Bush is mending fences...with a NEW WARNING to Europe!

[Bluebear]

BRUSSELS, Belgium - President Bush and European leaders settled simmering differences about Iraq but plunged into a troublesome new dispute Tuesday over the lifting of an arms embargo against China. Bush warned Congress might retaliate if Europe revokes the 15-year ban.

Bush said lifting the embargo, imposed after the bloody 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy activists, "would change the balance of relations between China and Taiwan and that's of concern." But French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said the ban should go. "It will happen," Schroeder said.

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I thought Congress was a separate body of government that doesn't take orders from the President. I need to go back to civis class. :crazy:

[murray hill farm]

1. Retaliation?

With who..against who? All of Europe? Strange kind of fence mending "charm" tour! Forget all the other stuff..i think this man has advanced Alzheimer's!

[Bluebear]

4. First they charm you then they lower the boom

DOCTOR Rice did the same thing, 19 stops in Europe and on the last day she started warning and bitching.

[tsuki]

12. This is your brain...This is your brain on drugs. n/t

[fooj]

2. NO!! Shrub needs to go back to civics class! He is embarrassing!

[Lone_Star_Dem]

3. Why do they let him speak? n/t

[TyeDye75]

5. the fact that Bush is a tosser aside

the idea of selling more arms to China makes me a little uneasy...then again Bush is probably just sore because they will be European arms and not American ones.

[Disturbed]

6. This will happen.

Europe is no longer taking orders from the U.S. Govt.

I predict that China and Russia will convert to Euros as will many other countries. The days of U.S. domination are quickly ending. The American Empire will decline.

[Stirk]

7. BREAKING: 3rd grade bully insists other children not team up against him

The neocons' foreign policy is supremely arrogant and myopic. They never even considered what others might do to stop their agenda. Everything from the Iraqi insurgency on- it's all news to the dipshits in Washington.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. What balance?

Does * really think that Taiwan could stand for a week if China really wanted to invade?

There are a BILLION of them. If they wanted to they could march across the straits on the bodies of their drowned and still have enough millions to overrun Taiwan.

China hasn't invaded for the same reason they haven't re-taken the Ryukyus from Japan. They've been around for 6,000 years, and what's a few decades or a couple centuries to them? Eventually, they will be re-united. No rush.

[Old and In the Way]

9. Taiwan is quite capable of defending themselves.

In actual monetary terms, they both spend about the same on defense. Counting Taiwan's US "foreign aid" and technology sharing, I doubt that an attack by either side would accomplish much, neither could really defeat the other....it would be a MAD scenario. Taiwan is a heavily fortified country. As you fly in, you can see lots of missle sites built into the mountainsides.

I agree, China looks at the long picture. They keep agitating the Taiwanese and will never accept an independent Taiwan, but they have all the time in the world. Eventually, I think China's economy will dominate Taiwan and that will be the lever that eventually leads to a reconciliation.

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. That's what I'm saying.

They aren't going to waste the manpower and resources to get what they'll eventually get anyway.

But I still think it's extraordinarily foolish to underestimate China's resources.

Put it this way. MAD. Each side kills 21 million of the other.

Taiwan is a denuded rock in the Pacific.

China doesn't even notice.

[Old and In the Way]

14. Well, that might be true.....

I suspect that Hong Kong/Shenzhen would take the brunt of the attack....that'd be close to 20MM people between these 2 cities. So while, geographically, it wouldn't be big...it would cripple China and set it back decades.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

13. Yes, consider the time scale of Chinese history vs. US history. n/t

[Stop_the_War]

10. ARRRRRGH!

[indepat]

15. Congress is supposed to be a separate branch of government that does not

take orders from the president, sadly the Congress has almost wholly abrogated its constitutional responsibilities and perogatives and acts primarily as a big rubber stamp.

[ComerPerro]

16. Mending fences? Its the least he can do. HE BROKE THEM

I hate all the fawning that is going on in the media over how Bush is "reaching out" and how Condi is "reaching out" to Europe.

Lets remember that they are the ones who created the rift in the first place.

[Bluebear]

18. Applause.

Great post.

[misanthrope]

17. How ironic...

...considering his father refused to join the rest of the civilized world in condemning the Chinese government for the Tiananmen Square massacre.