John O'Sullivan offers a witty and incisive take in the National Review's Dec. 31 issue (not online but available here) on the European reaction to Saddam Hussein falling into U.S. hands:
Listening to European politicians as they followed up their praise for the skill and bravery of the U.S. soldiers who nabbed Saddam with stern demands for the U.S. to share authority in Iraq with the international community or to hand over Saddam to be tried at The Hague, one was reminded of Muslim clerics condemning September 11. Yes, it was shocking and tragic, of course, but so were racist slurs on American Muslims, and "secret evidence" in terrorism trials, and visa rules that discriminated against Middle Eastern countries, and Western colonialism, and the medieval crusades, and the Spanish Reconquista, and . . . In both sets of instances, the qualifications sounded more important and certainly more heartfelt than the condemnations or congratulations they were qualifying. (December 31, 2003)
