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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Emile Vidrine who wrote (300851)	9/25/2002 5:31:55 PM
From: gao seng	Respond to of 769670

You only say you support Bush to get his supporters to back off him. And, in case you were asleep, the comments were not in regard to the war, they were in regard to the Department of Homeland Defense, Daschle wants to put the employees under the control of the union boss. Sort of like putting the military under private enterprise control. Not to kosher, for me. -- Article a nice little skinhead like you should like: Germany to do our windows for us! If we let them. At least they have enough sense to admit they are wrong. When will Daschle? And what pentinence will the democrats have to pay just for the right to do the stinking windows? -- Walker's World: Germany's repentance By Martin Walker UPI Chief International Correspondent From the International Desk Published 9/25/2002 3:21 PM View printer-friendly version WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- The re-elected German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder went barefoot to Canossa Tuesday night, to bow the knee before the Almighty's representative on earth and seek forgiveness. Well, metaphorically, that is what Germany's re-elected Chancellor was doing over dinner at Downing Street. In fact, he went to London to ask Tony Blair's help in repairing the rift with the Bush administration that Schroeder himself had opened in his election campaign. But it was Canossa all the same, as Schroeder followed in a long German tradition of recognizing reality that dates back over 900 years. The Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich IV had become embroiled in a desperate feud with Pope Gregory VII over which of them had the power to appoint German bishops. Heinrich refused to back down, insisting, "We will not go to Canossa," the Italian castle where the Pope happened to be. Pope Gregory stuck to his guns, and in 1077 A.D. a defeated Heinrich indeed went to Canossa as a penitent, barefoot and in the snow, in order to escape excommunication. A similar humiliation is now being acted out by Chancellor Schroeder, who understands that he will have to pay a stiff price to mend his relations with the Bush administration. Schroeder went to the modern Canossa of Downing Street to ask what he had to do to get back on decent terms with Germany's most important ally. This was interesting for a number of reasons. First, it breaks with all recent German tradition. The rule has long been that a new or a re-elected Chancellor makes his initial trip to Paris, to assure everybody that the Franco-German axis will continue to drive European affairs. Americans have yet to realize that Schroeder has done almost as much damage to the Franco-German alliance as he has to relations with Washington. But for Europeans, this first Schroeder trip to London was remarkable for what it said about the state of play between Berlin and Paris. Second, it was important for Schroeder's recognition of the unique role that Blair now plays in the Transatlantic game -- even though Schroeder was also gratuitously rude about Blair during the German election campaign, sneering at one public meeting that Blair "does not speak for Europe, nor even for all of Britain." At least Schroeder now knows that Blair is the only conceivable intermediary to get a respectful hearing in the White House. Third, it was important because of the sensible way Blair behaved. There was no need to panic, he told Schroeder; these things tend to blow over. He should perhaps say something personally -- not publicly -- to Bush, as one politician to another about the way one can get carried away in the heat of campaigning. The important thing now, Blair stressed to his German counterpart, was to show the world that Germany remained a good ally, even when it disagreed about Iraq. Schroeder has already begun to make amends. He has ditched his Justice Minister, for a foolish and grossly offensive remark before a gathering of trade unionists that seemed to compare Bush with Hitler. He has also ditched the man who used to run the Social Democratic group in the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, who made the equally silly remark equating Bush with the Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar. Schroeder has also signaled that Germany will after December take over from Turkey the leadership of the international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan. In fact, Schroeder is offering the German and Dutch military for the job (although as of late Tuesday night, he had not consulted the Dutch on this). We may expect Schroeder to lay more such sacrificial offerings before the American throne in coming months. The overstretched and under-funded German Bundeswehr can now expect to be the first to replace any coming troop shortages in the peacekeeping missions in Macedonia or Kosovo. Since the British are already drawing down their own troops in those operations, in readiness for the Iraq mission, the obsolescent German army may be playing a more useful role in replacing Brit peacekeepers than it could hope to play in the battlefields around Baghdad. This is not an argument the Germans will ever make in public, but it happens to be true. The Brits, who spend $33 billion a year on defense compared to the German $21 billion, have the Cruise missiles and the Airmobile Brigade that means they can fight usefully alongside the Pentagon's high-tech juggernaut; the Germans cannot. Schroeder's penitence will come in the form of manual labor, offering manpower as tribute. Remember that snappy remark from national security adviser Condoleezza Rice about peacekeeping? -- "The 82nd Airborne does not do windows." A good line, but windows do have to be cleaned, and mines cleared and kids have to be walked to school. The Germans will do windows, lots and lots of them, from Kabul to Kosovo. Windows are the new Canossa. upi.com