Hey kids!

Summer is in full swing. Carefree as these days may be, we still need to prepare for school in the fall. With that in mind, I offer you a brief lesson in foreign policy. For those of you who were held back last year, that’s when countries mess with each other.

The United States is the most powerful country in the world. Our military is big and our bunker-busting bombs are the loudest and scariest.

However, even the United States can’t always fix problems around the world alone. So we form “clubs” or “teams” to help us bring peace, democracy and McDonalds to people worldwide.

One of these clubs is called NATO. That stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. There are 28 members of this club.

What’s that, Timmy? No, I don’t know why the South or West Atlantic are not mentioned. Just put your head down, take a nap and stop asking Uncle Steffen embarrassing questions he can’t answer.

Anyhow, where was I? Oh, NATO.

Recently, the leader of a country in North Africa called Libya, Col. Muammar Gadhafi (also spelled “Ghaddaffy,” “Jadaffey,” “GodAffi,” “Gathafi,” “Kadafi,” “al-Qaddafi” and “Gadafy,”), behaved badly again. He’s always in detention, then we give him a break and he does bad things again, just like some of you! By the way, wouldn’t you hate to be a kid in school and get graded on spelling your great leader’s name correctly? Bummer!

Anyhow, I digress.

Mr. G’s people revolted, and members of his military started mowing them down. President Obama decided that was mean, and also a good excuse to get rid of Colonel G once and for all. President O started to bomb the heck out of Colonel G’s military. President O asked members of our most trusted and important military alliance, NATO, to help with that.

Well, guess what? Most of our buddies decided they didn’t want to join us in Operation Unified Protector. At this point, it might be more apt to call it Divided Protector.

The Italian President Silvio Berlusconi said he was busy playing “Bunga Bunga” and it was more fun than “Bomba Bomba.” You can look up “Bunga Bunga” on your own. All I can tell you is that it involves underaged and underdressed girls! Isn’t that fun!

The Spanish were too busy building more houses and shopping centers no one wants to buy.

The Greeks were out drinking Ouzo. Belgium, Holland, Lichtenstein, Andorra, Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, (be quiet Jameel, it doesn’t matter if some of these countries are not NATO members. I’m just making a point here!)…anyway, most of NATO did not want to play Dump the Colonel.

The United States, Britain, Belgium, Canada, France, Denmark and Norway did bomb the daylights out of Libyan forces and stopped the Colonel’s air assets (Don’t giggle Mary Lou, “assets” is NOT a dirty word!) from flying and hurting the rebels.

Of course, the NATO forces ran out of bombs really fast because they don’t spend very much on their military forces. They have national healthcare, which uses up all their money, so the United States has had to lend them some. Don’t you hate it when your friends run out of gum, or pencils, or Marlboro Lights and they mooch? Me too!

Anyhow, on July 12, the French defense minister Gerard Longuet announced that military action is not working and that peace talks with Gadhafi should start. Maybe if the Colonel was really, really nice and apologized (for deeds like the Lockerbie bombing, building weapons of mass destruction, meddling in every civil war in Africa and supporting terrorist acts in Europe) he could stay in power forever.

What do you want, Mario? Yes, that is why the French are called “surrender monkeys.” It’s also why we in America eat “freedom fries” instead of french fries!

Oops, looks like our time’s up. I hope you enjoyed this lesson from Uncle Steffen. See you in class soon!