Subj : Re: Mandrake vs Suse
To   : comp.os.linux
From : Willem van der Berg
Date : Thu Aug 26 2004 08:29 pm

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 14:06:14 +0000, Rob Strover wrote:
> 1)  From his name and info in the message headers, I believe Willem van
> der Berg is probably Dutch, NOT German!  I'd remind you that in both
> world wars France was actually allied with U.S., etc. [Yeah, I know
> about Vichy, but I mean the (majority) Free French, De Gaulle, etc.]

Yup, you are right. A painful error on Skip's part :)

Also, I resent the fact that Americans keep bringing up WW II to justify
recent American behaviour. There's a 60 year gap. Modern day Germany is
nothing like Nazi Germany and the same goes for America (albeit in my view
going in the opposite direction).
It wouldn't be too hard to bring up the issues of the anti-WMD stands
while being the nation with the highest number of WMD and the only one to
have ever used atom bombs to annihilate innocent civilians from a long
defeated nation.

> 2)  I think that the current U.S. administration wanted simple answers and
> looked for them - the world, unfortunately, is rarely neat or simple in its
> operation.  Also, I believe that your countrymen, in general, have a very
> narrow view of the world and can only see it from their viewpoint!  Bush,
> etc., when they decided to go into Iraq, should have heeded advice from the
> Brits re keeping Iraqi army & police employed and on-side (after sacking the
> REAL hardline Baathists, etc.).  NOTE: The British actually had a well run
> empire not that long ago and understand how to do things without totally
> pissing off of those under their control - eg.  India, Malaya, much of East
> Africa.  They always had strong local allies and didn't alienate almost all
> major groups in the occupied/colonised country......
> 
> BTW, I actually come from another of the 'Coalition of the Willing' (&
> IGNORANT) countries - Australia!!!

Yeah... mine too :(
 Australian soldiers unfortunately always seem to find
themselves fighting American wars with no glory. Most Americans probably
don't even know Australians fought in Iraq. Or Vietnam for that matter...

Willem

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