'Cool Down,' Germany's Fischer Tells Rumsfeld

Reuters ^ | Thursday, January 23, 2003

[Willie Green]

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.

ISTANBUL, Turkey (Reuters) - German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said Thursday Donald Rumsfeld should tone down his rhetoric, after the U.S. secretary of defense dismissed French and German opposition to war in Iraq as the view of "old Europe."

"The only answer is: cool down," Fischer told reporters when asked for his reaction to Rumsfeld's comments. He was speaking in Istanbul during a visit to Turkey, Jordan and Egypt.

"We are good friends and allies," Fischer added.

Germany and France angrily rejected U.S. criticism that they are isolated within Europe in their effort to avoid war in Iraq, and both countries said they would cooperate to secure peace.

[wideawake]

Herr Fischer: do you wish you had cooled down before you suckerpunched that cop?

[joltinjoe]

Methinks thou doth protest to much!!!!

Afraid of what we may find in Iraq???? Who has been helping them rearm???

[The Vast Right Wing]

I'm not so sure that Fischer should be lecturing Sec. Rumsfeld on how to behave. I am really, really starting to get annoyed with the Eurotrash.

[colorado tanker]

We are good friends and allies," Fischer added.

Then act like it. You don't want the US as an enemy - again.

[jude24]

Axis of Weasels alert....

(Hey, that sounds like a good ping list!)

[Shermy]

Rumsfeld was nothing but cool.

[sofaman]

We are good friends and allies," Fischer added.

This from the same crowd that compared Pres. Bush to Hitler. With friends like these...

[Catspaw]

"We are good friends and allies," Fischer added.

Wrong tense.

"We were good friends and allies," Fischer added.

[Billthedrill]

Man, if these guys take umbrage at "old Europe" they'd pop a blood vessel if they heard what I've been calling them the last couple of days. I'd have to sit in a tub of icewater for a month to cool down to the "old Europe" point of cordiality.

[tomahawk]

We are not "good friends and allies". You've destroyed that.

[Life of Brian]

Someone should find and post this report. From a lefty newspaper to boot! This is I believe the game the French and Germans have been playing all along.


"On Tuesday, the Berlin-based left-wing paper, Tageszeitung reported that aspects of the 12,000-page Iraqi report on Iraq's weapons programs, submitted to the U.N last week, could prove highly embarrassing for Germany.

The newspaper - believed to be the first to have access to the top-secret dossier - has written that the Iraqi declaration contains the names of 80 German firms, research laboratories and people, who are said to have helped Iraq develop its weapons program."

[mystery-ak]

Rummy's note to Herr Fischer....Im so cool, Im closing down all US bases in Germany....(I wish)

[finnman69]

AXIS OF WEASELS

[goodnesswins]

And, the list of OUR ALLIES grows.....

DAY of SUPPORT…Tues, 1/28/03....FLY your flags (U.S., British, Hungarian, Polish, Czech, Spanish, Quatar, Kuwaiti, Australian and Japanese one, too if you have them)....and put up your BUSH/CHENEY signs, (and the BIG W's on your SUV's) for the STATE of the UNION next Tuesday, Jan 28th, if you support the President, our MILITARY and the United States of America. PSST....pass it on.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

If you scratch the surface you'll find a "Siemens" sticker.

[colorado tanker]

This from the same crowd that compared Pres. Bush to Hitler. With friends like these...

We'll just have to wait on a change of government in Germany, which might come a lot sooner than people think. Schroeder has screwed up domestic policy as well as foreign policy. The problem here is that the Greens are full of ex-commies who would probably cause the Greens to pull out of the government if they ever voted yes on Iraq, which would cause the government to fall. Schroeder and Fischer might be able to get away with an abstention. This just shows that the Greens (and Schroeder for that matter) aren't ever going to be big league players.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

I must say, after the way Germany has acted the last few months, I am embarrased to be part German (born in Germany to a German mother) at this moment. Thank God Papa Was An American!

Also, I share some French ancestry on my Dad's side...some of my ancestors were Hugenots...not popular with the Frogs some centuries ago....many were killed or forced into exile.

It is disgusting the way France and Germany are acting. The Bush Admin needs to go with this war, alone. Stop this UN appeasement

RWK

[Slipjack]

and sucking those Kruat Dogs as he tries to talk that kicked their Asses in WWII!

[MissouriForBush]

As an American woman working in Munich, Germany, I find it very hypocritical for a Leftist like Fischer to be lecturing the US. I don't have a lot of confidence in the German government's ability or determination to fight Muslim extremist terrorism on their own turf.

I would like to relate a personal experience here, because it reflects on just how EASY it is for Muslim male solo travellers to hop around Germany and its neighbors. Just today I returned from an overnight train trip to Sweden. On the way up to Stockholm on Monday night, I was booked into a sleeping car that included an Arab Muslim guy from Jordan who was nervous, twitchy, smelly and paranoid the whole ride. He refused to speak to anyone and acted as if he didn't understand any European languages. His passport was cleared by Swedish border-control police and when we got to Malmö, he practically leaped off the train, only to disappear amidst the 20,000 or so members of the illegal-alien (not including the asylum-approved) Arab extremist community there. In the Malmö train station, I could not believe I was in Sweden -- it seemed more like the Middle East.

THEN last night, on the return train trip from Stockholm to Berlin, an Arab Muslim (Algerian-looking, narrow face with moustache) man of equally scuzzy behavior was assigned to my sleeping car, which departed from Malmö via ferry crossing back toward Berlin. Everyone in each sleeping car had to fill out the form posted to the compartment window that lists each passenger, DOB and nationality. Everyone in my car, including an elderly Swedish man and German woman, filled out the info -- except for the Arab guy. I was DETERMINED to see that he signed up, too, so I managed to use enough sign language to get the Arab guy to let me copy the info from his passport onto the list -- as he gripped onto it the whole time and glared at me. To make a long story short, he had a Slovak passport with the fake name "Rohan Bindar" (or "Bindar Rohan"). It was obvious that he had a phony passport and was up to no good. When I took the Swedish man from my compartment aside and told him, he just shrugged his shoulders and made it clear that it was none of his business. Needless to say, the Arab had no problems getting to his German destination since there were no passport checks on that particular train. (If any Freeper has law enforcement contacts, feel free to forward my story to them.)

Needless to say, I did not sleep very well EITHER night on this train trip!