Has Belgium gone mad?

[KrazyHorse]

Ned

And if he promised to actually send it, then you'd be the first to know.

We haven't said we'd give support, with or without a UN resolution. And the Defense Minister's mouth has already gotten him in trouble with the PM (who has said, on various occasions that we aren't going to Iraq period, that we aren't going without the UN, or that we might go regardless).

In short, nobody knows our position, least of all us.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Maniac


Why do you believe that Belgium/France/Germany should subject its foreign policy to American approval? Go to war with Iraq then. You can't be stopped anyway. But don't expect us in the UN or NATO to give you an excuse; instead just admit you're international pariah.

Pariah? Did you know that the vast majority of the world stood on the sidelines or joined Hitler until late in the war when it was clear that the allies were going to win? Actually, we do have to give Britain and France a lot of credit for standing up to Hitler in '39.

The US and the UK are again standing up for what is right and will lead a coalition to victory over one of the most evil men to ever walk this planet. When the shooting has died down and once again US and British blood has been shed for the liberty of all, I fully expect the appeaser, coward nations of the world will be glad to applaud us. I only hope that Bush and Blair hang up when those congratulatory phone calls come.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Ned Pariah? Did you know that the vast majority of the world stood on the sidelines or joined Hitler until late in the war when it was clear that the allies were going to win? Actually, we do have to give Britain and France a lot of credit for standing up to Hitler in '39.

You are comparing apples and oranges.

The US and the UK are again standing up for what is right and will lead a coalition to victory over one of the most evil men to ever walk this planet.

You don't scare away from hyperbolic speech do you? I just wished you would be consequential then and lead a coalition against other "evil" men like the leaders of Israel, North Korea and Saudi Arabia. Now one might suspect second motives.

When the shooting has died down and once again US and British blood has been shed for the liberty of all,

I have my doubts whether it will be the American-British or the Iraqi blood that will be shed most for the liberty of all [American oil consumers].

[Ned]

Originally posted by Maniac


I just wished you would be consequential then and lead a coalition against other "evil" men like the leaders of Israel, North Korea and Saudi Arabia. Now one might suspect second motives.

Maniac, we resort to force only when negotiations are fruitless. You know that we have been trying to fix the ME situation since '67 when it almost dragged the US into war with the USSR.

We adopted a policy of containment of North Korea after the Chinese invaded in 1950 and prevented a victory. Without Chinese cooperation, we cannot really do anything to N. Korea. But, even so, we may be forced to. Japan is not sitting idly bye. They said they would attack N. Korea if they began to fuel their missiles. I am sure both the Chinese and South Koreans would really adore this.

China may cooperate simply to avoid another sino-Japanese war.

Saudi Arabia has been playing a dangerous game by paying off terrorists and by harboring the Wahabbi's. They are going to have to change or be changed. I agree.

[Sirotnikov]

What if in Belgium some hotel or pub put a "Israel citizen are not welcome"...?
How would you call that?

Actually this is very much the case when it comes to Israeli tourists, or Israeli bussinesses. The standard reply is "due to your country's policy, you are not welcome here".

The princess hotel said the same thing: "belgians aren't welcome as long as the law is in place".

Had Israel prosecuted Sharon or at least done a serious criminal investigation, it would be ne bis in idem and case closed.

It has done so, and proved sharon was indirectly culpable though not directly at fault. It proved that Sharon should have known this and his actions were not responsible.

It is funny thought, that the person who committed the slaughter, the actual commander of the christian phalanges then, was a minister in Lebanon until recently.

And to stay on topic, is Begin still alive?, they could
convict him for sure.

LOL
even more ignorance

Begin has died somehwere around 1993.

The Lebanon war has put him in a deep state of depression from which he never recovered, and became isolationist. He was, according to the evidence, decieved by Sharon, the defense minister at the time, about the goals and targets of the war.

If you think that eithre Sharon or Begin given a command or even an OK to an even such as the massacare there, then you're crazy.

