On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 10:16:38 +0100, Ralph Savelsberg wrote:



Emmanuel Gustin wrote:

"Ralph Savelsberg" wrote in message
...


The stereotype would be that Americans think that 'if you're not with
us, you're against us'.


Isn't that almost exactly what George W. said -- or is
my memory failing?


That's pretty much what he said after september eleventh. I cringed when
I heard it, but then again, the man has said a lot of strange things,
which often were reinterpreted by his aides with words like "That's not
what the president said." or "What the president meant to say was .....".
In any case, dumb rhetoric is part of almost every politician's
vocabulary and after all, the US had been viciously attacked. I think
it's generally not all that hard to see through the rhetoric. The sad
thing is that some people apparently can't.


But I agree that Al Minkukel is a fool by any standard.


He's a strong supporter of his government's position and I don't blame him for that, even though I have grave doubts about that position.

However, what tends to annoy me immensely is his generalizing talk about `Europeans are this, Europeans are that', his lack of

distinction between facts and his own opinion and his apparent inability to seperate his feelings about some European countries'

political positions from his opinion about Europeans, European society, and things made in Europe in general.


There's a Dutch proverb that seems rather apropriate to this discussion:
"holle vaten klinken het hardst". According to my dictionary the English
equivalent would be "The empty vessel makes the greatest sound".


BTW, I'm not a fan of Jacques Chirac either, and I think that France's
and (to a lesser extent) Germany's positions in this haven't exactly
been constructive either. The French announcement that they were going
to block any new security counsel resolution against Iraq in the month
before the war was utterly counterproductive. I also think that now that
Iraq has been invaded it's in the world's best interest to see to it
that the US indeed doesn't fail to pacify Iraq.

Regards,
Ralph Savelsberg

In order to clarify my remarks, when I say "europe" I mean "old europe"
France, Germany Belgium, The Netherlands, Greece, Italy, etc. I do not
include the UK, Poland or the other former east block countries.

Al Minyard