Colin Powell raps "Axis of Weasle" (aka: France & Germany)

[Dr Mordrid]

http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/53602.htm

In a sharp rebuke aimed at France and Germany, Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday lashed out at countries that want to duck a showdown with Iraq, saying America will have plenty of friends in the foxhole without them.

"For the international community now to say, 'Never mind. I'll walk away from this problem' or ignore it or allow it to be strung out indefinitely with no end, I think would be a - defeat for the international community and a serious defeat for the United Nations process," Powell said in a slam clearly directed at France and Germany.

Both nations are vowing defiantly to try to block military action against Saddam Hussein.

"I don't think we'll have to worry about going it alone . . . I am quite confident if it comes to that we will be joined by many nations," Powell said.

Sounds about right to me....and coming from someone with the international status of Powell that is a huge rebuke indeed.

What was it they say about France in particular? Oh yeah....they have this tendency to surrender in the face of victory

Dr. Mordrid

[The PIT]

Probably cost Tony Blair his job if the UN doesn't back the US.

[Dr Mordrid]

If it does then it's more a reflection on those who remove him than on the quality of his policies. Blair is one of the few who call themselves "Liberal" who I find palatable, and so far his foreign policies have been excellent.

Most of the other liberals, especially the European variants, are almost totally spineless at crunch time and foolish when it comes to economics.

And people wonder why I think the EU will crumble under the weight of its own overblown bureaucracy; similar to what happened to the old Soviet Union.

Dr. Mordrid

[The PIT]

Tony Blair has two problems Iraq is one and this will probably solve itself if UN backs action against Iraq otherwise he's seen as Bushes poodle. The other problem is that he seems detached from the British public and also from Parliament. Being detached from the public is what finnished Margerat Thatcher. Going alone with US will certainly finnish Blair for the next election.

[thop]

I dont see the US having many friends left Doc. Tough Days ahead for Tony.

and so far his foreign policies have been excellent.

On a sticking-the-head-up-the-US-ass scale i give him a 10+

[The PIT]

Originally posted by thop
I dont see the US having many friends left Doc. Tough Days ahead for Tony.
On a sticking-the-head-up-the-US-ass scale i give him a 10+

Does it fit????

Tring to keep a sense humour in the thread.

[Jammrock]

Here comez zee German's!

Jammrock

[Gurm]

Arc de Capitulation.

- Gurm

[K6-III]

Apparantly what Germany and France want is justification, something the US has not yet provided yet even to its own citizens...

[Damien]

Apparently, the U.S. has been flooding the Iraqi email system with spam in an effort to destabilize the country before the coming war. I haven't yet found examples of this spam but I think it might look like this:

"Dear Iraqi citizen,

BUSINESS PROPOSAL STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL!!

Let me introduce myself. My name DONALD H. RUMSFELD, Secretary of Defense for the United States of America. Can we speak about a matter of the utmost importance and secrecy? I am am speaking of an opportunity that will benefit both our parties with a minimum of risk to yourself.

I will speak frankly. During the last forty years certain oil corporations with which I am connected have been benefiting from control and influence over the oil reserves in the Middle East through Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States. In the early 80s, myself, certain members of the United States government and the heads of many of our U.S.-based multinational corporations - whom I cannot identify because of the opportunity afforded to us - were assisting your government headed by President Saddam Hussein in your war against the fundamentalists of the Ayatollah Komeni in Iran.

During your long war with the Iranians, my business associates at the highest levels of the U.S. administration and business leadership helped your President by supplying arms, providing intelligence, sending samples of smallpox and other biowarfare supplies, and embargoing the Persian Gulf, even going so far as to shoot down an Iranian jetliner with one of our destroyers. With our intervention, your dictator Saddam Hussein was able to fight off the Iranians by bombing them with U.S. made cluster bombs and used mustard gas in contravention of international agreements with our knowledge. At the same time, President Hussein used chemical warfare against your Kurdish fellow citizens, killing 5,000 and injuring 7,000 in an attack on a village. After this, we provided your brutal government even more assistance. Over all this time we spent billions of American dollars using your government as a proxy against other Muslim countries even though we knew that President Hussein was a craven thug who enjoys massacring civilians.

Now, we want our money back. In the oil fields of Iraq are billions of barrels of petroleum that friends of our administration want under our control. This amount could equal trillions of dollars either in 'rebuilding' or 'administration' contracts to U.S.- owned oil corporations, billions of dollars in military-supporting industries and consulting companies who have senators and past-administration officials in their board of directors, not to mention the effect of a U.S.-led post-war governance of Iraq would have on oil prices and pressure on other Gulf States for years to come. The cost of this exercise will be borne entirely by taxpayers in democratic countries, the lower and middle class who form our soldiery, and damage to your country.

