Europeans Leaders are redfining their foreign policies

[notyoueither]

The old wave had to do with Vietnam, Pershing Missiles, Star Wars, and...

You have nothing new here, clown. Keep entertaining the masses for as long as you can though. That is your function.

[Agathon]

Fact is, we don;t have a stand off today. There are people who are prepared to fly planes into buildingings in New York, and I am sure there are those willing to sail a dirty bomb ladden barge up the Thames to London.

If Britain was not involved in US policy in the Middle East, no.

Do you think Qaddafi would have behaved as he did recently had he not witnessed the unity of response to 9/11?

Yes, because he was. Long before 911 Qaddafi had decided that being a good boy was in Libya's interest. He is one of the few people who was benefited by 911 as it gave the US and Britain more incentive to give him what he wanted.

If you kept up with world events, you would already know this.

Unlike you, I am old enough to have been here before.

Can you say, "classic bitter middle aged pub politician"?

You'll have to do better than that to convince me.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Ted, most of the posters in this thread do not want to see the alliance bridged back together.

I wouldn't like a return to old style NATO, where pretty much the US had the say and all others had to follow. There is little acceptance for this approach right now, given the negative attitude of most Eupopeans toward the running (and future) US administration. Who wants to be commanded by people he despises? No, the NATO has outlived its purpose (Cold War) and should be given a decent burial.

Europe should get their stuff together and build up an own decent military. This is doable, especially since the "global cop" claim of the US should remain unchallenged. Europe should be able to defend itself and to give the US a decent backing in places where it's needed and the interests of both powers coincide, like in Afghanistan (but not Iraq). But it is admittedly not easy to achieve, given that the EU doesn't even have a common foreign policy yet.

Both powers, US and EU, should remain allied on the long run as equal partners.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Agathon
If Britain was not involved in US policy in the Middle East, no.

You are overly optimistic, I'm afraid. I wished you were right, but I don't have much confidence in the rational qualities of people who rather go on a suicide attack to teach the infidels a lesson than to do something contructive.

[Agathon]

Europe should be able to defend itself

From who?

You are overly optimistic, I'm afraid. I wished you were right, but I don't have much confidence in the rational qualities of people who rather go on a suicide attack to teach the infidels a lesson than to do something contructive.

Al Qaeda are highly rational, given their goals. Their goal was to lure the US into a difficult guerilla war so that they could do to the US what they did to the Soviet Union. Bush dodged that quite well in Afghanistan, but decided to undo all that work by invading Iraq.

If you look at OBL's experience, his aims, and the information available to him, this is a completely reasonable plan. It's pretty evil, but it isn't irrational.

Terrorists aren't the mindless psychotics that their enemies like to portray them as. They have definite goals and their tactics are designed to acheive them.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
I wouldn't like a return to old style NATO, where pretty much the US had the say and all others had to follow. There is little acceptance for this approach right now, given the negative attitude of most Eupopeans toward the running (and future) US administration. Who wants to be commanded by people he despises? No, the NATO has outlived its purpose (Cold War) and should be given a decent burial.

Europe should get their stuff together and build up an own decent military. This is doable, especially since the "global cop" claim of the US should remain unchallenged. Europe should be able to defend itself and to give the US a decent backing in places where it's needed and the interests of both powers coincide, like in Afghanistan (but not Iraq). But it is admittedly not easy to achieve, given that the EU doesn't even have a common foreign policy yet.

Both powers, US and EU, should remain allied on the long run as equal partners.

Why do you say that, when NATO is where most of our countries have the most influence over the US militarily?

They agreed to bomb a foreign country that they had no quarrel with because of the entreaties of other NATO nations. Doesn't that tell you something?

I agree that the EU should become it's own power so that you are beholden to none. I don't see the majority of Euros to be content with any arrangement until you do.

[Pekka]

Chirac ruining for the whole EU. Thanks Chirac you POS bastard. His personal arrogance is costing a lot.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon

If Britain was not involved in US policy in the Middle East, no.

Yes, because he was. Long before 911 Qaddafi had decided that being a good boy was in Libya's interest. He is one of the few people who was benefited by 911 as it gave the US and Britain more incentive to give him what he wanted.

If you kept up with world events, you would already know this.

Can you say, "classic bitter middle aged pub politician"?

You'll have to do better than that to convince me.

You know. Arab-Muslims have a lot to be pissed off with Euros about. Let the Yanks stand down, and see if they stop. I doubt it.

Funny that Qaddafi publically disarmed AFTER the US went into Iraq, **** 9/11 as a prod. If you had a clue, you wouldn't be misled by this.

What can you say, other than you like to stir up ****?

