American backbone

Demonstrating once again how flexible Americans can be when it comes to morality and policy, Bush denounced Taiwan for seeking to increase its de facto independence from China. The entire situation is of course ludicrous, Taiwan is an independent country, and the only reason this is not recognized is that China has decided to be a bully about it.

China, with a fairly atrocious human rights record, is facing off against Taiwan, a modern democratic nation. All of the Western democracies should be supporting Taiwan and recognizing its independence. Instead, we are showing the world that we don't really care about democracy, what we really care about is trade. Therefore, its ok to trample human rights and bully small nations, as long as you keep trading with the States.

Meanwhile, Bush caved in to the European Union and dropped steel tarrifs. The obvious juxtaposition is the Canadian lumber battle, where the US decided to stay the course of their protectionist policies.

We can continue! Defenseless Iraq gets invaded by the States. North Korea has nukes, so they get stern words. Afghanistan gets invaded for harboring terrorists, while in Saudi Arabia its business as usual.

The pattern is obvious. If you can hurt the Americans through trade or military, they will cower and comply to your demands. However, if you can't hurt them economically or through force, you had better watch out... the States is good at kicking countries when they are already down.