France And Germany
Sirus
Join Date: 2002-11-13 Member: 8466Members, NS1 Playtester, Constellation
Join Date: 2002-11-13 Member: 8466Members, NS1 Playtester, Constellation
in Discussions
<div class="IPBDescription">Funneling money and arms to Iraq</div> Well, From the news stations its been reported and confirmed that France and Germany are funneling arms and money to Saddam. I for one, am ashamed for them, and am hoping that the information proves to be false.
Comments
Got proof?
Got any vague sort of international uprage over this?
I, for one, never even heard this, and i've been listening to NPR all day <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Nothing recent I knew of, though.
But France and Germany arn't outspoken. Only three nations around the world have pledged themselves to the "Coalition of the Willing" (US, Britain, Australia) and only a handful of other nations have said they would support a war without UN backing. All across the world the overwhelming concensus amongst the world's nations is "give the inspectors more time" "don't go to war" "only with UN approval". France and Germany are in the majority here by far.
But France and Germany arn't outspoken. Only three nations around the world have pledged themselves to the "Coalition of the Willing" (US, Britain, Australia) <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Make that "the currently ruling political parties of 3 nations".
There are a lot of people in the UK who aren't convinced that a war is a good idea.
The last few weeks have seen the biggest protest marches in post-war UK history, opposing war in the middle east. Still, good 'ol Uncle Tony has never been one for listening to the people who elected him..
and in that, the US and the UK are in the same boat. Uncle doesn't seem to appreciate the opinions of the constituency.
I'm amazed there's no abortion thread around here...WAIT NO! I DIDN"T SAY THAT!!!
<a href='http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/1999/msg00786.html' target='_blank'>A "Yes" May Cost France Oil Contracts</a>
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Agence France Presse, the Associated Press, and the New York Times reported that the Iraqi
government (through a daily newspaper owned by S. Hussein's son) has "warned" France that French
companies may lose Iraqi oil contracts if France votes in the Security Council to link arms
inspections with suspending sanctions.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The Russians have similar interests as well. From my understanding lately, France and Russia did get the trade rights they wanted and have become the big partners (along with China) to Iraq economically.
As for weapons and whatnot, I find that doubtful that the frenchies would try that, as they are prohibited in the embargo that specifies 'oil for aid'. China? I wouldn't put it past them at all...
Depends on how you define 'France'.
Chirac? Certainly not. Some French company or other private organization? Possibly.
We did it in the 1970's.
When there was the Iraq/Iran war, we helped Iran out,who we were friendly with at the time - the Iotola had not taken power yet. We sent them aid and many weapons we took from captured VietCong soldiers. Then, when the Iranian government was overthrown by people we didn't like, we began to fund Iraq, since they were now losing the war due to our heavy support of Iran previously.
And once Iraq started to win, we funded Iran again, but not as heavily. The hope was that both powers would exhaust themselves...obviously this did not work.
We also funded Afghanistan, who had not been under the control of the Taliban yet, during the Soviet-Afghani war which was the equivalent to our own Vietnam fifteen years earlier. We gave the Afghani gov't food, weapons, money, amongst other things, so that the Soviets would drain their funds and falter. Obviously this plan, along with others by Reagan, <b>did</b> work. The Soviets pulled out their last major troop deployment from Afghanistan in 1990 or 1991.
We've played both sides of the coin, we've dealt with the good and the bad, and we've faced the mistakes and owned up to the consequences. In the 2001-to-present War on Terror, our enemies in Afghanistan used mostly weapons that we provided them in the early 80's. It is through our own deeds that we, and several other nations, had to lose men there. It might have not been avoided that the Taliban made a coup de'tat and took over governing Afghanistan, but they would have been much weaker if we had not supported them in the previous decades.
Is America perfect? No. No one or no things are, in fact the only thing that is perfect is <i>nothing</i>. We've made many mistakes in the past, and now is the time we are owning up to the consequences. Iraq is one of those mistakes we should have dealt with properly in 1991, and here we are 12 years later saddling up to fight again. It's purely a waste of lives and time (and money, but that is least important).
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I've got more to say but I will leave it at this for now.
By the way, yes, Reagans plan worked, if it included the funding and training of Al-Quaidas highest members. Osama bin Ladens first gun was issued to him by the CIA. Three billion dollar followed.
The US' foreign policy will fail for as long as it regards other nations as mere tools to achieve the own goals, and I don't see a change there.
BTW, France doesn't give Iraq arms, they just give them the cash to buy it. and it's not the French gov't, it's private French companies!
1. America and Britian saved France from Germany at a great expence as you all know.
2. France has no respect for its neighbors that souport the USA even threating to not let some of them into the joke that is the Europiean Union telling them quote "you have missed a good chance to keep quiet"
which is a nice way of saying "you should have shut up"
3. Germany has lost not one but two world wars that alone should have ended any say they ever had in the world
4. The USA brought down the berlin wall and united Germany, and don't give me any "we did it to spite Russia" bull **** because ether way we made life much much better for Germans
5. We have given millions of dollars in aid to both Germany and France at various times in history
and im sure there are many many more.
Reasa, you are the uber-american fanatic aren't you?
You do realize I never did anything to save France from Germany in the second world war? America didn't get involved until well after Germany had annexed all the land.
