Do you think Bush grabbed his hand or vice-versa? ;-) What do you think diplomacy demands when such occurs? Do you shake the hand loose?

See what I mean about creating a perception when a little thoughtful analysis tells the whole story?

As for the difference between these nations and our resource scramble - we constantly try to deal with folks who respect human rights and if they don't we try to get them to clean up their act. The other nations often prefer working with human rights violators - because it serves to increase the cheapness of those resources and insures that the US will not soon be outbidding them on those same resources. Burma & Sudan are beautiful examples of what nations really care about human rights and which ones don't.

The US is the ONLY nation who has really tried to promote human rights/democracy during its business dealings. It may seem a small difference and obviously there are companies here who couldn't care less, but as a whole it makes a big difference in the global human rights department.

We are taught that "the west" shares our love of freedom - but it is really not the case. Most of that is leftover PR from the WWII era.

The US is a freak among nations. We have a small selfless streak that simply does not exist in other nations.