Stardate 20030207.0536

(On Screen): My man Don Rumsfeld seems to have ranged the Germans. He the one behind the now-established phrase "Old Europe", and a couple of days ago he did it again.

Rumsfeld was asked at the congressional hearing what kind of cooperation the Bush administration could expect from other nations in the event of a war. He listed several he considered supportive and others he thought might come around to backing the operation.

"And then there are three or four countries that have said they won't do anything. I believe Libya, Cuba and Germany are the ones that I have indicated won't help in any respect," Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee.

I almost bust a gut laughing when I saw this. German guts seem to be busting, too, but not out of laughter. Rummy's going to be visiting Munich tomorrow, and protests are planned. Which means that the protesters don't understand. It went completely over their heads.

Rumsfeld wanted them to get angry. He's "firing for effect". He will take large protests as a clear indication that his message scored a hit. The louder they are, the bigger of a grin he's going to be wearing. The message was clear: we're not happy with you.

And German politicians are showing clearly that they can dish it out but can't take it. For the last year various among them have been heaping criticism on us, with nary an indication that maybe, just maybe, sometimes, the US actually does good things. You sure wouldn't have known it to listen to them, though. Evil incarnate, those Americans. Bloodthirsty warmongers.

Karsten Voigt, the German government's top adviser on U.S. relations, said Rumsfeld was forgetting that Germany was deeply engaged in peacekeeping missions in the Balkans and Afghanistan.

"Whoever fails to mention that publicly, is making a political mistake, I think," he told Bayerischen Rundfunk radio.

No, it's no mistake. If he was concerned about offending Germany, then it would be a mistake. But he was trying to be offensive. We Jacksonians are polite to those who deserve it, but never to those who have through concerted and deliberate effort earned a place of honor on our shit-list.

Since Herr Voigt is the top adviser on US Relations, let me see if I can give him a clue here. We don't worry about offending lying weasels. There's a really good reason why the phrase "Axis of Weasels" took hold here; it struck a chord with the prevailing zeitgeist. My dictionary provides the following definition for "weasel":

1. a small carnivorous mammal with a long body and tail, short legs, and brown fur that in northern species may turn white in winter.
2. somebody who is regarded as sly or underhanded (informal insult)

Perhaps Herr Voigt's time would be more fruitfully spent if he began to ask himself why the Americans are growing to hate him and his government. ("Hate" is too strong a word; "growing contemptuous of" is probably more accurate. "Ceasing to care about". "Ceasing to respect".) But in the mean time, we've got a couple of aphorisms in English which might be of assistance to him:

"If the shoe fits, wear it."

"You've made your bed, now you have to lie in it."

But Herr Voigt again tried to make the same point:

In a separate interview with DeutschlandRadio, Voigt said: "It is not wise to so frivolously endanger a partnership, which is of high significance for us and the Americans, through negligent comments."

He's right, but the message is a day late, a dollar short, and being delivered to the wrong person. The right time to deliver this message was last year, and the person who should have received it was Schröder. A year of public abuse by him and his party is what has endangered this partnership. It's done more than endanger it; it's fractured it seriously. If Voigt held that same job a year ago, then current events prove just how badly he's fucked up.

Klaus Naumann, former chairman of NATO's military committee, said however justified U.S. criticism might be of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's opposition to a war with Iraq, Rumsfeld's comments were no way to treat a loyal ally.

"Germany is and remains a reliable alliance partner," he told ZDF television. "That's not the way to treat partners.

Apparently the word "reliable" has a different meaning in Germany than it does here. But then, it seems apparent that "alliance" and "partner" also have different meanings (not to mention "loyal"). Those things don't tend to include "stab the Americans in the back if we think we can gain 2 points in the polls by doing so".

If Herr Naumann would like to see what we Americans mean by a "reliable alliance partner", he would do well to look across the channel and observe the behavior of Tony Blair. That is reliable. That is alliance. That is a partner. Germany isn't any of those things, any longer. (Oh, and that is loyalty.)

It isn't just Schröder's opposition to war which is at issue here; it's his cynical use of anti-Americanism for purposes of political posturing at home which is the problem. I agree that this kind of thing is no way to treat a loyal ally, and it sure as hell isn't how we should have been treated last year, let alone again be treated in the campaign leading up to the election a couple of weeks ago.

After the election in August, Schröder tried to tell Washington that he was through with that and wanted to be friends again. But going into a new campaign in December when he was in trouble again, he started denouncing us just like before, in ever more strident terms only this time it didn't work and the voters handed him his ass.

It's not how the US should treat reliable alliance partners, which is why we aren't saying those kinds of things about Tony Blair or John Howard (Prime Minister of Australia). But it is how we should treat weasels, because weasels deserve our contempt. My man Don said exactly the right thing, baby; and it's time for German politicians to stop blaming their problems on anyone except themselves. If German-American relations have soured, it's Germans who did it.