These comments are from Germans who are willing to share their perspective. This is from Andreas.
The election of Gerhard Schroeder last summer was (almost) as tight as the election of Bush. A lot of people do not agree with him, especially in questions with Iraq and US. I did not vote for him, and a lot of good friends and relatives didn't either.I think the reason that Schroeder managed to win the election was the big inundation in South-East Germany just before the election. He did a good job in this matter. (Ok, he did what everyone else would have done....but he gave hope to the victims - and money to rebuild the completely destroyed villages.)
Even before the election, he said "Germany will not agree to a war in Iraq no matter what." This lead to a big discussion all over Germany two weeks before the election. A lot of people disagreed with him. Personally, I can’t believe that "some" people agree with him.
Now we have Schroeder - and we have to live with him until 2006. I hope it will only be until 2006. But as long as Germany’s mountain of debt is still growing and the number of unemployed is not going down, I think (hope) nobody wants to have him any longer.
I really hope the whole situation will calm down again...
Regards,
Andreas
I hope it calms down again too – hopefully before 2006. Maybe things will get better after the war. Many thanks for sharing your perspective.
This one is from Erwin.
If you want to defend Germany the best thing to do is show them the issue from another point of view and ask a few different questions.
OK, let’s post your point of view and your questions. I'll try to answer them and maybe this will help Germans and Americans better understand each other.
Instead of asking "why is Germany against war?" you can ask "Why does the US want to wage war today instead of waiting at least until the report from the inspectors is finished"
Many nations, of which the US is one of the most vocal, took UN Resolution 1441 seriously and literally. The purpose of the inspections was not to find what Saddam had hidden – the original set of inspections (with many more inspectors) showed Saddam could hide things if he wanted. The purpose of the inspections was to give Saddam one last chance – after 12 years of UN demands – to comply within 60 days or face the consequences. He did not comply and he will face the consequences. Inspections for the sake of inspections serves no useful purpose.
"Why does Powell present satellite pictures with a resolution that was outdated 25 years ago? Certainly if you keep in mind the Gulf War lies and their manipulation of photos"
I’m not going to defend lies told in the first Gulf War. Sometime politicians are just foolish – Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait was more than reason enough for the first Gulf War, there was no reason to make up things. As your question demonstrates, all that does is sow distrust.
However, I will defend Powell’s showing of low resolution pictures. Many nations in the world would pay dearly to know the resolution of US satellite cameras. It would be foolhardy to give them this information for free by making high-resolution photos available for analysis.
"Why don't we sit down and figure out what we want to do with the region now instead of waging a hugely expensive war and come to the conclusion that it wasn't worth it, we did too much or too little, had the wrong objectives etc"
This was done last year and Resolution 1441 was the result. And please note that the US approached the UN and brought the issue before the security council. Compare this to Schröder who – as Andreas pointed out – unilaterally announced Germany would not participate in any war with Iraq no matter what.
"What are our alternatives in this? Is there any compromise between diplomacy and war and have we exhausted all options?"
There are two compromises that are still viable.
Compromise 1 – Saddam is removed from power (voluntarily or in a coup d'état).
Compromise 2 – Saddam comes clean and starts cooperating.
In my opinion, neither are likely. Saddam isn’t going to leave and has been protecting himself against revolt for his entire rule. There wasn’t much of a chance for Saddam to come clean, but whatever chance there was has been greatly diminished by the disagreements within the West.
"Why is Bush putting his credibility and the credibility of the US on the line at this early a stage? There's no way for him to back out on this?"
Whether he is correct or not, President Bush believes that Iraq is a threat to the US. He is obligated to protect us from enemies both foreign and domestic. He is doing so. He has no plans to back out as that is not even a consideration when he believes the security of the US is at stake. Unless one of the compromises mentioned above occurs, he will lead the “Coalition of the Willing” to remove Saddam from power.
"Why is the US playing games with both Iraq and the international community? They knew Saddam wouldn't cooperate with everything in their timeline"
I think this is a loaded question with the “games” terminology, but I’ll try to answer. The US, along with many other nations, has been fairly straightforward on the main issue. Saddam hasn’t fully cooperated in 12 years, so - as you assume - the Bush administration did not expect Saddam to cooperate in 60 days. If the UN had given Saddam another 12 years, I doubt they would cooperate with everything. The UN gave Saddam a last chance for peace and he declined.
Don't get me wrong.. I am not even all that against the war. It's just that Americans usually only get to see the US point of view in the press and might not be aware of some of the things that have happened and are happening.
I very much appreciate your input. We have an expression called the “Devil’s Advocate” – it describes someone who argues the opposite view in order to make you think things through. I appreciate your playing that role in this exercise.
Is it well known what the US did in the Middle East. Does everyone know that Saddam was once the US' best friend? Who build his atomic bomb proof bunker? Who financed the war on Iran?
