Re: Bush began Iraq plan pre-9/11

Rob Kaper wrote:

>On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 10:40:45PM +0000, Daniel Cassidy wrote:
>  
>
>>Hum that may be so, but AFAICT that's not a view held by most Europeans,
>>either then or now. The US accounts for most of NATO's might, so it makes
>>a lot of sense for the other countries to agree with whatever they say, at
>>least officially.
>>    
>>
>
>Have you been paying any attention to 2003? I recall a number of NATO
>members betraying Turkey for being a US ally by vetoing to ship PATRIOTs to it after a direct request.
>  
>
True, but whatever. The point is politicians hardly ever reflect public 
views.

>>Again, I was referring more to EU countries rather than the whole of 
>>Europe. Apologies for my lack of clarity.
>>    
>>
>
>That's why we have EU-12 to refer to the Eurozone, EU-15 for the current EU
>and EU-25 for the EU after May 1st.
>  
>
Apologies for not using my powers of telepathy to guess your preferred 
terms :)

>>What I basically meant was, historically speaking we are well overdue for another couple of wars between the UK, France and Germany (with sides undoubtedly allying as arbitrarily as usual), and anyone else who happens to get dragged in.
>>    
>>
>
>I don't think wars are triggered by solar eclipses. We can only be overdue for war if there are political reasons for it. Perhaps if France and Germany continue to break European Treaties such as Maastricht..
>  
>
Never needed much of a reason in the past. Of course, I am 
oversimplifying, but the simplification works pretty well most of the 
way through history, IIRC.

>(don't ask me exactly how it works, but the EC is suing the EU member states for not reprimanding France and Germany, which might be the first and only decent thing Prodi has done for us, if he had anything to do with it at all)
>  
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>>I'm not particularly convinced by the MAD argument, though to be honest I am not quite sure why. Although even if it is correct, we are talking about European opinion rather than hard facts. Or, at least, I am :).
>>    
>>
>Have you seen Dr. Strangelove? 
>  
>
No.

>Internal peace in Europe? What a nonsense.
>
>France and Germany ignore the Maastricht treaty. Distribution of votes for the EC and EP is one big, hostile battle. Rich countries like Germany and the Netherlands are fed up paying for Greek farmers, French railways, etc etc.
>  
>
If you prefer armed conflict to continual arguments, then I have to tell 
you that you are very strange.

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