Remember when the US legislature united to re-flag French fries as Freedom Fries over the namesake's opposition to going to war with Iraq over pride and pretense? (Incidentally, frankfurters were re-branded as hot dogs for parallel reasons but that designation stuck.) All things European were demonised as malingerers and overly-forgiving bastions of terrorism and Europe itself was re-divided as Old and New—the novelty and perhaps naรฏvety being good things in the eyes of demagogues.
Such warnings and reservations are quickly forgotten in the aftermath of greater, obscuring revelations regarding motive and offense and are only conveniently recalled. Just now, cheering the US for conducting airstrikes against the
would-be caliphate, the European powers are rather having their noses rubbed in it by the by some members of the press, angling for hypocrisy, for calling for intervention and arming Kurdish factions in hopes of fostering stability. The war-hawks seem to be coming back to roost. There are no shrill cries yet, but it’s a frightful thought that foreign ministers might be pressed into action by the same dangerous chauvinistic rhetoric that has exacerbated every conflict in the region for generations. The first strain might be presenting itself in the form of claims by certain agents that Europe bankrolls al Qaeda and affiliates by paying exorbitant ransoms for hostages and just encourages the groups to act in this way. With Iraq reinvented as a legitimate target, who knows what standards of cooperation and decorum could follow?
