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January 13, 2006
Merkelology
As Angela Merkel awaits her warm welcome stateside, the prevailing wisdom has it that the Administration places such a high value on the chance at better, closer German relations that it will tolerate Merkel's own criticism. WaPo:
Some of Merkel's thorniest challenges have come in dealing with the United States. Last week, she told the magazine Der Spiegel that the prison camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay "cannot and must not exist in the long term."
I'm afraid that a statement to the effect that the current arrangement at Gitmo should not be permanent is hardly a challenge (the word "must" makes it so), and certainly not a thorny one. For a German chancellor to publicly voice her desire to see America's (successful, thorough, necessary, appropriate) prison camp done away with -- eventually -- is really not extraordinary: does it go beyond, or fall short of, what every decent American expects and believes? No; what is extraordinary is that this "criticism" of Gitmo (by the set standard, "support" would have to amount to a recommendation of perpetuity) counts as one of Merkel's "thorniest challenges." If this is all she has got, the U.S.-German relationship is in good stead...
Posted by James G. Poulos at January 13, 2006 09:34 AM
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