Posted on 08/31/2005 10:00:20 AM PDT by wolf78
Hurricane Katrina has cost the lives of hundreds and devastated the US Gulf Coast. But instead of aid donations and sympathy, the Americans have heard little more than a haughty "I told you so" from Germany. It's another low point for trans-Atlantic relations -- and set off by a German minister. How pathetic.
For the record: German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder offered his condolences to US President George W. Bush for the Hurricane Katrina disaster that has hit the Gulf Coast. Both he and his fellow Germans, Schröder wrote, feel "great sympathy for the fate of those people affected by the hurricane."
Nice words to be sure, but that was it. No pledges of aid money, no announcements of immediate help -- although finally, two days later, the German interior minister did manage to come out with a hesitant offer of assistance. And let's be honest, the crisis region this time around isn't in the Third World, but is in the United States of America. There really isn't much of a need for German helpers -- experienced as they may be from aid missions from Kosovo to Afghanistan -- because the American authorities are already doing as much as can be done.
Nevertheless, German aid money delivered to American aid agencies would surely be welcome on the other side of the Atlantic. But apparently, people over here believe that the Americans over there don't really need help. Strange. The same people who normally spend their time pointing their holier-than-thou fingers at the ghettos and slums in the US, the same ones who describe America as an out-of-control capitalist monster, are now, when the Americans could really use a bit of help, oddly quiet.
(Excerpt) Read more at service.spiegel.de ...
Eamonn Fitzgerald senses Der Spiegal is trying to recover from its own anti-American past.
Scroll down to Rats Leave Sinking Ship.
http://www.eamonn.com/
Has anybody ever bothered to do a study on the environmental impact caused by smoke when Germany took it upon itself to burn up 8 million people during the 1940s?
Educational systems, local & federal governments, child raising - radical leftists ruin everything they touch & cannot be left in charge.
Not very accurate. Given that minister's background, you could say the Germans should have hit Stalingrad harder.
The study would probably conclude that the U. S. left them no choice, regrettably.
Don't be so sensitive.
This is the best media I've read in a long time--and to think it came from Germany!
From the German article:
No pledges of aid money, no announcements of immediate help -- although finally, two days later, the German interior minister did manage to come out with a hesitant offer of assistance.
What's the subject? Dresden? You amuse me.
I have the distinct impression that you are operating on little sleep.
Thank you.
Praying for GOOD change in Germany. No Peoples should be dependant on corrupt incompetant egotistic politicians. While most fit the label, there are exceptions. And we're hopeful Merkel will be one.
Wow. be careful, this guy could join my must read columns with straight talk reminiscent of Honore.
Three years ago, just before the US election, former Minister of Justice Hertha Däubler Gmelin compared US President George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler. This time, with German elections looming, the environment minister is using a natural catastrophe as an excuse to once again campaign with subtle anti-Americanism and to unabashedly pat himself on the back.
Jig's up for Scheoder. The germans are wise to what he did to win office last time. It will not work again. They won't sacrifice their needs again to indulge in anti-Americanism.
It's not the American people's fault that the storm hit and they couldn't have stopped it. The Germans, on the other hand, could have done a lot to prevent World War II. And yet, care packages still rained down from US troops. Trittin's know-it-all stance is therefore not only tasteless, it is also historically blind.
Okay, I love him. :-)
Actually der Spiegel has been producing some very good columns the last year.
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