We want to transfer BILLIONS of DOLLARS in funds from Iraq and the U.S. out of each country. Needless to say, the benefits to us would be extreme. You may be asking yourself, how can you participate in this venture? This answer is simple: surrender! As we speak thousands of American troops and our allies are poised to attack your country. When you see a western soldier repel from a Blackhawk helicopter, lie down on the ground and put your hands on your head. When you see a Tomahawk missile turning down your street, abandon that air defense post. If you see Saddam, make sure you tell the nearest Fox News correspondent; we will receive the information immediately.

When the war is over in a month, we will be in contact with you either in the UN food distribution centers or in the demobilization camps in Cuba to give you what you deserve.

Finally, it is important to keep the facts of this exercise to yourself, the way I have done all these months. You must agree with me, that we cannot blow up a chance of a lifetime because we cannot be discreet over a matter that would definitely work to our mutual satisfaction.

I await your urgent response, while I remain with best regards for your kind attention.

your servant,

Donald Rumsfeld"

[GT98]

Originally posted by K6-III
Apparantly what Germany and France want is justification, something the US has not yet provided yet even to its own citizens...

Here we go: Just a matter of time before its released.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=574&ncid=574&e=3&u=/nm/20030124/wl_nm/iraq_dc_247

Anyway wonder how long this thread is going to stay open

[Nowhere]

weasles ?! carefull what you say

I would say: caustious and reasonable.
Maybe it's because this was one of the few countries that suffered the most during last world war. (did usa suffered then?; not really - that war made from them economical superpower)
France and Germany see one thing: this can transfer itself into a third one.

[thop]

Damien, if this e-mail was written by real spammers it'd have been ALL CAPS and Donald Rumsfeld would have written it under his real name, which is of course DR. DOLU MUTABE

Now besides spamming Iraq via Internet they also started to spam via The Real World and dropped 360.000 flyers telling Iraqians to turn on British and American radio. Now maybe they should've have taught them english first

[mdhome]

I don’t find it strange that a country of 250 million people who own 40% of the worlds wealth and who spend probably 60% of the total military spending in the world just every now and again decides that it needs to flex its muscles to gain control over vital resources. Not that its nemesis, Europe was any better. It had it own Empires, all of them doing exactly the same thing, behaving in pretty much the same way and believing that what they did was right.

As an example, my country GB using it’s Empire believed that it was bringing civilization to the much of the world and for a century or so we imposed our cultures and beliefs on many peoples. I daresay some of what we did was good such as the Industrial revolution, Scientific advancement and policing the oceans etc, but much of the Empires activities was just a veil to rape other people’s wealth and in the process we became very rich. We also made a lot of mistakes and were quite happy to use Gunboat diplomacy when we felt it suited our (economic) interests. We were loathed and admired in equal measure. Ultimately there was much of what we did to other cultures that was quite reprehensible.

A century on, all the great European powers (France, Britain, Germany etc), who used to behave in exactly the same way have rejected the ways of their past. I believe that this is partly because Europeans no longer have the political or military powers they had and as such have had to adapt and learn to deal with matters differently. For all its faults, and yes the EU is beurocratic and toothless, it also one of most embracing ideas that the world has ever attempted to achieve. That is of the complete unification of Europe into a single union.

I guess that out of all the antagonism between the US and Europe over the past year the following piss me off.
US belligerence, (though my own country is quite capable of doing this).
US inability to realise that the rest of worlds population of 6 billion aren’t irrelevant
European toothless ness (both political and military).
Britain’s unstinting support for the US
Both US and European hypocracy

[Indiana]

Originally posted by K6-III
Apparantly what Germany and France want is justification, something the US has not yet provided yet even to its own citizens...

Ah no, no, no! I just can't hear it anymore.
Let's just forget those sentimetal / idealistic thoughts. What's really driving France and G. Schröder (i won't write Germany here) to vote against war are the same plain economic/monetary reasons that are driving the US to vote for it...
France is making quite some money there in the IRaq with their oil companys and about the same goes for Germany where several large companies don't have any interest in a war against Iraq purely because of ecenomic reasons.
G. Schröder especially woud be the first to support the US fully nuking the Iraq if only that would help him win the next elections so stop that unbelievable naive crap about him and Girac caring about humanitary concerns