EU/NATO starting to support US

[FallenAngel]

Today the EU issued a joint statement that Iraq has one last chance to disarm or face "serious consequences".

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nyt/20030218/ts_nyt/european_union_says_iraq_must_disarm_quickly_and_fully

Also...NATO agreed to start deploying defensive units to Turkey after Franec was shut out of the proceedings.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030217/ap_wo_en_ge/eu_gen_europe_iraq_5

and just for the extra frosting on the cake...13 future EU members second the EU's decision. At the same time Chirac manages to dig him and France into an even deeper hole (which I for one never thought possible... ;) )

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030218/ap_wo_en_po/eu_gen_eu_summit_iraq_7

*Personal comment: I was especially surprised to note that Germany- although anti-war- is not a blind follower of Chirac (Thank God). Once France was shut out of the NATO meetings, Germany agreed to support the defense of Turkey. Also...it criticized Chirac's remarks about the Eastern Euro. states that are supporting the US.

[Ratamacue]

Ooorah.

[TacoDelRio]

Good to see those Euros are finally agreeing with us. They still enjoy having those half-assed anti-war rallies, damn French. I saw this picture in the LA Times of a French couple who had half their faces painted with the American flag, the other half was a skull. Damnit, those damn people. Kids at my school are ditching school just to go to anti-war protests. What are they protesting FOR? Im the one who's gonna have to go to a physical location and get shot at. I say, support the troops!

Hooah and oorah! p-) p-) p-) p-) p-) (this one deserves 5 pirate faces!)

[rafaelcb]

Hi,

Just a quick note to remind you that EU is not only France and Germany.
In fact, most of UE has always been very supportive of US intentins towards Irak. France and Germany have made a lot of noise against it, but as I said thay are not the whole EU; in fact they are just the largest minorities in EU....

BTW, the present agrrement is just a 'face wash' in order to make it look as if the we the Europeans would have a common forign policy, which we haven't. Germany will NO go to war anyway, France will go when they feel thay have made their point clear (Their point is: WE ARE VERY IMPORTANT). The rest of EU will probably help with what we can and our public opinions allow us.

[seventy6er]

Hi,

France and Germany have made a lot of noise against it, but as I said thay are not the whole EU; in fact they are just the largest minorities in EU....


don't forget that germany and france account for more than half of the european unions gdp and that germany alone accounts for more than 1/5 of the EU's population (e.g. more than UK, netherlands, belgium, sweden together) so you can't really speak of a minority here...

[Kitsune]

It' a funny situation in Europe. The declaration does not amount to much, it just declares that Europe can agree on at least something. Everyone contributed their small sentence to it, so it is quite unprecise.

Next thing is, that most governments have declared their "supprt" for the U.S. position. Rumsfeld was always eager to count everyone who said something nice as a supporter... but most countries give in effect little or no support as far as the "war against terror" is concerned, besides verbal one. (During the conference in Munich a portuguese government guy asked the german foreign minister why Germany does not support the U.S. whereas Portugal does. Fisher asked him how much Portugal is doing, e.g. how many soldiers it has send abroad... the men got silent fast.) The U.S. does not need it anyway, they just want to pretend that the whole world is behind them.

But it is more complicated. Whereas most governments support the Americans, most people do not. All over Europe at least 75% of the population does not want a war and does not support the U.S. position at all. And funny thing is: This is especially strong in the countries who staunchly support America, meaning Spain, Italy and Great Britain. (The worst case is Turkey, not european, but important to the U.S. warplans... around 95% are against a participation. Besides the Americans behaved so arrogantly that the turkish military is quite...pissed off).
The british Prime Minister has serious problems. His popularity is dropping rapidly, even in his own party. A second U.N. resolution would ease things: without it 90% of the poulation is against a war. With a second resolution around half of the population seems to support him right now. In the british press it is said that if America starts a war without U.N. backing, Blair will most probably be the first casualty since no british primeminister ever went to war without the majority of the population supporting him (wether this is really true?).

So Bush is in a difficult position right now. If he attacks Iraq without U.N. backing, Blair will probably not survive it (politically that is). The british/american relationship would be seriously damaged for the foreseeable future. In the end the U.S. will be totally isolated. (Even Australia. While the australian government is a staunch ally to the U.S. there is a not so small part of the population who does not support a war. In fact, according to a BBC report, anti-americanism 'bordering on rascism' [BBC quote] can be felt and is growing in Australia. So if Britain is lost to the alliance the Australians might be too.)

And finally: The U.S. of A. itself. While the majority backs Bushs course, a not so small minority is against it. Right now the situation is ok. But what if Bush attacks without U.N. backing? And if Brits and Aussies drop out?
If there are prolonged fightings? More american casualties than anticipated? Lots of innocents killed? The situation could change rapidly. And presidential-elections are not that far away...

So if anyone asks himself why Bush is that patient with U.N./NATO/E.U. and why he does not simply attack... well it is not patience.

It's hesitation.

