Faith, Beer, and Other Things That Interest Geoff

France, a "traditional" ally, and Italy, an actual ally, have apparently joined Germany, a putative ally, in financing the enemies of the United States. Apart from the practical stupidity of paying ransoms -- it is in effect a subsidy for kidnapping -- the European blood money is underwriting the purchase of weapons and explosives that will be used to kill and injure American soldiers, not to mention innocent Iraqi civilians. American soldiers and innocent Iraqis have almost certainly already died because the French, Germans and -- I'm sorry to say -- the Italians bought the freedom of their own nationals.

Indeed, the paying of cash ransoms to the Iraqi insurgency is even more damaging to the United States and Iraqi civil society than transferring weapons directly. Cash is more useful than any one type of weapon because it is more flexible. It can be concealed more easily, and can be readily converted into anything that the insurgency needs. Got enough AK-47s from Saddam's armory but not enough plastic explosive? Cash is more easy to convert into bombs than automatic rifles. Need radios, cell phones, medical supplies, food, shelter, money to pay bribes? If we would be outraged to catch the French shipping crates of weapons to Iraqi insurgents, we should be transported into blind freakin' rage that they are shipping crates of money. We are not, because for reasons that are unclear to me the internationalists in the mainstream media don't regard this as the scandal it is.