Expensive freedom fries

Witness the emerging hyperpower kick Powell's butt !

www.iraqwar.ru...

(Paris and Berlin Plan Alliance to Nix Nato
28.04.2003 [15:34]


Reacting to U.S. plans to punish France for its stand on the war in Iraq by excluding it from NATO decision-making, Paris is moving aggressively in concert with Germany to build a new common European defense system that would effectively replace NATO, according to a report in the London Times.
Meeting in Brussels with the Prime Ministers of Belgium and Luxembourg, President Chirac and Gerhard Schr�der, the German Chancellor, want to put together a band of volunteer European states willing to unhitch from the U.S. dominated North Atlantic Treaty Organization

The fledgling unified European Union military force is envisioned as more ambitious than the existing European security and defense policy that was launched by Britain and France in 1998. That plan, which features a rapid reaction force, is limited to humanitarian, peacekeeping and crisis management -- all in concert with NATO.

But Britain�s Tony Blair wants no part of the action, saying that such a new military alliance would place Europe in a rival position to the U.S. In an interview with the Financial Times, he said: �I am not really interested in talk about punishing countries, but I think there is an issue that we have to resolve here between America and Europe and within Europe about Europe�s attitude towards the transatlantic alliance.

�I don�t want Europe setting itself up in opposition to America. I think it will be dangerous and destabilizing.�

Pointedly, Britain, which has the EU�s most powerful armed forces, was not invited to the Brussels parley -- nor were the leaders of Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.

Reportedly, Michele Alliot-Marie, the French Defense Minister, is seeking to also involve Russia, the ally of France and Germany in the anti-Iraq war movement, saying,� Russia should be associated with the planning work that we are carrying out.� )



Sounds like a bad episode of the Three Stooges. Wonder where they'll meet, a wooden fort in their Mommy's backyard. I here the "Our Gang" theme playing already. It should be good for a laugh. Maybe they'll have outakes on AFV.

Damn the French, thats what we get for helping them out. The Germans should never have been allowed to be a power again.

Were in for World War 3, and all because the French feel insicure.

FoxStriker, well I hope the world doesn't hinge on whether the French feel insecure . I think they have yet to realize that their insecurity is secondary to thier insignificance.