Shifting standards

Worldwide, the United States uses double standards all the time. For example, we want to try people for war crimes, but we want our military to be exempt.

In today's New York Times there is a story on an arms deal between North Korea and Ethiopia, which the Bush Administration allowed to go through despite sanctions against the North -- one-third of Bush's "Axis of Evil." Because Ethiopia is fighting Islamic militias inside Somalia, the US OK'd the deal, which brought millions of dollars to North Korea at a time when we are concerned about the expansion of their nuclear-weapons program.

America molds the rules to suit what is convenient for us. We tell the world the same discredited advice that adults often give children: "Do what we say, not what we do."