Oh, like they're not w/frankenreich.

Porphyrogenitus links to this (not the complete article):

For those of you coming late to a phrase I haven't used in awhile, enter "Restored Carolignian Empire" into my search engine (located to screen left) and its relative, "Frankenreich". That said, here is a piece in Canada's National Post on the vision that a union between France and Germany would expound:

This vision of the EU encompasses a bureaucratically "harmonized" state with a semi-command economy, a kind of glass-cockpit socialism for the 21st century. Such a Franco-German construct would be "nuanced" and "civilized" -- the code words denoting a state with a pragmatic bent, flexible ethics and a commitment to realpolitik. It would have a defence force separate from NATO, and held as aloof as possible from Anglo-American cultural, political and judicial influences.

In short, it would split Western civilization into an Atlantic and a continental branch. . .

He and the walking stuffed bratwurst Michael Moore should be staging joint book signings across the German Federal Republic and swapping ideas with each other for their next books...

The biggest problem with this theory is, the US ALREADY dominated the world BEFORE 9/11.
If the point is that the attack was faked, in order to win political support to attack another country, why didn't we fake an attack from somewhere worth taking and holding ?

I mean, come on, AFGHANISTAN ?
What do the Germans know about that dusty, desolate place that nobody else knows ?
Or are they just big opium addicts ?

For instance, Mexico has a lot of oil, and it'd be much more convenient to take them over. Easier, too. Talk about cheering in the streets, if the US annexed them.

"...but behind closed doors ministers have tried to distance themselves from his radical views."

Boy, those German cabinet ministers are a brave and principled bunch, aren't they?

Listen to Harry's warnings. This is all a cover, conscious or otherwise. We have heard of some impressive French intellectuals taking on prevailing anti-Americanism in France. Anybody heard of any German counterparts?

I'm from Australia, how many ordinary Americans on the street are aware that Germany hates them like this? That 1 in 5 germans think the US government launched the attacks?

Where are the consequences? When is Europe going to be punished for this crap?

Amos,

The most likely punishment will come in the form of rebalancing our support (and, for whatever it is worth, affection) away from the useless ingrates and towards the consistent commrades. This is the only punishment I can envision, and if it sounds unequal to the offense, we will have to accept it. This leaves me only to fantasize anout a scenario where France is overwhelmed by an Islamofascist army, and we opt out on account of our commitments to Australia and England (I mean, who is going to serve as peace keepers during the World Cup finals...)

Europe's descent into chaos is punishment enough. But they will never see it that way.

The real 'punishment' will be when Washington turns down the future EU request for money - presuming, of course, that a moonbat multilateral vainglorious Clintonite/Rubinite is not in the White House.

Isn't it time to immediately begin the movement of our troops and military installations out of Germany; perhaps to Poland or other Eastern European nations, via Afghanistan/Iraq.

Wouldn't Poland be the better strategic location if we must maintain forces in Europe? Let the French worry about the Germans.

Von Bulow's "theories" sound just like something Joseph Goebbels would have cooked up. And Germans think Americans are the stupid, gullible ones? Here we go again.

One city in Germany is lobbying for our forces to stay there. They know what's going to happen. We've moved out tens of thousands of troops already, IIRC.

Wes Dabney used to blog. He was in the army(?). He pointed out that Germany's economy started to tank after we started pulling out our troops. Just coincidence, of course, but it made me go hmmmm.

genecis,

A better idea: with the American troops gone, let the French protect the Germans, or vice versa.

Some enterprising reporter should ask Schroeder and Chirac if there has been a time since the 1930s that the Germans and French have propagated and believed so many lies.

I am now reading Lord Vansittart's "Events and Shadows," written around 1948. Some things never change, do they?

Orrin says Vansittart's influence was negative. Maybe. But he was right on the facts, which ought to count for something.

When the Berlin Wall fell, my then editor came back proudly with a piece of it. I said then that we would come to regret the recreation of a Great Germany, and I'm sticking with it.

Although, for me personally, saying so helped force me out of that paper. My punishment is to have to live on Maui. There's lebensraum and then there's lebensraum.

Did Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners" not count as a bestseller?

Harry;

Did you ever hear of the French cold war politician who was accused of being anti-German? His reply: "That is not true. I love Germany. In fact, I love it so much I want two of them."

Harry:

Why? Germany will be Turkish in a generation.

oj:

Really ?
You don't think that there'll race riots, and guest workers given the boot, before that ?

Besides, if Turkey manages to actually become a stable, thriving place, there won't be enough Turks in Germany to worry about.
Maybe Northern Africans.

Yes, I do, but I think the elderly Germans will lose.

Peter, never heard that one. Must have been the last sensible remark ever made by a French politician.

The Germans still have national police organized along military lines, and although I have not seen any numbers, I'm willing to bet that very, very few ethnic Turks are being recruited into the polizei.

Push comes to shove, it'll be 1919 all over again.