Well, calling him the US’ best friend is a bit strong, and I’d like to see some evidence on the war financing, but I’ll freely admit that the US backed Saddam early in his reign. During the Cold War, when the US truly feared nuclear annihilation, the US supported virtually anyone who was not communist. This was one of our great mistakes. To our credit, we have largely stopped supporting such countries (although I’m not thrilled with our current support of Pakistan even if their leader is helping in the war against terrorism).
Of course, the US is hardly the only country that makes this mistake. And while the US supported harsh regimes with the goal of stopping communism, why do other countries make this mistake? France and Germany armed and supported Iraq up to the Gulf War (and perhaps afterward) in the search for high profit margins.
Who was the guy that helped the US fighting off the Russian in Afghanistan? What was the name of the organisation that was set up and trained by the CIA to do this?
I assume you are referring to Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization. Yes, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the US were instrumental in training bin Laden and his organization for fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. This was consistent with the US policy of doing virtually anything to stop communism. So I would agree that we are partly responsible for creating this organization. However, what should be done now?
Let us learn from President Clinton’s inaction. His administration had opportunities to go after bin Laden, but chose the wait and see approach. September 11 was the response. This should serve as a warning for more wait and see approaches to Iraq.
US foreign policy has not been a very long-term planning process and yesterday's allies are today's enemies. Combine that with the fact that the US has been lying to it's own people and the international community during the Gulf War makes for quite a bit of skepticism in the rest of the World.
Again, I agree with you about the lying. It is counter productive. I hardly consider this flaw unique to America (e.g., just Monday France denied they were creating a new plan with Germany hours before Chirac announced it…), but it is still wrong.
I also can understand your perspective on the US’ lack of a long-term planning process. If you are correct, that flaw is also not unique to America. It seems inherent in true democracies where the leadership of the country periodically changes parties. In which case, all we can do is try to learn from previous mistakes and clean up the mess. From history, we know the risks of leaving Saddam in power greatly outweigh the risks of removing him from power.
However, I would argue that American foreign policy has actually been consistent over the long-term. After WWII, the US was concerned about the communist threat. It’s policies (with rare exceptions like the four years of the Carter administration) were aimed at containing and fighting communism no matter what the cost. And at great cost, the US won the Cold War. In the process, a lot of dictators flourished – some with support from the US. The US didn’t expect the Cold War to end as quickly as it did, and is still internally debating our next objective. Bush has a long-term plan that involves eliminating the terrorist threat from the world. Will it be implemented over the long-term? I think it is too early to say. It will be implemented over the short-term.
Don't tell me that Bush has done everything he did based on the stuff that Powell presented last week. They are playing a game, Iraq is playing their game and the rest of the world is trying to figure out the truth and then what to do about it.
No, I don’t think anyone believes that Bush is basing everything upon what was presented. Powell merely presented clear and compelling evidence that Iraq was not in compliance with Resolution 1441 – as Hans Blix had already stated. I admire Blix – he clearly opposes war with Iraq, but he is being honest about his findings. Many nations – not just the US – will remove Saddam from power if he doesn’t immediate comply with Resolution 1441.
And some of the rest of the world (namely France, Germany, and Belgium) are doing more than their fair share of game playing. The leaders of these three countries may have mortally wounded NATO with their actions this week. I certainly hope not.
Erwin
Erwin, thank you for your response and your questions. You can play Devil’s Advocate anytime.
Update: Regarding Erwin's comment that It's just that Americans usually only get to see the US point
of view in the press and might not be aware of some of the things that have happened and are happening.
Andy Freeman writes:
This one sentence demonstrates two things that Euros do that infuriate Americans.(1) It assumes that Europeans have access to information that Americans don't.
(2) It assumes that Americans would adopt a more European position if we did have said access.Both assumptions are, for the most part, incorrect.
And, to the extent that we are ignorant of European affairs, the more we find out, the greater the contempt. (France and Germany should pray that the US does not find evidence linking them to sanction violations.)
I'll end on a positive and constructive note. Europeans would do well to figure out why Americans think that cowboys are a force for good. (It follows that using "cowboy" as an insult is a horrendous mistake.)
Europeans should be aware that this is a stereotype we have of many Europeans. Like most stereotypes, there is some truth to it. Since many of our public schools do a poor job educating our folk, some Europeans have the tendency to assume all Americans are ignorant of the issues and that the opinions held by all Americans are due to ignorance. Thus a quick tutoring job should result in Americans seeing things in a new way. I have been on the receiving end of these several times – including on subjects in which I could teach. When I find myself in this circumstance I try to keep my sense of humor and ask leading questions. But there are also many “Arrogant Americans” who look down on all Europeans simply because the US has the strongest military in the world. My entire purpose in starting this thread – and posting comments – is not to facilitate the exchange of insults. Rather I hope to provide a small forum for people to hear various perspectives on the Iraqi issue before the German-American gulf becomes a problem for German and American citizens.
Of course, if I continue to post comments, I’ll need to upgrade my blog to allow direct comments. I may look into that soon.