Even if you don't believe in their nice characters, to give out such orders in person, would be extremely and totally silly.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Maniac
Ah yes, FYI, my mother knows an ex-parlementarian who knows Willy Claes, ex-secretary-general of the NATO (a Belgian yes), and he says the war will start the 14th. So if Claes is still well informed, tomorrow your prayers should be answered...

Well, several friend in my old reserve unit have been activated and they're day of induction isn't until the 26h of this month and they'll spend one week in the U.S. after that doing remedial training. They don't know whither they'll go to Turkey or Kuwait but they should be in one of those two places by the beginning of march. I doubt the war will start before them.

I'm still considering the offer to go with them. It's hard to say no to friends who have asked me to go. I very well may find myself volenteering to go to Iraq. It might be worth a combat patch.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Maniac
Ah yes, FYI, my mother knows an ex-parlementarian who knows Willy Claes, ex-secretary-general of the NATO (a Belgian yes), and he says the war will start the 14th. So if Claes is still well informed, tomorrow your prayers should be answered...

I know an barber who knows a driver who knows a Secret Service agent who knows someone on the Presidential Detail who has talked to President Bush, and he says that both of these rumor chains are likely full of crap.

[Ozz]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
even more ignorance

Asking a question about a has been foreign PM
is ignorance? Tell me what Brian Mulroney is doing
right now then.... See what i mean.

You made an ignorant and arrogant assumption.

You know that Begin was a member of the Stern gang and could have/should have been convicted of being a terrorist for that.

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
It is funny thought, that the person who committed the slaughter, the actual commander of the christian phalanges then, was a minister in Lebanon until recently.

Let me guess, he died of a sudden case of lead poisioning? right?

[KrazyHorse]

I'd never heard it put that way before.

[Ozz]

Originally posted by DanS
For the Americans, remind them of the War of 1812

We fired our guns
and the British kept a'comin.
There wasn't nigh as many
as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and
they began to runnin' on
down the Mississippi
to the Gulf of Mexico.

We got that song too. British version

We were just farmers
a plantin' in the ground.
We heard the americans comin'
and we didn't like the sound
So we took a boat to Washington
and burnt it to the ground

(arrogant worms)

[GePap]

If Belgium's court had allowed a suit against Fidel Castro to pass, none of the people attacking this law would say a peep about it, svae maybe SpencerH, the man who started this thread, which I ahev to say more then utterly shows the hypocrasy of most posters. Oh, and what aboutt he one trillion dollar suit vs. the Saudis? Should the US let it go forward?

The issue is one of a state passing laws that extend the jurisdiction of their courts beyond their borders in the name of some higher international set of values. This thread would not have deteriorated to the crap it did if people agued that, and not the hundrad sorts of idiocies this thread is now filled with.

SpencerH's question si agreat one...but I guess that is why few actually will answer it.

As for myself: I do not agree with states extanding the reach of their jurisdiction beyond their borders. Besides possible political ramifications, the justification for it is thin. If 'higher' trabnsnational values do exist which individuals can sue to bring legal action against others, such actions should occur within a transnational setting.

[Ozz]

Originally posted by Oerdin

Of course Serbia didn't have the U.S. on its side did it? Two can play that game.

The US changes sides more often than Bush changes
his underwear. You were Saddam's buddy not so long
ago remember?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by GePap
Should the US let it go forward?

I wouldn't.

[Ozz]

Originally posted by Ned
Ozz, you simply have no idea how much resentment and anger there is in the US over the backstabbing French and Germans.

They were your friends/allies long as they took orders,
but I don't think the US was ever anybody's friend.

You don't know how much resentment and anger there is outside the US.

[GePap]

Originally posted by DinoDoc

I wouldn't.

But it does allow Cuban exiles to suit the Cuban government and its officials for a host of issues, such as the downing of those exiles planes in '96. If i does not allow ther Saudi siut, it is not out of a disagreement with the idea of extraantional jurisdiction of this type.