a freeper figures out why Germany flip-flopped

[grasswire]

Germany has announced they will help with the reconstruction of Iraq. See Schroeder's statement here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/19/opinion/19SCHR.html


This might seem like a confusing turn of events, this conciliation and helpfulness in the face of Bush's arrogance and greed. A freeper has a theory that might just be an explanation:

"There's a reason for this change of heart.

The Germans are looking at Pooty Poot getting some serious face time with George Herbert Walker Bush at Putin's dacha last week. That means that the Russian bankers and the biznessmen (and of course, their outriders in the Mafiya...) want to get in on the Ground Floor, so to speak. Putin is making sure that his interests are protected.

So, what this tells me is that the German Banking cabal in Frankfurt called up Gerhard and told him that the kowtow to Chiraq was a moneylosing proposition. The German bankers want to underwrite the IMF loans! They're damn close to being in on the money.

While all the goobers in the liberal media screamed "schadenfreude" and shouted that Bush was crawling back to the Krauts and the Froggies, in actuality, I think that Bush was using the carrot and the stick. Moscow signaled its willingness to play ball. Bush the Elder's visit was the icing on the cake. That was the stick. Schroeder has picked up on what's happening. He wants carrots. As for Chiraq; he is too vain to realize that he's holding the Dead Man's Hand."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/985334/posts


Whaddya think?

[RandomKoolzip]

1. I think I shall never listen to what anyone who calls the French "froggies

or the Germans "Krauts" has to say. Jeez, and they think WE have tinfoil hats on all the time. Fucking Freepers. Who is this "Frankfurt Banking Cabal?" The Bilderbergers? What is he talking about?

[Gman]

2. Agreed

you got it.

[madrchsod]

3. i don`t see any change

of heart in the germans statements.it seems to say we are willing to help but we are not your lap-dog georgie...

[Merlin]

4. I don't think it's really a flip-flop.

There's no commitment to send troops. Looks like he's just positioning himself to avoid criticism and feigning cooperation.

[Paschall]

6. Agreed

<snip> The international community has a key interest in ensuring that stability and democracy are established as quickly as possible in Iraq. The international mission needs greater legitimacy in order to accelerate the process leading to a government acting on its own authority in Iraq.

In addition to its current military involvement in Afghanistan, the Balkans and elsewhere, Germany is willing to provide humanitarian aid, to assist in the civilian and economic reconstruction of Iraq and to train Iraqi security forces. </snip>

I think France is willing to help in the same way. But what are the conditions? I feel confident Schröder and Chirac are not going to back off their call for a very quick hand-over to the UN.

I don't see any flip-flop here. Except the NYTimes headline would like to suggest there's been one.

[Maple]

5. All he says

is that they're willing to provide some humanitarian assistance...and he doesn't say under what conditions.

Or...the same thing he's been saying all along.

[Kellanved]

7. Exacty. Where please is the Flip-Flop?

The speech pretty much sums up the German (and I believe the French, as it was made during a joint cabinet-session) position, as it has been for weeks now.
Differences: he didn't use some of the stronger words (he implicates them though), like "transparency" and "accountability", and he patts the American ego a little more than usual (not that there aren't ample reasons for laud) - and voilá the NYT listens :shrug: .

[coda]

8. Of course this has all been claimed before

that Russia is going to be a great ally.

Bush's pre-911 ("looked into his eyes and saw his soul") visit with Vlad, had NATO membership hinted at and RWer's gushed about how * was amazing, he was a world leader, world leaders respected him, blah blah blah, ad nauseum. Fat lot of good all that was when the PNAC plan went forward. Russia has lots of oil but more importantly gadzillions of cu/ft of Nat gas and their economy is growing at a faster rate than much of the West's.

I also know that Russia, only a couple of weeks ago signed a pact with the Saudi's:

Russia, Saudi Arabia Sign Oil & Gas Cooperation Agreement
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=8200


This guy claiming that Germany is having a change of heart is money related isn't some kind of new or brilliant insight and his assertion that it's Germany that's doing the scrambling is ludicrous. Take an honest look at *'s war and tell me just WHOM would you reasonably say is doing the majority of scrambling here?

The 1st Gulf War was almost all paid for by other countries........UNILATERAL. *'s "29 country unilateral coalitiion of the willing" is not his dad's " coalition of the deep pockets ".

Rather than others paying WE'VE been bribing (heavily) others to join plus we're having to pick up a majority of the bill for this mess. There also wasn't this huge bill for "rebuilding" iraq last time.

