Softwood Lumber

Date: October 20th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

Thank you for Tom Oliphant's informative piece (How Bush muddied relations with Canada, October 20th. 2005, page A15) on the softwood lumber dispute.

But why are we surprised at the Bush Administration's reluctance to abide by the NAFTA Disputes Panel's findings? This is the way that this Administration deals with every domestic or international agreement that it finds, shall we say, inconvenient. This action is on a par with the torture memoranda, the withdrawal from Kyoto, the failure to ratify the International Criminal Court, and the US withdrawal from the obscure Vienna Protocol that ensures that jailed foreigners have the right to talk to consular officers.

The Bush administration just won't play by international rules; rules that it wants everyone else to play by. How sad!