From: Michael M. Butler (mmb@spies.com)
Date: Sun Jan 26 2003 - 15:02:38 MST
Relevant to the recent Ir*q threads...
"...lately it seems as though a lot of otherwise sober people on
both continents are becoming unhinged."
Umm, yeah. What he said.
Excerpts from
TRANSATLANTIC CHILL? BLAME EUROPE'S POWER FAILURE
By Gianni Riotta
Sunday, January 26, 2003; Page B05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41417-2003Jan25.html
Euro-American relations have come to this: A small traffic incident can
become a symbol of a geopolitical brawl. Recently the phone in my apartment
in New York City rang early in the morning. When I picked it up, a European
friend was yelling. "My daughter is in America! Her boyfriend was stopped by
the police and locked in jail for 48 hours," he bellowed. "See? They started
with Guantanamo and end up with a police state."
If this sounds like the ranting of a crazed friend, then lately it seems as
though a lot of otherwise sober people on both continents are becoming
unhinged.
...
The real issue is that Europeans feel they have not been accorded the power they
deserve in the international arena, while Americans largely feel that Europe
is freeloading off U.S. military might. That is what makes the Euro-American
duel so nasty.
This a heady, but challenging time for the small tribe of us who make our
livings ferrying ideas across the Atlantic. Another friend, a literary agent
in New York, moans, "I spend half of my time defending America with my
European clients, and the other half defending Europe with my American
clients." I know the feeling. I write a weekly column for Corriere della
Sera, a newspaper in my native Italy. The column is called "Titanic," an
acknowledgment of the dangers of communicating between the continents.
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