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Chirac and Schroeder are risking NATO, the UN, and their countries relations with the US for generations. Good politics? I think not. And the cost of their own defense is going to go through the roof when they haven’t got an alliance to work within. Their pacifism will be of little value when they have to raise bigger armies. Their economies will suffer greatly as they are left out of a post war Iraq when the freed people of that country realize who collaborated with Saddam in his final days.

Chirac and Schroeder have done all the can to make the world safe for Saddam. They’ve busted the sanctions. They’ve allowed their big businesses to sell “dual use equipment” that could be used to create WMD. They’ve attempted to form coalitions of the duplicitous to thwart real sanctions. How can they love this human rights abuser or hate us so much that they gamble all that has been built by 55 years of US efforts at a peaceful Europe?

Their economies will suffer greatly as they are left out of a post war Iraq when the freed people of that country realize who collaborated with Saddam in his final days.

One of the first things a new Iraqi government should do is to repudiate all foreign debts incurred in building Saddam's military. The second thing they should do is order Boeing airplanes instead of Airbus when the "no fly zones" are lifted in Iraq.

Its time to realize that France and Germany are doing this on purpose, it is not just a simple matter of mistakes snowballing on one another, this is a designed game plan by them to thwart the US and increase their power. I'm afraid that they do know what they're doing and will not come to their senses as everyone expects.

I think you've fingered the real pressure point of the Chirac-Schroeder maneuvers against an American strike on Saddam. They have a lot to lose by aligning themselves against us, yes -- but they stand to lose even more if we go in and unearth the proof of their complicity with the Butcher of Baghdad.

The French have demonstrated their willingness to build nuclear reactors for anyone who can afford them. The Germans have extensive experience with gas weapons. If Chirac and Schroeder, or persons close to them, would be exposed to war-crimes prosecutions for facilitating Saddam Hussein's acquisition of WMDs, it would explain virtually everything about their intransigence -- including why they're willng to make fools of themselves in public, by denying all the evidence and constantly changing their reasons for opposing Saddam's military removal.

So these two has-been powers have tried to marshal the envy of their people -- their resentment of the United States, for daring to take their places on the world stage -- to thwart the strike. But they've overplayed their hand and "misunderestimated" the Bush Administration, whose leader is more concerned with being right than being liked by supercilious European oligarchs who preside over moribund nations without spines.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
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