The EU continues to irk Chester

As has been much blogged upon, the EU is concerned that the rapid, effective, and enormous US military response to the tsunami is designed to circumvent the United Nations in potentially damaging ways. Javier Solana said as much in meetings with Condi Rice and Stephen Hadley, and Jacques Chirac is "concerned that the U.S. tsunami aid operation had sidestepped traditional UN channels." Let's see here: 1. US military begins planning for relief efforts, literally minutes after tsunami and is working on aid within 48 hours (more on the minutes bit later). 2. Kofi finishes up his ski trip to Jackson Hole while his subordinates call the US stingy. 3. As has been well-covered in The Diplomad, the UN officials have shown themselves to be a group of compassionate thumb-twiddlers, their only true capability being death by coordination, and have issued calls for aid in drive-by press conferences during a TWO-DAY visit to the region. 4. France and Germany: completely out of the game militarily, from what we can tell, though we admittedly haven't looked very hard. Why should we? Let's have an info push on this one, instead of an info pull. 5. An EU humanitarian official is now complaining of the intentions and agendas of those countries who give aid:

The European Union's humanitarian commissioner says the escalating aid offers may become a "beauty contest," where nations compete for the title of biggest donor.

So if we aren't stingy, our intent is suspect. Reminds us of the thousands of "activists" who complained about Saddam's regime, then were and are silent about its removal, or switched gears and now wish for his return -- since we removed it not purely out of compassion but out of self-interest. What moral hypocrisy.