Erik Reuter wrote: > On Wed, Feb 05, 2003 at 11:12:33AM +0100, Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten > wrote: > > > Since EU is more into social goals, it is hard to imagine they'd spent > > more on the military unless they were under direct attack. I admit, > > that it would be too late to change anything in that eventuallity but > > that's the way it is. > > And that is one of the choices Gautam refers to. Planning ahead to > protect yourself is prudent and serious; not doing so is a choice.
And as far as I know I didn't dispute it, just provided cultural insight.... so what is the point you are making? > > LOL.... Well even you have to admit that there is more to foreign > > politics then waving a big gun under the nose of countries you don't > > agree with. So I feel this is somewhat overstating your point. > > And you believe Europe has mastered these additional foreign policy > techniques? No, they didn't master it. I don't think anybody ever fully can claim that he has. People and cultures are too different for that. But at least they put effort into it and make a lot more use of it. That we have to, because of state the military is in in our countries, to me, doesn't feel like such a bad thing. > I must have missed how the Europeans negotiated their way > out of the recent Serbia situation. And convinced Saddam Hussein to > withdraw from Kuwait. And persuaded the Taliban to liberalize their > policies and stop supporting Al Qaeda. That is were it didn't work. But you must have known that to bring it up here in this context. > > And so they do. ******* Let me just rectify this part of your somewhat overzealous snippage to show what I mean later on. > _Even with current levels of spending_, however, it is > certainly possible for European countries to create > forces capable of playing a useful role in the > international arena. And so they do. ******** > And so they [mainland European military forces] do....what? Let's see... The EU countries have a force that to them is usefull in the international arena. Not to the US, but to themselves and their interests. Maybe we should argue semantics before drawing conclusions. > > Currently (and this is typical of the Netherlands) they establish the > > task then they send just enough men and material to accomplish that > > particular task. > > They establish the task and then... > > > the only thing the lightly armed military could do was retreat. > > retreat and criticize the US for not fixing the situation yet. Exuse me.... could you please keep content together. > > Well they are usefull as to what the EU countries intent them to do. > > And what do they intend their military forces to do? Perhaps call their > enemies names such as... > > > that is a stupid as well as an ignorant viewpoint. > > ...before retreating. So now we know the secrets of the mainland > European military forces! I must admit that Erik did some briljant snipping there. Furthermore I must conclude that he ended up linking things together that weren't supposed to go together. Unfortunatly he thereby made it seem that I said things I absolutely didn't. To anyone interested in discussing the subject instead of belitteling me, I'd like to ask to comment on the original post. I'll refrain from reiterating the points I was trying to make since Erik apparently isn't interested in them and also has somewhat of a trackrecord for putting words into peoples mouth. Another reason for not repeating the points I was trying to make is that I don't want this to turn into another I said/you said discussion. It is a pointless excersize I'm not willing to spent time on. Just this. Looking at the whole of this propagandistic US=fantastic / EU=rubbish response Eric managed to put together, using unrelated slivers of my original posts mixed up with biting scornfull remarks, provided the perfect example of the adherent lack of aprehension between the US and the EU. He probably unintentionally provided us with a good view on unwillingness to find common grounds using the understanding gained from other's points of view, even if one does not agree with them. Sonja _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
