You are not well informed. Actually, the people in these countries were against the war. I don’t remember ANY country in europe whose people (i.e. the majority) did support the war. E.g. in spain 87% of the population was against the war.
But their ass-licking leaders know better, they know that they will be compensated by the US government…
Calling OliverH a "‘Europe’ Collounsbury"is not appropriate given your own nationalist record (I don’t know Collounsbury but I guess that is what you meant).
Anyway, for you, arguments are only valid if they are in line with your own opinion. E.g. the fact that the french helped the US against the British is irrevelant because “too long ago”. That fact that the US helped the French against the Germans means that the French need to support US foreign politics from now on, even when the US violates international law. What kind of logic is that?
You are not well informed. Actually, the people in these countries were against the war. I don’t remember ANY country in europe whose people (i.e. the majority) did support the war. E.g. in spain 87% of the population was against the war.
But their ass-licking leaders know better, they know that they will be compensated by the US government…
Calling OliverH a "‘Europe’ Collounsbury"is not appropriate given your own nationalist record (I don’t know Collounsbury but I guess that is what you meant).
Anyway, for you, arguments are only valid if they are in line with your own opinion. E.g. the fact that the french helped the US against the British is irrevelant because “too long ago”. That fact that the US helped the French against the Germans means that the French need to support US foreign politics from now on, even when the US violates international law. What kind of logic is that?
I think the scholarly personage known on these boards as Brutus was calling me a Europe Collounsbury. An unintended compliment I think, though I’m not sure what he was talking about. Beyond satisfying a drive to post silliness, I don’t imagine the term has much use. Or applicability.
The single comment of merit in Brutus’s reply was his objection to the phrase “a more international foreign policy” that I used to describe France. Let me rephrase that to “a more internationally reaching foreign policy”, which is what I intended.
I am tempted to dismiss Brutus’s inane points, mischaracterizations, and selective literacy responses. One gets tired of explaining…
By the way, Brutus, you sling around the word “stupid” an awful lot; not very wise for someone exhibiting such a shallow and uninformed point of view.
Huh? It’s funny where you make up all that rubbish no one said, but it merely goes to show how little you actually read. The Polish government can do what it wants, as long as it is willing to bear the consequences.
Then you remember wrong, but that is not too surprising, given that if I grabbed the next toddler from a sandbox in Dallas, he’d prolly know more about Europe than you. It was a minuscule minority of GOVERNMENTS who scoffed at the will of their people and supported the action. It was nowhere near even half of the nations in Europe, and many of them gave only vocal support.
What shows poor breeding is your insistence on points that have already been refuted. But that is to be expected from someone who cheers for the violation of agreements and the trampling of international law and rants without even the most minimal background knowledge.
** The Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union,
High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy is Spanish **
**The President of the European Commission is Italian **
**The Commissioner for External Relations is British **
**One Vice-President of the Commission is British, the other Spanish **
**The Commissioner on Development and Humanitarian Aid is Danish **
There’s more commissioners from supporting countries than from France and Germany, and the commissioners and other officials in whose job description the action in Iraq falls all come from supporting countries. Nevertheless they do not support it in the way that it happened.
Well, Brussels is the capital of the European Union, so it is not surprising that the politicians work there, isn’t it? French politicians work in Paris, Americans in Washington, Germans in Berlin, so I do not get that point.
The reason why Brussels has been chosen as capital reflects the fact that the EU is not “franco-german”: Brussels is neither in France, nor in Germany, nor in Spain, nor in Italy, nor in the UK. So none of the bigger countries can claim the capital. Rather, Belgium, a very small country, hosts the capital. Belgium is a bilingual country and Brussels is even bilingual city, which reflects the multi-lingual nature of the EU.
And through that fact, it was Greece, not France or Germany, which was slapped the most by the ‘Letter of the Eight’, since it was a backstab at EU procedures, and against the resolution of the GAERC which Greece in its presidency represented to the world.
Curious. You cry about France, which is going to experience ‘consequences’ for their perfidy. But Poland? Well now, they deserve whatever France can muster to sling at them. Seems like hypocrisy to me.
Seems rather consistent to me. To the US they had the guts to say:‘This isn’t how we do things in the international community’.
To Poland :‘This isn’t how we do things in the European community.’
Seems like you have serious trouble reading what I said, or what Chirac said.
a)There is no perfidy whatsoever in adhering to international treaties, which is everything that France is ‘guilty’ of.
b)No one is talking about consequences France can muster to sling at them. You are the only one slinging hogwash here.
Once more, since you seem to have trouble reading: Poland was not addressed by Chirac. He spoke about consequences for Bulgaria and Romania. POSSIBLE consequences. And not mustered by him, but by the public of the EU, which is capable of blocking the accession of those countries to the EU.
Second, I am not sure what is hypocritical about stating that if Poland is not capable of acting in a fashion one expects of a EU member, doubts can arise as to whether Poland is fit to be one. Which is all Chirac said, and in which he was supported by non-French officials. You still completely fail to grasp that his comments have zero, nothing, nada to do with the french national position. It has something to do with the lack of consultations, which are the mode of operations of the EU, and with the support for consensus decisions, again the mode of operations of the EU, and the fact that the EU had reached a consensus decision which was different from the position of the Letter of the Eight. France’s national position had barely been voiced at the time of Chirac’s comments. All you are doing is making hindsight comments that lack any factual basis.
Oh, but I forgot. Breaking international treaties is something you approve of, keeping them is something you despise.
“Perfidy” [snort] Brutus, perhaps you could explain to us all how France has been “perfidous.” Go look it up in the dictionary first because I don’t think you know what it means.
Never mind, I’ll just tell you, it means “treacherous.” Now what did France do that was treacherous? They were quite up front about telling GWB to go fuck himself. There was nothing deceitful about it. If anyone has been perfidous it’s Shrub, who lied through his teeth in order to justify a self-serving war.
I think the OP really has this situation backwards. It’s really the US which is utterly baffled by another country which is as arrogant as it is.
I looked back at all the “arguments” Brutus gave in this thread (yes it is not very often that you find so much hatered in one page), and I found this pearl:
Wow, He contradicts himself in the same paragraph. Give him a big hand