[BeBMan]

Agathon: I don't see them as psychotics, but they seem to buy their own religious crap. Their goals are for any modern democratic society unaccaptable, and not negotiable, and they will not become nice peace-loving liberals when Europe simply plays the dead man while they go after the US. So the basic conflict is there, with or without the US.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Why do you say that, when NATO is where most of our countries have the most influence over the US militarily?

Because I have seen where this leads if countries try to actually exercise this influence.

They agreed to bomb a foreign country that they had no quarrel with because of the entreaties of other NATO nations. Doesn't that tell you something?

Bad example to one who thinks that Kosovo was an illegal assault and largely backed terrorists, which were half-assed "disarmed" afterwards, that well that the region is still a quagmire with NATO soldiers standing helpless to watch anti-serbian pogroms. Besides, I am unsure, who begged whom in this case. There have been huge discussions over this matter in our government, and the coalition nearly broke over it. And the issue was just, if we should contribute forces or not. To start a war of aggression outright is illegal by constitution. So it was surely not Germany, who drove anyone to start a war. I am sure our neighbors would shudder in that prospect. Who was it then, who begged? France? UK? Or was it the US itself, who drove the Europeans into doing something to fix the unpleasant situation in their backyard?

[notyoueither]

Or Russia.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


Because I have seen where this leads if countries try to actually exercise this influence.



Bad example to one who thinks that Kosovo was an illegal assault and largely backed terrorists, which were half-assed "disarmed" afterwards, that well that the region is still a quagmire with NATO soldiers standing helpless to watch anti-serbian pogroms. Besides, I am unsure, who begged whom in this case. There have been huge discussions over this matter in our government, and the coalition nearly broke over it. And the issue was just, if we should contribute forces or not. To start a war of aggression outright is illegal by constitution. So it was surely not Germany, who drove anyone to start a war. I am sure our neighbors would shudder in that prospect. Who was it then, who begged? France? UK? Or was it the US itself, who drove the Europeans into doing something to fix the unpleasant situation in their backyard?

Yes, but...

Your country, and mine, had a direct impact on American military power, because of NATO. Your country and mine had a direct line into the Pentagon and the White House.

btw, there were NATO troops on the ground, Canadians and French among them, who were bleeding because of ongoing conflict. The bombing of Serbia was presented as a solution to the meat grinder on the ground. Funny that the shooting largely stopped after Serbia got bombed.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Ted Striker


You can stick with your bigoted homophobe rednecks while the rest of the world moves forward.

Hopefully the dems will stick with this strategy for the next generation or two

[Agathon]

Funny that Qaddafi publically disarmed AFTER the US went into Iraq, **** 9/11 as a prod. If you had a clue, you wouldn't be misled by this.

And I've already pointed out to you that he has been trying to make nice for years. If you bothered reading anything other than supermarket tabloids, you might have realized this.

Agathon: I don't see them as psychotics, but they seem to buy their own religious crap. Their goals are for any modern democratic society unaccaptable, and not negotiable, and they will not become nice peace-loving liberals when Europe simply plays the dead man while they go after the US. So the basic conflict is there, with or without the US.

They don't want to attack us to start World War III. They don't even want to force us all to convert to Islam. Al Qaeda has two main goals.

(1) Bring Islamist regimes to power in Arab countries. Islamists have been trying this since the 60s and failing miserably because the likes of Saddam Hussein and the other Arab despots responded by executing them.

(2) Stop the West from meddling in the Middle East. This is, of course, connected to (1) since the West doesn't want Islamists in charge in the world's premier oil region. Here they have quite a good case - the West has behaved extremely badly towards the Arabs for most of the 20th century and has supported all sorts of brutal thugs (like Saddam Hussein) as long as it suited them. A humiliating defeat for the West in the Middle East would leave the path open for Islamists to seize power.

Now it's a nutty project and suffers from several obvious flaws. For one, most Arabs do not want to live the puritanical life that radical Islamists would like to force on them.

But you can't appreciate the real risks of terrorism without actually looking at what Al Qaeda want. As OBL said the other week, they want the West to stop meddling in the Middle East. That raises an interesting question, why the hell are we doing so? It isn't as if the Arabs can avoid selling us oil, they need the money to buy food for a start.

[Spiffor]

In the case of the Kosovo war, the US rushed for a war as soon as it entered the issue. The Europeans were trying to find a solution through diplomacy (whose high point was supposed to be the Rambouillet Summit, with the EU countries, Milosevic, the KLA, the Kosovar democratic leader, and the US).

During the peace talks, the US decided to back immediately the KLA, and pushed for war. I don't know if the Euros then begged for the war to happen in the frame or NATO or not, but the initiative of the war was strictly American, as soon as the US considered they had to clean up the mess we Euros weren't able to.