BUSH IN EUROPE

Bush is willing to do what it takes to get some help with Iraq. You have to give him credit on that one. But, nonetheless, it galls me to see our President making nice-nice with the likes of his counterpart in France. When this trip is over and done with, France isn't going to help us anyway, so it makes me wonder why Bush made the effort in the first place.

The relationship between America and Europe, today, is strictly business and nothing personal. If you think France and other European nations should feel they owe us for saving them in WWll, you'd be wrong, because we didn't do it expressly to save them. We got involved in WWll, in Europe, to save ourselves and the rest of the world from the unthinkable horrors of an unbridled Hitler miltary machine. France and the other nations simply benefited from the undertaking. We had no choice in the matter.

Jealousy and bitterness remains with the Europeans from those days, and I don't think they will be offering any real help until the day when they find themselves back in a corner again. It's not personal, it's business.

With the help of France and Germany alone, terrorism, on today's scale, would soon be under control and withering on the vine. But, in their view, a weakened USA translates to a stronger, emerging Europe looking to its future. We have to deal with this reality and struggle on our own.

It's not personal, it's business.