And the European Union is a democratic thing. If France wants people not to go to war, then they have a freely given right to say they don't want to. Same with Germany.
argggghhhhh so hard to be clear when reading such blatantly uber-nationalist (the kind I hate) posts like yours reasa.
Sickened though I am I might as well try to correct a few of these "facts" reasa vomited out
1. Britian was fighting because Poland was invaded, so they were already in the fight. They didn't come into the fight to help France. The United States only came into the war because Pearl Harbour was bombed, and didn't come into Europe until Hitler declared war on the United States in very early 1942. The US was highly isolationist in the period between WWI and 1942; Congress and the people were very sceptical about any problems in Europe. Certainly the US didn't rush over to France when it was attacked and over-run in 1940. The US only got involved because Germany declared war on them, and Japan, Germany's ally, attacked the US. There's no moral high ground there; the US liberated France for it's own reasons, not France's.
2. I don't even know if I should warrent that comment with a response. Apart from not really knowing what you're trying to say who are you refering to? A quick glance at the EU member's bourd shows us:
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Who's missing? You don't get much more pro-American than Britian, and they're sitting there. Any countries missing are such as Poland, Norway and Chec. Republic are hardly as large American allies as Britian or Spain. So, I can't really see your point. And besides, these other nations are free to join whenever they please, France hasn't done anything to stop them and couldn't anyway. It's a democratic decision.
3. This point is just ludicrous. Ok, so Britian has lost a fair few wars in it's time, we should ignore them right? Not to mention Russia. Hey, the US lost Vietnam, let's ignore them as well. Germany has the strongest land army in Europe and is one of the largest industrial producers in the world. The fact alone that they are so strong industrially and commerically gives them a say in world afairs. Coupled with the fact that they geographically occupy a central part of Europe guareentees them a strong position in European and world affairs. Saying that they lost two wars, however big, doesn't really hold water when despite those wars Germany has recovered so much.
4. The US brought it down?...Must have been my imagination I saw all those protests all over Europe during the 80's which finally lead to the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the installment of free elections. Germany's citizens pulled that wall down, and the Warsaw pact itself collapsed through a combination of lack of funds from the USSR and massive protests in the Warsaw Pact nations. The US-USSR arms race played a part in the Soviets spiralling into bankruptcy but the USSR had plently of problems of it's own. Yes, the citizens of East Germany could now vote after the wall came down but actually things got worse for Germany because then then had to spead billions of marks repairing and rebuilding East Germany, which was neglected and decrepit. Even today West Germany is still rebuilding East Germany, so it'll be a while yet before Germany is fully recovered from the burden of being re-united with East Germany (not that it wasn't a "good" thing, re-uniting families and a country is a wonderful thing)
5. Yes, you've given them aid. Mainly just after WWII. For starters, much of that was to help build up western Europe so it was more capable of resisting a Soviet invasion. Secondly, American companies moved into Western Europe and did a lot of the work themselves, they had profit in mind. Thirdly, this is all over now and you're certainly not funneling them aid now; the largest reciever of US foreign aid is Israel. Yeah right, they need it <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Think these things through before you write them. All you've done is earn the contempt of many of the people in here.
and no Ryo, I don't think his nationalism is the norm here.
And The fall of the USSR/Warsaw pact came mainly to bankruptcy...and glasnost.
the german and french ruling classes are only looking after their own interests. It is however, still uncertain whether they will continue their opposition. If they do, they risk their position as major imperialist powers as the U.S. continues to assert its will. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the world is starting to look much more dangerous, as the imperialists no longer have a common interest, and the U.S. is the lone superpower on the globe. I would expect to see another inter-imperialist war within our lifetime, unless their is a radical shift in conciousness.
Why is it that when one American says something, it's perfectly acceptable to automatically assume that the entire nation feels/is that way? In almost every international debate on these boards (and pretty much all other boards I've seen) one American will post an irresponsible, ignorant thought, and it's almost always followed by a 'Well, you've just proven that ALL Americans are . . . "
I know this is a minor example of it, but it's certainly not the first of its kind, and I'm just using it as an excuse to vent.
Ok, you guys win. We're all fat, ignorant, un-educated, greedy, careless, jingoistic, insensitive cretins. We believe everything we see on CNN. We're all 100% behind George Bush, despite the fact that more than half of us wanted a different president. Our government is the world's <i>only</i> government that is motivated by greed and self preservation. When we become involved in international affairs, all blame for said affair can be safely transferred to the American government.
I like how people who operate under the assumption that they're part of a more enlightened culture see no problem in stereotyping Americans.
And as has been discussed in this thread, the one time we tried to stay <i>out</i> of world affairs the world went right ahead and dragged us kicking and screaming back in. Make up your mind, World.
Sure, China keeps to itself, except that it has a fairly liberal definition of what territory is 'internal' to it. How much assistance does China give to other nations? Not a lot, I'd imagine (though, this is strictly an assumption on my part, so if anyone knows differently, go ahead and show me up).
Says the World: "Stay out of our affairs!" "But first give us some money!"
As I said, I give up. I hardly think we're angels, and I have no love whatsoever for our current administration, but the rest of the world seems to enjoy portraying us as the only greedy government out there. Because you're 'not as bad as the US' does <i>not</i> make you 'good'.
There was other things done, but they were only coal dumps and refueling stations. They did not conquer anybody, they were just making a small port so ships would not run out of fuel in the pacific ocean.