“Paradise Isn’t Too Strong a Word”

For Romania?

That’s what some in the military are saying, as Rummy and co. ponder putting bases there. From the NYT:

July 16, 2003
U.S. Eyes a Willing Romania as a New Comrade in Arms
By IAN FISHER

CONSTANTA, Romania — Kurt Sanger is only a captain and so he will leave to higher-ups the question of whether Romania would make a good ally as the United States sets about a historic reordering of its military, relying less on its old friends in Western Europe and more on new ones in the east. He does, however, have some thoughts about Romania as a place where American soldiers like him may find a new home, perhaps soon.

“Paradise isn’t too strong a word,” said Captain Sanger, 31, a Marine reservist on leave from his job as a lawyer in Manhattan.

It is cheap, he said, and the food is excellent. So are the beaches near this Romanian port on the Black Sea. But more important, he said, Romanians really like Americans, and his worries, as an officer in charge of protecting United States soldiers on an exercise here, are not the ones he might have elsewhere.

I know a coupla things about my girlfriend’s home country. Pretty places, pretty women, an admirable disdain for puritanism. That’s the good part. It’s cheap because the locals are poor, hence their apparent desire for U.S. handouts. But maybe they should look at Okinawa and Aviano before selling out for an ephemeral boost to their economy.

The Romance of Empire

If you have not read Thomas de Zengotita’s essay “The Romance of Empire” in the July issue of Harper’s, check it out. Truly subversive. (Sorry, not available online.) Also great articles by Paul William Roberts and Peter (The Good) Hitchens– enough to get you kicked out of the bookstore if you try to “visually shoplift” it all in one sitting.

More Bad News for Gray Davis?

From the Telegraph:
“Tony Blair is expected to put his name today to a declaration justifying armed intervention against failing states.”

What are “failing states,” you ask?

“Where a population is suffering serious harm, as a result of internal war, insurgency, repression or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert it, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect.”

Sacramento must be nervous.

Government Doing What It Does Best in Iraq

From the AP:

Holidays established, abolished by new Iraqi governing council

Sunday July 13, 2003

A look at holidays abolished by the new Iraqi governing council in its first official act, and the new holiday declared to mark the ouster of Saddam Hussein:

ABOLISHED HOLIDAYS

February 8: Baath Party first took power, 1963

April 7: Foundation of Saddam’s Baath Party, 1947.

April 17: Commemoration of Iraqi military victory in important battle for Faw during Iran-Iraq war, 1987

April 28: Saddam’s birthday.

July 17: Return of Baath party to power, 1968

August 8: End of Iran-Iraq war, 1988.

NEW HOLIDAY

April 9 The fall of Baghdad and Saddam’s regime.

Expect much squabbling over whether MLK Day should be a paid holiday for state workers.

Max Boot: “Washington Needs a Colonial Office”

From the Financial Times, reprinted in The Weekly Standard. My two favorite parts:

“We need to create a colonial office–fast.

Of course, it cannot be called that. It needs an anodyne euphemism such as Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.”

Leo who? Nineteen eighty-what? Das Boot continues:

“But it should take its inspiration, if not its name, from the old British Colonial Office and India Office. Together, these two institutions ran large swaths of the world with a handful of bright, honest, industrious civil servants. They had an enormous impact, given the small numbers involved; there were seldom more than 1,000 members of the Indian civil service to administer hundreds of millions of Indians.”

Wow! What an extraordinary ratio of (white) chiefs to (literal) Indians! How did they ever manage?

Find the article here.