newcrasher, this would be the strategy of “drown your opponent in nonsense until he not bother no more”, right?
Well there are plenty of Americans born in other countries, or having parents and grandparents from other nations. Perhaps we have not had many major wars on our territory in the last 135 years, but there is no shartage of people here who undertand what the price of appeasement to fascism, nazisim, and communism can be.
For instance, many Europeans criticize America for being to “pro-Israel”. Those same people fail to understand that our large jewish population and pro-Israel policy is a direct consequence of the genocidal behavior of continental Europeans. American are fully aware of the legacy of those supposedly peaceloving and benevolent European “powers” which now so snidely lecture us at every opportunity.
Hm, when is anyone gonna bully eastern europeans into thanking Stalinist USSR for liberating them from the nazis?
Has anybody actually questioned why the French and Russians didn’t want to go to war? Now before anyone asks for a cite I’m just asking questions here. I have no proof, just questions.
Could the Russians reluctance be due in part to the fact that they supplied the Iraqi war machine? Could Iraq owe them millions of dollars that they’ll never see when Saddam goes down?
As for the French has anyone looked into the possibility that France has oil contracts with Iraq worth millions of dollars?
A lot of the anti-war people like to proclaim that these two countries obviously see the problem with us rushing into Iraq and that we must have another agenda. Did anyone think that these two countries might also have another agenda? I don’t have any idea what reason Germany might have or even if they do.
Just somethings I wonder about.
Yeah, in about a thousand ways in a thousand threads in the past three months. Welcome to the board.
Thanks.
Nothing conclusive then I guess?
The most important thing is that everybody in the end found a theory that makes one feel good about oneself. And we should be thankful for every truth the enlightened ones deliver us to choose from.
Well, in short, they didn’t want to go to war because they thought the UN framework, the Inspection process, wasn’t exhausted – they argued the logic of peace whereas Bush and Blair wanted to get on with the show. But that was in large measure window dressing, IMHO.
Behind that dressing, I generally look at self (personal, party political or national) interest as providing the motivations, my list had about seven reasons of which the most significant was a desire to set the EU up as an alternative power base to the (now) single ‘hyperpower’ – it all came a little too soon though and possibly on the wrong issue, although the clear message went out. But there was much else in the mix. Others will have alternative views …
It’s all perspectives rather than certain fact so, no, nothing conclusive. But it’s politics; no one can yet be certain of the consequences of ther French Revolution … who said that, Mao or Chang ?.
Thanks.
You know, every time people bring up the fact that we helped France in WWII, they should think about the fact that France helped US in the War of Independence.
We were merely repaying the debt.
More to the point it was on the way to Germany 
I find it amazing that the celebration of a few Iraqis has utterly erased any memory of the fierce resistance which met the coalition forces at the start of this conflict. And even more amazing that, as yojimbo pointed out, a war which was initially waged to root out weapons of mass destruction, is now considered a “liberation”, maybe even the Iraqi “War of Independence”.
France and Germany opposed the war not because they were afraid, or misinformed, newcrasher, nor because they are more sensitive to the horrors of war, as they hypocritically pretend. In actual fact, France, Germany and most of the other countries in the world do not agree that the U.S. should have the right to simply invade whichever nation they wish, for whatever reason they choose. Is that so hard to understand?
You may feel, newcrasher, that the U.S. has a moral duty to decide who is oppressed in this world, and then “actively or at least passively support their liberation”, or even, if they are making no efforts to liberate themselves, go so far as to liberate them by force. In actual fact, although you may now justify this war through proof that Saddam ran torture chambers, built palaces for himself while his people starved, was an all out evil guy, etc. the truth is that this is not the only reason, and perhaps not even the primary reason, this war was initiated. The liberation of the Iraqi people was not the sole motivating factor for this war - it is a happy side-effect.
If the U.S. is really to police the world, why not go all out and liberate all Third World countries… most of them are governed by corrupt leadership who play the fiddle while thousands flounder in unmitigated poverty.
God bless the courage of the American leadership indeed, to stand up so bravely for the rights of the poor oppressed Iraqis, to sacrifice young American lives merely so that Iraqi children may run free.
