They are either with us or against us.

The State Department has released the list of 30 countries that say that they stand with America in our mission to rid Iraq of Hussein, er, disarm Hussein….I mean, liberate the Iraqi people. These countries are: Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Britain, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Turkey and Uzbekistan. And apparently there are 11 countries that are on are side, but are too shy to admit it in public.

Japan has made it clear that their support only extends to participating in the post-war activities. Um, okay.

There seem to be some notable countries missing, like France and Germany, but that’s old news. What about our northern and southern neighbors Canada and Mexico? What about staunch ally Israel? How about all of South America? Most of Africa? Southeast Asia?

Does it matter that many of our friends and allies disagree with our course? Should it matter?

One thing that stood out, to me, from the president’s speech other night was the closing. He ended the speech by saying “…and may God continue to bless America.” Which is usually a cool thing to say, but this time it seemed to exclude those other countries that choose to stand beside us. It would have been more appropriate to say “…may God continue to bless America and it’s allies” but then that would also signal that we believe God only cares about us, further fueling some Islamic extremist thoughts that this is really a religious war that we’re waging on them.

Oh well, as long as we win, that’s all that matters…

More later…
Paul