docs floating around as far back as 2000. He even hinted that the docs were offered to the Gore campaign but were turned down (not likely but sure makes a good story!) Then all of a sudden, the docs resurface and it becomes general knowledge among press people pursuing the story that the docs exist and Bill Burkett has them.

“The American Spectator” article of 9/10 says that an oppo resarcher at the DNC had the memos 6 weeks before the CBS broadcast and that they had been seen by “senior staff members of both the DNC and the Kerry campaign.” Six weeks before the CBS broadcast would have been mid-July, right before the Democratic convention. If you’ve never been to a political convention, you wouldn’t believe the kooks, crazies, and political groupies that come out of the woodwork. They mill around hotel lobbys and coffee shops. It would not be beyond imagination to think that the DNC was able to get a hold of the memos at the convention…especially if Burkett was NOT the fabricator in the first place.

I think we can narrow down the time period to when the Democrats got a hold of these memos: sometime between April and July. They certainly had them before September. What’s unclear is did CBS force their hand? Recall that 5 days before the 2000 election the Gore campaign dumped the Bush DUI story on the press. Were they looking for a repeat performance only to be stymied by CBS’s rush to get the story out?

4. Why would Mary Mapes put Lockhart in touch with Burkett?

Conventional wisdom points to a desire to coordinate the attack with the DNC “Fortunate Son” campaign. But what if its something else? What if Burkett had access to other more “damaging” documents? One of the authenticators of the CBS documents told “The National Review” that there were many more documents that CBS wanted him to sign off on. Was Lockhart, who probably had the CBS memos already, digging for additional dirt by asking Burkett what else he had on Bush? Pure speculation but fun nonetheless.

5. Will we ever get to the bottom of all this?

Three things have to happen for the whole story to come out. First, someone with subpoena power and the ability to convene a grand jury would have to investigate. Since the crime occurred in Texas, one would think that some enterprising Texas prosecutor would jump at the chance for such a high profile case. Not so. Since the originals have either been lost or destroyed, these documents are FABRICATIONS not FORGERIES. If one takes a document and alters it, that’s forgery. If one makes up a document that never existed, that’s a fabrication. And since no monetary loss was involved, no felony was committed.

A federal prosecutor may have a case for fabricating military documents. But sinec these documents are purported to hvae come from the personal files of Killian, such a scenario is unlikely.

Congress may want to investigate but, again, don’t hold your breath. Judging from reaction to Rep. Cox’s letter asking for such an investigation, it probably won’t fly.

The second thing that’s got to happen if we’re going to find out the truth is that Mr. Burkett has to roll. Since it won’t happen in the context of any legal investigation, Burkett will have to tell his story to the press. Since he’s totally discredited with the MSM, watch for Bill Burkett’s story coming to a tabloid near you! Like Donna Rice, anything Burkett says after selling his story will be viewed as suspect and we’ll be left to ponder how much of what we read is the truth and how much is part of Mr. Burkett’s troubled imagination.

The third thing that has to happen is that the CBS external investigation headed up by former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh will find out anything relevant. What most may not be aware of is Thornburgh’s animus towards Karl Rove. Rove sued Thornburgh back in the 1980’s over a campaign debt owed to him and won. How much does Thornburgh want to help Rove out by revealing CBS collusion with the Kerry campaign? Not too damn much. Put this one down as a blind alley.

The answer to #5 is probably not…unless the person who originally fabricated the memos comes forward. I suspect like Watergate’s “Deep Throat” that individual’s identity will remain a mystery.

UPDATE: One more question occurred to me…in fact, it was the first thing I thought of when I’d heard that Burkett had called Max Cleland on his cell phone in his car…

6. How did Burkett get the private cell phone number of an ex-U.S. Senator?

Clearly, you don’t get the phone number of Max Cleland (or, if Burkett can be believed Howard Dean) by looking it up in the Yahoo white pages. Burkett had been meeting with Mary Mapes throughout the month of August. Could Burkett have asked for those numbers in return for the first two documents that were turned over on Aug. 21? That would make the subsequent quid pro quo with Joe Lockhart more understandable.

THe “Spectator” article can be found here.

It was late August 1864 and President Lincoln was in deep trouble.