[StarvingStudent47]

Glad to hear it. Let's remember that a lot of France's opposition is not as philanthropic as they'd make you think--they stand to lose a lot of money in a war. To quote the Financial Review,

"Iraq has promised mainly French, Russian and Chinese companies, led by TotalFinaElf and LUKoil, the prime choice of developing the country's massive but neglected oil resources, although questions are being raised whether such arrangements would be honoured in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq."

http://afr.com/iraq/2003/02/19/FFXI2T8PACD.html

So I suspect France will drag its heels, regardless. But glad to know others are starting to disregard them.

[Apogee]

Didn't Secretary Rumsfield say something like "Going to war without the French is like going hunting without your acordian" Thats the way I feel. I mean even if they did support us, are they really going to be the trigger pullers? But its good to have the Bundisfer (spelling?) and the Brits along with us.

[Trigger]

Kitsune, I think you underestimate the amount of support for the U.S. I would love it if the U.S. just said 'to hell with it' and cut all ties with the U.N. and retracted all support for U.N. operations. Let the world police itself and see what's left in 10 years. At least Bush is trying to do something positive by removing one of a multitude of problems. And you know what...the majority of people know it. The media would have you belive otherwise.
This is a rambling post, but oh well.

[rafaelcb]

don't forget that germany and france account for more than half of the european unions gdp and that germany alone accounts for more than 1/5 of the EU's population (e.g. more than UK, netherlands, belgium, sweden together) so you can't really speak of a minority here...

Not true; just considering the 5 biggest countries:

Germany: 82.1 M people, 1855 bn € GDP
France: 59.7 M people, 1460 bn € GDP
Total: 141.8 M people, 3315 bn € GDP

UK: 59.8 M people, 1486 bn € GDP
Italy: 57.9 M people, 1217 bn € GDP
Spain: 40.3 M people, 652 bn € GDP
Total: 158.0 M people, 3355 bn € GDP

(data from www.economist.com)

So UK+Italy+Spain have more people and more GDP than France and Germany toghether. That's why I said 'largest minorities'

[Kitsune]

Dammit... their GDP is 1.2 % bigger than ours. We better be careful !

[Kitsune]

Doesn't belong here... But it should be interesting: Somebody just quoted from "The Economist". That is always a good read! (And somebody said :"Reading educates!" or something).

Read this :
http://www.economist.com/finance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1563761

[seventy6er]

don't forget that germany and france account for more than half of the european unions gdp and that germany alone accounts for more than 1/5 of the EU's population (e.g. more than UK, netherlands, belgium, sweden together) so you can't really speak of a minority here...

Not true; just considering the 5 biggest countries:

Germany: 82.1 M people, 1855 bn € GDP
France: 59.7 M people, 1460 bn € GDP
Total: 141.8 M people, 3315 bn € GDP

UK: 59.8 M people, 1486 bn € GDP
Italy: 57.9 M people, 1217 bn € GDP
Spain: 40.3 M people, 652 bn € GDP
Total: 158.0 M people, 3355 bn € GDP

(data from www.economist.com)

So UK+Italy+Spain have more people and more GDP than France and Germany toghether. That's why I said 'largest minorities'

speaking of a minority is not right in this case. minorities < 10%

and how can u compare three major european countries to two?? helloo-oo?? and i said that germany got more inhabitants than UK, netherlands, sweden and belgium together. did i mention italy/spain? umm, no. don't think so...

[seventy6er]

Dammit... their GDP is 1.2 % bigger than ours. We better be careful !

their? you mean italy, spain, uk with "their"? and you mean france an germany with "us"?

i would say: our GDP is 25% higher than UK's GDP, 27% higher than france's, 52% higher than italy's and nearly 3 times as high as spain's (284%)... thats what counts...

til the reunification, westgermany's per-head-income was the highest in europe. after reunification, we lost a few places in that ranking (cause of the low incomes in eastern germany) but are on our way to a top-ranking again.

[Kitsune]

Das meinte ich, ja !

[David]

germany and france not agreeing with the u.s. is less about whether or not they agree with the war in iraq and more about what power the european nations have over the u.s. If the u.s. goes into war with iraq unilaterally, without the support of the UN, then the UN looks really weak because the U.S. did it on their own and they did it without the consent of the UN and so being a part of the UN no longer means anything.
also i heard that the same ship that was taking nuclear missiles to n.korea was also taking nuclear materials to germany. so that might also play into germany's whole "anti war" thing.

[seventy6er]

also i heard that the same ship that was taking nuclear missiles to n.korea was also taking nuclear materials to germany. so that might also play into germany's whole "anti war" thing.

what do you mean with this statement? it wouldn't be a problem for germany to have a nuclear arsenal. the USA itself wanted to equip the bundeswehr with nuclear capabilities but the germans did not and still do not want to. and btw: what do you mean with nuclear material? germany got all the material to built nuclear weapons itself, cause it's not a 3rd-world-country like iraq, n.korea, pakistan, india e.g.

[David]

it's not a problem for germany to have an arsenal, but it is a major conflict of interests when one of our "allies" is trading nuclear materials with one of our enemies. and i don't think i said that nkorea is giving germany nuclear materials, i don't know the specifics, it could be the other way around. so what i was trying to say is, germany might be anti war also because they don't want nkorea to be attacked by the u.s.

[seventy6er]

ok, then i misunderstood you. sorry.

[Mayhem#]

I say, support the troops!

there's a difference between supporting the troops and supporting the war...

M.