A few days ago, the poll shown on AOL's hideous and inescapable WELCOME window was something along the lines of "Should the US ask for troops and support from other nations to help in Iraq?" I'm paraphrasing, but it was something simple, not too wordy. Today it's phrased, "Does the US need U.N.'s help in Iraq? Yes, No, I'm not sure."

Most conservatives who kowtow to Bush would say we need help from the UN, if only because that's what Bush has been calling for. Most liberals, whether or not they agreed that the war was righteous, would say that we need help from the UN now, since that would bring us back on track for working within international law. (Even those of us who want US troops pulled out today would see UN political and military involvement as a positive thing. At least democracy would be a little more likely under UN direction than under Bush.) But why is there such disconnect between the ideas of UN sending troops and the UN having political or military control over the place?

If you didn't know what was going on (that is, if you tried to understand the situation from watching TV or reading mainstream news headlines), you'd get the impression that France and Germany and the UN are just denying troops right now because they're still sore over the Coalition's decision to invade Iraq. Sour grapes! The headlines are never "Bush demands support from other countries while refusing to share control." They're more like "France, Germany Criticize Iraq Resolution" (ABC News) or "US Call for Help Gets Chilly Reply" (AOL News). HELP! Poor us, can we please please get some help over here with our quagmire, I mean "occupation"? Can't you please subject yourself to all the risk and none of the benefits, so we can make the Middle East safe for capital again?

It's funny the way Jay Leno and the American mainstream adopted this myth of cowardly French and to a lesser extent Germans. Boycotting French products for a few months, telling jokes about how obstinate or idiotic they are. We take the heads of state to represent the people, but actually Spaniards were something like 90% opposed to the war in Iraq, in spite of their leader's endorsement of the war. UK was supposedly 60 to 70% opposed to the invasion in the days leading up to it (less opposed when their sons and neighbors and friends were suddenly in the middle of the damn thing, of course).

If they had followed the polls, Leno and other armchair testosterone dispensers should have been making jokes about the Spanish and Brits being "cowards" for failing to support the invasion of Iraq. (In as far as anyone should be called cowards for not supporting an illegal invasion. What are they afraid of? -- being held accountable for war crimes? Pah! Nuremberg trials are so Old Europe!) Meanwhile, we've been enemies of Russia and China so long, there wasn't much animosity towards those countries, even though they opposed the invasion just as much as Frogs and Krauts did. Americans were so busy pouring their French wine down storm drains and renaming their "freedom fries," nobody got very worked up about the popular Bush AWOL aviator dolls and American flags made in China, among the many things we're supposed to keep buying to bolster the economy.