The French and Germans have been our friends for a while and in the end they will do what is right and join us for this war on Iraq. I believe this whole thing is a problem they have with Bush. He came into office and told the world "kiss my butt" (paraphrase) and pulled out of several international deals that the US was a big part of at the time. This move proved to be of benefit to his business buddies, but the international community was pissed. He then kills the Microsoft suit (smooth move there) ect ect sorry, off the subject a moment. The International Community was pissed and now it all comes home to roost. His idea of, I poop on you but you can’t poop on me doesn’t cut it. I say let them vent, in the end they will go with us because they always have and they know who butter’s their bread.

We also need to listen to what is being said by them in the area of terrorism. Remember, the European community has been dealing with this problem far longer than the US has. I was stationed in Wiesbaden Germany back in 71’ as a medic. While stationed there we had terrorist setting off bombs at military bases, police stations, killing politicians, robbing banks and just generally causing mass mayhem. I was there during the Olympics when the athletics were taken hostage, things were not really very safe there at the time. The USAF Hospital where I worked received many bomb threats, which disrupted everything to say the least. We never actually had one found, but we still had to look and seal the place off to be sure. Please remember that France and Germany have sent many terrorists to jail and continue to do so now. They have the first 911 conviction, which says something about where their heart is. I prefer the death penalty myself for the guy, but with him behind bars he can give others up. You see, they don’t have such a thing as police brutality there or they didn’t when I was there many moons ago.

While we have suffered the greatest loss anyone could imagine we need to be focused and listen to others who have greater experience in this area. Then we need to take all those soldiers we are sending oversea's and send them into North Pakistan and get the SOB who did it. Oh I'm sorry, Pakistan is on our side, riiiiight.

They will do the right thing, but they may let Bush twist in the wind for a while.

IMHO

Chuck