[thechat] State of Union Address

[John Handelaar]

On Wed, 2003-01-29 at 03:29, Hugh Blair wrote:
> My personal opinion:

Go on, surprise me.

> @_#$*)#$%% France
> _^)$%#(*&# Germany

Ah well, you can't have everything.

The reason France matters is that it can veto things
on the UN Security Council.  And at the moment, Blair's
looking like he's going to pull back if there's no
explicit, additional, UN resolution.

Which puts the US entirely on its own.

This, for anyone not paying attention to international
relations, history and Mid-East politics for the last
40 years or so, would be a BAD thing for the United States.

[Am wondering how long it's going to take for the rest
of OPEC to wise up to how much trouble they could cause
Bush, and how easily, and how quickly, without firing a shot.]

> Their opinion doesn't matter any more. We don't need them and should
> pull out any troops there for their continued 'protection'.

Protection from who, exactly?  Half of Eastern Europe's
joining the EU.  The Sovs left 15 years ago.  Do they tell
you things like this over there?  Or is Moscow next on the
list after Baghdad?

Actually Europe's mostly engaging in sending troops into
Africa, ex-Yugoslavia and the like in order to try to stop
millions of people dying from whatever they're dying from
this week.

And entirely on our own, since you lot are too f***ing cheap
to help out, and 50% of you think Iraq and Afghanistan are
the same place, and 40% think that the UK is inside either
Canada or Australasia, and 15% can't even find the sodding
*US* on an atlas, nor (one assumes) their own arses with both
hands.

> Of course
> I'd like to see us keep some the and use any base(s) as a jumping-off
> point, but we spend too much there for protection that's not needed.

The "jumping-off points" are WHY THEY'RE HERE (duh).  That
and your soldiers' quaint custom of beating the shit out of
black/brown/yellow people and raping children in the environs
of the bases. </goading_but_true_nonetheless>

OTOH, you're providing the group with a bitchin' case study
of *why* certain parts of Europe believe your government can
go fish...   So cheers for that :-)

Not ragging on Hugh in particular, honest.  (Well, maybe a
little....)


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John Handelaar

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