As far as 41's Russia visit well, "...icing on the cake." , my ass. LOL

He's trying bail his son's ass out of another disasterous mess like he has ALWAYS done for dubya's entire life. Only this time, it isn't one of *'s piddly-dink, run of the mill, get-a-Saudi prince-to-prop-him-up, muti-million $ failures. No, this time it's real money.

[Dirk39]

9. I'm a european freeper...

:-)
can't comment on all of this, but just to mention one thing. The most-influential german industry-lobby-group (BDI) has worked hard on further improving the image of Germany and german corporations in the Iraq, before the war. They didn't do it openly and tried somehow to cover this. Even most germans don't have a clue, what they did and how successfull they were. And they were successfull. The image of americans and the trust in Americans in the Iraq is as bad, as you can imagine, now. The german industry wants to use this situation for their profits.
In seeing the fight between different economic and geopolitical interests rather than having illusions about the european governments and their goals, esp. Germany and France, this freeper is somehow right.
Schröder is an absoulute contentless right-wing neoliberal whore.
Although I agree that he didn't change his discourse a lot. Esp. whether the german greens nor the SPD could ever dare to criticize the war against the Iraq with the arguments that would have been the right ones, 'cause they were involved in an illegal war without the UN just a few years before, covered with lies as ugly as the ones, Bush and the Neocons are using now.
Greetings from Germany,
Dirk

[PaDUer]

10. At least you're honest...

about your identity & noticed you've been with us at DU quite a while according to the number of posts you've made. I guess you've realized that what's posted here isn't what the freep site says it is. We've noticed a lot of freeps at their homerange are finally beginning to see the light of what's really going on and realize they've been shafted.

[Dirk39]

11. I'm not...

honest, I'm a german leftwinger! I just think that even a lot of DUers are a bit naive about the intentions of Schröder and Chiraq. The anti-war movement in France and Germany is a different issues and a lot of the people, who are a part of it, tried to make clear, that critizising the Bush-Regime doesn't mean necessarely to support Schröder or Chiraq.
Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[noonwitch]

12. I get what you're saying

It's like the anti-war protests here. A very few number of sponsors had affiliations with or were outright communist organizations. The right wing likes to extend that to say that all the protestors and sponsors are communists, which is obviously not true. It feeds their agenda to label the National Council of Churches as communist, for example, because they feel the need to say only they are true americans/christians.

Or, if the liberals stated that all people who opposed affirmative action were dangerous racists because the KKK and the American Nazi Party also oppose it. There are people who make legitimate arguments against it that are not racist-I don't agree with them, but I also don't agree with labelling them klansmen, either.

You're basically saying don't fall for the simplistic portrayal of the issue about Germany and France's opposition to the war, and realize that there is always more to the story than we necessarily see.

[bearfartinthewoods]

18. like me...when i complain about chirac, i'm still not backing bush

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

13. Because we still occupy Germany?

They have to listen to us because we have a whole lot of troops in their country. Didn't Germany ask us to leave during the run up to war, and we said no? Is this correct?

Remember Rice's "Forgive Russia, punish France, ignore Germany" strategy? I think the freeper is probably right about this.

[Dirk39]

14. It was the other way round...

The Bushies warned us, that they would tell their troops to leave Germany. The background was different: it was planned for long, to reduce the number of american soldiers in Germany, but in a way, the Bush-Administration used this, to let it look as if this would happen to "punish" Germany for not being part of the "coalition of the willing".

Viele Grüße,
Dirk

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

16. Dirk

I have family in the US Army that was stationed in Germany for years, and I got the impression from them that the US being there is not at all popular - is that true?

I understand that plenty of Germans make money from the US presence there. What do you think most Germans feel about this?

[Guaranteed]

15. The Dead Man's hand....

...is held by the country that has its troops dying daily, is alienating its allies, is wasting enormous amounts of very precious capital (in these economic times) on a nearly pointless and almost certainly endless war, and is willingly putting itself into the largest amount of debt it ever has while dollars become more and more scarce within the country.

[MrPrax]

17. Tin Foil Stuff...

I thought the Bushites were annoyed with the Russians for continuing to work with Iran's nuclear project?

The Japanese are being heavily squeezed to come up with cash for Iraq, but their balking big time.

The 'froggies' as well as the 'borscht-eaters' have consolidated and merged their oil giants and with FinELF have acquired Turkish assets....

There really isn't shadowy cabals of finaiciers--they are rather open about what they do.

It is just 'freeper' types tend to see conspiracy and high finance as an extension of their 'big gov't' fear. They can't bring themselves to see that Big Gov't works for Big Corps as they are ideologically bound to the 'free market'