For nearly 3 1/2 years, civil war had raged across the continent. From Maine to Texas, brother bled brother as 1.5 million men marched across an increasingly desolate landscape as war took its ugly toll on the country.

In fact, much more than Iraq is today, the war had degenerated into a hopeless quagmire with no end in sight.

The Democratic party was licking its political chops. General Sherman’s army was stalled in front of Atlanta by confederate General Joe Johnstons’ guerilla tactics. Johnston used his cavalry expertly to cut Sherman’s long supply lines while manuevering his army to keep Sherman out of the Georgia capitol. Result: stalemate.

Farther north outside of Richmond in Petersburg, VA, Grant and Lee were giving an enormously bloody preview of World War l as their two massive armies squared off in trenches inflicting hundreds of casualties every day. Every move Grant made to break the stalemate was matched by a Lee countermove. In the process, Grant had lost more than 120,000 union soldiers killed or wounded just since April (at Cold Harbor in June, Grant lost 15,000 men in 20 minutes).

At their convention, the Democrats nominated war hero General George McClellan. Their platform was simple: The war is a failure and the north must negotiate with the south to end it. The Democrats wanted to use the good offices of the French and British to “mediate” the dispute. Everyone knew that the practical result of such “negotiations” would be two separate nations.

Republican operatives across the North told Lincoln that all was lost. They said that people in the north were tired of the war and that the President stood little chance of winning. Lincoln himself despaired. He had his cabinet sign a statement (a statement he wouldn’t let them read) saying “…it seems exceedingly probable that this administrtaion will not be reelected. Then it will be my duty to cooperate with the President-elect as to save the union between the election and innauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground as he cannot possibly save it afterward.”

Of course, Lincoln went on to victory. But what the election of 1864 showed, and why it’s relevant today, is that we should never underestimate the courage and determination of the American people to see something through to the end.

John Kerry has miscalculated. He believes he can bring up the spectre of the draft, of Viet Nam, of QUAGMIRE into the campaign and that he will ride this anti-war wave into the White House. But being a liberal elitist, he is out of touch with most Americans on the Iraq war. No matter that most Americans believe it might not be “worth it” in the limited sense that the pollsters have asked; no matter that a majority of Americans think the war might be going badly at the moment; it doesn’t even matter whether or not Americans think Bush “misled” them on Iraq.

It doesn’t matter because elections are not about the past, they are about the future. John Kerry will lose because Americans don’t really care much HOW we got where we are in Iraq, they only care how a candidate will take us to victory. Flip flops aside, Kerry’s “plan” to win the war is no different than the President’s-except, of course, Kerry will wave his magic wand and 100,000 Frenchmen will magically appear in Bagdhad.

There will be ups and downs over the next few weeks. Bush may stumble in the debates (more likely the MSM will SAY that he stumbled). Things could really start to go badly in Iraq. We could be hit with a very bad terrorist attack (that the loons of the left will probably blame on Bush). The point is, don’t get too down. Have faith in the American people.

Lincoln did…and won in a landslide.

_________________
You can always tell who’s a liberal: If it stands still, they want to regulate it. If it moves, they want to tax it. If it attacks America, they coddle it. If it disagrees with them, they destroy it.

It would appear that John Kerry has finally found his voice. His critique of Bush has sharpened noticeably and maybe…just maybe he has FINALLY settled on ONE position when it comes to the war.

Thank God it’s too late.

John Kerry may be the most dangerous man in the history of this republic, although Huey Long would give him a good run for his money. Unlike old Kingfish, Kerry’s potential for harm comes not from any confiscatory tax policies or tearing up the Bill of Rights; if John Kerry is elected his multilateral approach to both Iraq and the general war on Terror would fail utterly and miserably.

The problem is that failure means death for a great many americans.

Already, the europeans are making noises that they want to “negotiate.” With whom it’s not clear but the Spainish PM wants to convene a summitt of western and Islamic states for some kind of “reconciliation.” I take that to mean “we in the west apologize for trying to take your benighted people from the 15th century to the 21st century…after all you’re better off with lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, and believing that America and the West are the Great Satan.”

The UN is a joke and “old europe” is tired and pathetic. As an ally, I’ll take Poland over France any day of the week.