Oh these hypocrites. No, not the German ones.

I’m talking about those awful allied ones who didn’t abstain from voting in the UN Security Council like, uh, the rest of us.

In a recent talk show, German Development Minister Dirk Niebel found “it is notable that exactly those countries which are blithely dropping bombs in Libya are still drawing oil from Libya.”

I found his comment quite notable too, but maybe that’s just me. I found it notable to have been placed into a time warp without my expressed written consent and to have landed back in the good old Germany of those good old German Gerhard Schröder days (author of the old saying-no-to-an-allied-attack-on-Saddam-to-get-re-elected trick).

I also found and still find it notable that regardless of who comes to power here, the answer is always no. Back then it was the SPD and the Greens who said no, with the CDU/CSU and FDP questioning their judgement (albeit very quietly, and only at first). Now it’s the CDU/CSU and FDP who say no while the SPD and the Greens question their judgement very loudly (albeit not at all at first, actually having agreed with the abstention instead = meaning no).

You’ve got to have priniples here, I guess. And you have to wear them like a shirt. And change them just as regularly.

So you see… Some might also refer to behavior like this as being, well, hypocritical. Only if one wanted to, I mean. I would, for instance, and do. But nobody is ever going to  invite me to a talk show.

Niebel said that the German abstention was correct “because not all non-military possibilities had been exhausted.” He also insisted that the move was not politically motivated, ahead of two important state votes in Germany this Sunday.