Tinfoil Hats on the Horizon

Truly, the Bush administration is resolute, and above all, consistent, as those hoping to avoid a third war between Ethiopia and Eritrea are about to find out.

The truly innovative Bush Doctrine isn't pre-emption; it's the endlessly interesting policy of retaliation against irrelevant third parties. First, we responded to 9/11 by invading Iraq, one of the few countries in the world that actually wasn't harboring al-Qaeda terrorists. Now, in a lower-profile strike, we've pulled our handful of troops out of the UN peacekeeping mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Why? Well, we had to. Because those countries haven't signed bilateral agreements promising not to turn American soldiers in to the International Criminal Court.

Okay, I think that's a bad set of priorities, but so far no tinfoil hats poking out. Not so fast: it turns out that neither Ethiopia nor Eritrea is part of the International Criminal Court. So there's no conceivable scenario in which they could turn our troops over to the ICC anyway.

See, this is a brilliant strategy. Retaliating against totally innocent, random countries is something the enemy would never expect.