Siddhartha
Lifer
I saw this on Yahoo.
Hufvudstadsbladet, Helsinki, Finland, in an editorial: ''American politicians and media have criticized with increasing irony and arrogance those who don't adopt their line, particularly their European friends. This means that the rift between Europe and the United States is widening at the same time as an attack against Iraq draws ever closer. In the United States, one often seeks to find an answer to the question: Why can't the naive (President) Bush critics understand that we must get rid of (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)? In Europe, instead, one hears the basic question: Why can't the United States understand that the victims and the risks involved in an attack are too great?''
Uwe Vorkötter in Berliner Zeitung, Berlin: ''The showdown at the U.N. Security Council is just a show on the stage of world opinion. If the council agrees (with Bush), then it will have been useful to the Americans. If the council doesn't agree, then it will have been irrelevant. The superpower's decision to go to war has been made; it's only a question of when.''
Robin Gedye in The Daily Telegraph, London: ''From the Baltic to the Black Sea, there has been a unanimity of government support and sympathy for America that, combined with burgeoning antagonism toward France and Germany, would have been unthinkable just (recently). . . . Eastern Europe and the Balkans, unlike their Western neighbors, have a sense of history, which, because of their recent turbulence, has a relevance to the present. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder makes a point of drawing a line under Germany's wartime guilt while France pointedly ignores its own wartime debt to America. East European admiration for America is firmly seated in gratitude for the covert and overt support of successive Washington administrations for political dissent during the years of Soviet domination. . . . It is not merely that America is perceived as attaching a value to democracy that is lacking in other European states but also many parts of Eastern Europe feel let down by France and particularly Germany for breaking promises, made during its own reunification process, to act as a bridge between Eastern and Western Europe.''
Claude Imbert in Le Point, France: ''France today, busybody that it is, appears as the gleaming champion of the opposition to America. This opposition has unleashed a Francophobic hysteria there and anti-Americanism here. . . . This boosts Saddam and pleases (Osama) bin Laden. As for NATO (news - web sites) and Europe, they are not yet broken but are fractured. . . . If the U.S. persists in wanting this war that it ceaselessly announces, France will have to face the prospect of abstention. In short, exiting through the back door.''
Verslo Zinios, Lithuania, in an editorial: ''The United States, it seems, does not intend to encourage European unity, and it would be strange if it did. Why would the United States, with its receding economy, wish good luck to the European superstate?''
Mia Doornaert in a column on the Web site of De Standaard, Belgium: ''Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel's explicit statement that Belgium is 'no lackey of the United States' did not go down particularly well in Washington. This statement also hurt those Americans -- and there are many more of them than European public opinion realizes -- who oppose Bush's war plans for Iraq and who sincerely hope that the EU will finally complement its economic power with adequate political and military power so as to become a credible alternative . . . to the United States. If Western Europe is currently better off than Eastern Europe, they say, this is because (the USA) has never regarded its European allies as lackeys, but rather as partners, albeit not always in a very tactful way.''
Lara Marlowe in The Irish Times, Dublin: ''In Britain and Ireland, anti-war feeling is directed at the Bush administration, not America as a nation. Between the U.S. and France, it's personal and likely to leave long-term damage. In view of the abuse heaped upon them, the French remain remarkably restrained. . . . Perhaps Americans should look in their own closet before whipping the French with history.'' What Europeans are saying about U.S.-European strains
Click here
Hufvudstadsbladet, Helsinki, Finland, in an editorial: ''American politicians and media have criticized with increasing irony and arrogance those who don't adopt their line, particularly their European friends. This means that the rift between Europe and the United States is widening at the same time as an attack against Iraq draws ever closer. In the United States, one often seeks to find an answer to the question: Why can't the naive (President) Bush critics understand that we must get rid of (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)? In Europe, instead, one hears the basic question: Why can't the United States understand that the victims and the risks involved in an attack are too great?''
Uwe Vorkötter in Berliner Zeitung, Berlin: ''The showdown at the U.N. Security Council is just a show on the stage of world opinion. If the council agrees (with Bush), then it will have been useful to the Americans. If the council doesn't agree, then it will have been irrelevant. The superpower's decision to go to war has been made; it's only a question of when.''
Robin Gedye in The Daily Telegraph, London: ''From the Baltic to the Black Sea, there has been a unanimity of government support and sympathy for America that, combined with burgeoning antagonism toward France and Germany, would have been unthinkable just (recently). . . . Eastern Europe and the Balkans, unlike their Western neighbors, have a sense of history, which, because of their recent turbulence, has a relevance to the present. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder makes a point of drawing a line under Germany's wartime guilt while France pointedly ignores its own wartime debt to America. East European admiration for America is firmly seated in gratitude for the covert and overt support of successive Washington administrations for political dissent during the years of Soviet domination. . . . It is not merely that America is perceived as attaching a value to democracy that is lacking in other European states but also many parts of Eastern Europe feel let down by France and particularly Germany for breaking promises, made during its own reunification process, to act as a bridge between Eastern and Western Europe.''
Claude Imbert in Le Point, France: ''France today, busybody that it is, appears as the gleaming champion of the opposition to America. This opposition has unleashed a Francophobic hysteria there and anti-Americanism here. . . . This boosts Saddam and pleases (Osama) bin Laden. As for NATO (news - web sites) and Europe, they are not yet broken but are fractured. . . . If the U.S. persists in wanting this war that it ceaselessly announces, France will have to face the prospect of abstention. In short, exiting through the back door.''
Verslo Zinios, Lithuania, in an editorial: ''The United States, it seems, does not intend to encourage European unity, and it would be strange if it did. Why would the United States, with its receding economy, wish good luck to the European superstate?''
Mia Doornaert in a column on the Web site of De Standaard, Belgium: ''Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel's explicit statement that Belgium is 'no lackey of the United States' did not go down particularly well in Washington. This statement also hurt those Americans -- and there are many more of them than European public opinion realizes -- who oppose Bush's war plans for Iraq and who sincerely hope that the EU will finally complement its economic power with adequate political and military power so as to become a credible alternative . . . to the United States. If Western Europe is currently better off than Eastern Europe, they say, this is because (the USA) has never regarded its European allies as lackeys, but rather as partners, albeit not always in a very tactful way.''
Lara Marlowe in The Irish Times, Dublin: ''In Britain and Ireland, anti-war feeling is directed at the Bush administration, not America as a nation. Between the U.S. and France, it's personal and likely to leave long-term damage. In view of the abuse heaped upon them, the French remain remarkably restrained. . . . Perhaps Americans should look in their own closet before whipping the French with history.'' What Europeans are saying about U.S.-European strains
Click here