Donn’t be silly, yojimbo. Everyone knows the purpose of the US contribution to D-Day was to libereate France … 
It might be helpful to undertake some research. Clairobscur in particular has addressed the later point.
TotalFinaElf, a French company but also a multinational, has contracts, contracts that were in effect worthless until the end of sanctions. Not France as a nation, a private French company. In effect, if the French were playing to commercial concerns, it would have made more sense for them to “get on board” than to sit on the sidelines.
Similar observations can be made for the Russians. In effect, such assertions are as much simpleminded nonesense as the assertions this war was made for oil, (although that at least has the merit of being vaguely true in a trivial sort of way, not in the way the anti-war protestors had it.).
Both France and Russia saw national interests in geo-political terms at stake. One may take them to task for that, perhaps, but the commercial angle should be laid to rest as the empty canard it is.
"So where are the weapons of mass destruction?"
Actually, I think it’s fair to distinguish the pre-war German and French positions from each other.
As I understood it, Germany’s position was that they had seen insufficient evidence of the existence of sufficient weapons of meass destruction to justify armed invasion. If such evidence were brought to light, I gathered, they were willing to be persuaded.
This struck me as an eminently reasonable position.
The French, on the other hand, signalled their willingness to veto any war resolution, period. This struck me as unreasonable.
- Rick
By your logic newcrasher the UK should not be with the US as the US let London & other cities burn & refused to help until it was itself attacked.US did not declare war on Germany - Germany declared 10 days after pearl harbour.
Next time we needed help was for the Falklands.Our troopships were bombed by the Argentinians dictators planes, many died, where was the USAF?Watching our men die on TV.
Also you personally never liberated anyone, your grandfather may have, you have to earn your own respect. Europe owes you nothing, zero.
Actually, Bricker, while I agree with you 100% that the French took an extremely unreasonable stance on the issue (turning down US/UK proposals even before Saddam himself did), I have to say that their attitude about it was and is very similar to that of the (pro-war) Americans.
The French believed that they knew what was best for the Iraqis, didn’t give a damn what any other nation had to say about this, and are now patting themselves on the back congratulating themselves on standing up for Freedom.
Now re-read that sentence and substitute “Americans” for “French”. Still true, isn’t it…
Here’s a headline I read recently in a French newspaper: “Le courage de la France, porte-drapeau de la liberté des nations”, which translates to “The courage of France, flag-carrier for the liberty of nations”. Can you get any more self-righteous than that? Apparently you can, as is readily apparent on this message board.
You are mistaken. The French, in fact, took the position that you assign to the Germans. They specifically did not exclude the use of force at a future point in time. They did not declare a willingness to veto any war resolution, period, but rather anyone introducing an automatism for war. They believe that authorization for war has to be explicit, not implicit, and direct, not indirect, which is very much what the UN charter suggests.
The German position was quite different from what you suggest. Germany ALWAYS stated that they would not support the war with manpower or financially, period, whether there was a UN resolution or no. The reason for that is twofold: Leading the ISAF in Afghanistan and playing a major role in Macedonia, German forces are stretched thin to the breaking point. On top of that, the German constitution forbids preparation or enaction of any behavior threatening the peaceful coexistence of the nations. The war in Iraq IS highly questionable in that aspect. As such, giving transit rights and allowing the US to use its facilities in Germany WAS a whole lot of support given the circumstances and resulted in quite some angry discussions and in people trying to drag the government to court. Now that, of course, only touches Germany’s personal contributions. As for its stance in the UN, it pretty much shared the French position, given that the governments consulted each other near-constantly.
The German and the French didn’t take any official position on whether or not to free the Iraqi people, because that was never given as the reason for the war to the UN. They took up that the US claimed that the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction pose a thread, and if Hussein wouldn’t peacefully destroy those weapons peacefully that there had to be serious consequences. And there was no such evidence, and thus Germany and France didn’t change their positions. And there continued to be no such evidence, and then the USA got impatient and attacked Iraq. The reason France vetoed those resolutions was, that they took the UN out of deciding whether or not Iraq was a thread, which would have been the same as just appreciating the war.
What we learned from the situation is, that the US don’t need an official reason to attack another country, and that’s something not only Europe isn’t too happy about.