The United States of Eurasiafrica

The Jerusalem Post had an interesting story on December 9th about a trade agreement between the European Union and Israel. The article states, "The European Union said Thursday Israel is among seven nations who will be part of its new European Neighborhood policy, even though the Foreign Ministry said Israel has not yet formally agreed to the EU's "action plan" for membership.

This program offers free access to goods, services, people and capital to countries neighboring the European Union in exchange for economic and political reform on a country-by-country basis."

The article goes on to say that, "The "European Neighborhood" accords with Moldova, Ukraine, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority are aimed at making Europe more secure by bringing stability and prosperity to volatile regions."

This is probably a good thing.

Just as competition drives the marketplace and allows consumers to be king, so does competition in politics. I believe it is competition that brings as much honesty as there can be to an institution completely made up of human beings. Though I wish we had in this country a viable third or even fourth party, with the two we have, there has to be a certain amount of deliberation before anything can get done in the capital of our country. Even in a situation like we have now where one party dominates the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branch of our federal government, there are still plenty of state and local seats held by the opposition. No party has absolute control and so we're relatively safe from someone anointing themselves king...even Bush family members.

I think international politics should follow the same structure. While I'm not crazy about the United Nations and their treatment of the US, I think they play a valuable role in keeping us fairly honest just by their existence. I feel the same way about the European Union. Just look at the map and you'll see something very obvious. Europe, Africa and Asia are all connected landmasses just as North and South America are connected landmasses. It would make sense that a viable global competitor to the US would follow the same basic structure. That is to say, smaller states on a continent joining as one huge trading area, sharing natural, scientific and political resources for the betterment of the masses at large. It's only a matter of time before Canada and Mexico do the same thing on our end of the pond. And here I should say, I'm talk about something way beyond NAFTA or GATT.

The reason why this makes sense to me and I think it's inevitable, is because without a proper economic and political opponent, the US is free to run amuck (much as it has) all around the world. It does so for the betterment of our country and our principle interests...which is fine except that generally speaking, our interests usually harm those in which among we are inserting ourselves. It's a simple monopoly lesson really, without a proper Super Power competitor, why shouldn't the US do what's in it's best interest? The rest of the world be damned!

I'm all for being a super power and I'm preferential to the US being the leader of world affairs, however, I think it's important to keep perspective and only a viable Super Power that challenges us economically, scientifically and politically will ever be able to that. Balance is what is called for and if folks on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean can find some common ground and a similar sense of unity that resembles US statehood, then a sense of balance can be achieved.

After years of horrible mistreatment of the Jews in Europe and historically, the utter contempt for Israel by the Europeans, this "EU-Israel neighborhood agreement" is a good first step toward liberal democratic sanity.

Now if we can only bring the Arab terrorists out of the 14th century we'd really be cookin' with gas!