Looking bad

Has the world changed much in the past half decade or so?

On Friday, 111 countries signed a treaty banning cluster bombs. According to the AP story in the LA Times, the new treaty

outlaws all current designs of cluster munitions and requires destruction of stockpiles within eight years. It also opens the possibility that European allies could order the U.S. to remove cluster bombs from bases on their territory."

The signatory states think this means something:

"The country that thinks of using cluster munitions next week should think twice, because it would look very bad," said Espen Barth Eide, deputy defense minister of Norway, which will host a treaty-signing ceremony Dec. 3.

Hmmm.

Few western Europeans have declared that the US was "looooking gooood" in the past decade or so.

Didn't it look bad when the US continued to use anti-personnel landmines?

Didn't it look bad when the US attacked Iraq without UN authorization?

Didn't it look bad when the US refused to join virtually every other democracy and join the CEDAW?

Didn't it look bad when the US effectively forced friendly states to grant it an exemption from the ICC?

It's a long list, actually.


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This week at the Duck

Earlier today, I blogged "Appeasement Anecdotes" at the Duck of Minerva. Did you know that the right accused Ronald Reagan of appeasement when he successfully negotiated arms control with the Soviet Union? Within 3 years of that "appeasement," the Soviet Union was gone.

Wednesday, I posted "The Golf War," which concerned George W. Bush's sacrifices in the wars on terror and Iraq. Last night, on "The Daily Show," they too headlined this story as "The Golf War."


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