Posted on 09/13/2001 6:19:54 PM PDT by dighton
POLITICAL leaders in France and Germany urged President Bush yesterday to avoid a belligerent response, as fears grew in Europe of the consequences of swift and ruthless military reaction to the terrorist attacks.
Lionel Jospin, the French Prime Minister, said the Americans should be "reasonable" in their response. Alain Richard, his defence minister, said the attacks were "not acts of war".
The comments, echoed by senior German ministers if not by the Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, contradicted statements by President Bush and his Secretary of State Colin Powell.
M Jospin said: "We must vigorously condemn and combat terrorism. But we must not allow ourselves to be led into considerations of a conflict between the western world and the Islamic world, where we have many friends and partners."
The remarks from the Socialist prime minister were aimed at reassuring both the France's political Left and its Muslim population, which numbers six million. But they will be seen as further evidence of disagreements between France and America on big foreign policy issues.
The comments by M Richard will also undermine American confidence in France's commitment to joint reprisals as outlined by Nato members on Wednesday. He said: "I think that this was a terrorist attack of particular gravity.
"American democracy is clearly endangered by such action, but in my opinion a war is something else entirely." France disagrees with US policy on missile defence, the bombing of Iraq and what it sees as American cultural imperialism.
Rudolf Scharping, the German defence minister, also cautioned against launching swift military strikes. "I hope we all remain calm and do not now speak of a state of alarm. We do not face a war.
"We face the question of what is an appropriate response," he told German television. "Not in the sense of revenge and retribution, but in order to be able to fight and break international terror."
France's maverick health minister, Bernard Kouchner, went as far yesterday as to put the attacks down to a "series of errors" by America. "America's made a real mistake in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which was to train the Taliban," M Kouchner said.
"To think now that there is some kind of consensus of 'honourable' nations against the 'bad' terrorists, is simply not true."
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2001.</font color>
You mean no more green seedless grapes down at Safeway? Crud....I'm goin' down there right now while the gettin's good.
This says it all.
Instead of a "belligerent" response, how about a volley of Nerf rockets, followed by ground troops weilding wet noodles and ping-pong ball guns. Or just maybe a super soaker or two, just to show them who's boss.
Most likely, that would be to unseemly for our malaise obsessed, squat-to-piss, 30% unemployed artist friends.
Perfectly predictable.
France:
Go F**k yourselves, cheese-eating surrender monkeys.
Reason? We've got a reason! In act we have lots of reasons.
They just killed 8,000 of our men, women and children in a cowardly and unprovoked attack on innocent civilians, wrecked two of our largest office buildings, knocked down around 15% of our Pentagon, crashed 4 of our airliners and in generally screwed up what should have been an overall pretty good week for our nation.
Then they danced in the streets over it.
They are calling for American reason? We have millions of them!
A lot of camels?
I loathe this sentiment. Basic truth: Afghanistan was under the thumb of the Soviets, we gave them an opportunity for freedom. They screwed it up. Their fault, not ours.
As long as he's not killing *me* or mine, I can be friends with Ted Bundy....He never did anything to *me*...
/sarcasm
Ahhhhhh, now that I got that out of the way..... I'd just like to say that the straw that broke the camel's back with regards to how I feel about France came when they would not let American planes fly over their country in preperation for our attack on Lybia back in the 1980s.
SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE! SCREW FRANCE!
My dad and I went to France in 1992 and we visited Normandy. The last time he had been there was D-Day and he was with the Army until the occupation of Germany. My dad told the cellar master "During the War I drank wine from this region." The cellar master then said "Back then we gave the wine to you for free but today we are going to make you pay for it." Dad then said "Free? What do you mean Free? We left 50,000 bodies on your battlefield while you Frogs sat on your asses!" The other Americans and English in the group applauded and several bought Dad bottles of wine.
Why are the streets of Paris lined with trees? Because the German Army likes to march in the shade.
My dad and I went to France in 1992 and we visited Normandy. The last time he had been there was D-Day and he was with the Army until the occupation of Germany. My dad told the cellar master "During the War I drank wine from this region." The cellar master then said "Back then we gave the wine to you for free but today we are going to make you pay for it." Dad then said "Free? What do you mean Free? We left 50,000 bodies on your battlefield while you Frogs sat on your asses!" The other Americans and English in the group applauded and several bought Dad bottles of wine.
Why are the streets of Paris lined with trees? Because the German Army likes to march in the shade.
My dad and I went to France in 1992 and we visited Normandy. The last time he had been there was D-Day and he was with the Army until the occupation of Germany. My dad told the cellar master "During the War I drank wine from this region." The cellar master then said "Back then we gave the wine to you for free but today we are going to make you pay for it." Dad then said "Free? What do you mean Free? We left 50,000 bodies on your battlefield while you Frogs sat on your asses!" The other Americans and English in the group applauded and several bought Dad bottles of wine.
Why are the streets of Paris lined with trees?
Because the German Army likes to march in the shade.
And I will feed on you.
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