US to punish German 'treachery'

The Observer (U.K.) ^ | 02/16/03 | Peter Beaumont, David Rose and Paul Beaver

[Lady In Blue]

Rummy is the greatest! BTW, what do Europeans(British)mean when they call a person a "Bruiser"? Anybody know? Thanks.

I remember seeing a thread last year from,I think,the Telegraph in which the writer said the Brits consider Rumsfeld - "strong meat! It kind of stuck in my mind.For a long while,ever time I wrote something about Rumsfeld, I said that "Donald,'strong meat' Rumsfeld..." hehehe!

[longjack]

Thanks BMCDA.

We were talking on this thread:

German Hypocracy (sic)

About a ping list for German readers. Would you like to be on that list?

longjack

[Lady In Blue]

Yeah, German Americans have had a tough time in the US. Hessians in the revolutionary war, WWI and WWII, now this.

Thanks for reminding us of the Germans fighting to keep us from gaining our independence from England!

[a_Turk]

Das ist doch wohl das Letzte!

[a_Turk]

Please add me to the German readers ping list.

Thanks.

[longjack]

OK. Your welcome:)

longjack

[nkycincinnatikid]

Exactly, well put!

[longjack]

Das ist doch wohl das Letzte!

Are you talking about the Kommentar?

I'm going to translate that in the morning. That is too good to be missed by other Freepers.

longjack

[wonders]

Thank you both.

The Pisa study indicates the early separation of students into homogeneous groups as a prime cause for the failures in the German educational system. I went to Swiss high school (started in Bezirchschule) way-back-when, and the Swiss had a similar system. It was decided by the time a student reached our equivalent of 5th grade whether that student would go on to Bezirchschule, then on to a prep school type high school and finally to college, or whether the student would have less academic preparation similar to high school, or even just go to trade school. In Switzerland, back then, it was basically divided into three tracks: (1)the college-bound who would end up as professionals, (2) those who would go on to a less academic sort of high school and become white-collar office workers and (3) those who would go to trade school and work mainly in the service sector.

I wondered whether reunification had had a negative impact on the German education system. You indicate the problems in higher education pre-dated reunification, Torie -- is this true of the low quality of their secondary education system, or do you think this could stem from incorporating old East Germany into their system?

One of my bosses was a wise and learned man from Hamburg, and his wife came from fine old German family which escaped East Germany. She did much charitable work in her family's old home town after reunification (founded medical clinics for the poor, etc.), but ran into some very difficult and communist attitudes there. I learned much from both of them about the economic aspects of re-unification, too.

Anyway, I wondered whether reunification caused them to "dumb down" their schools to accomodate students from the former East Germany, thereby dragging down standards in all secondary schools across the board.

[Empireoftheatom48]

Go for it take em all out as soon as possible- May they rot in H*ll! I was there (germany) during the cold war they took us for granted then. The french and germans deserve each other!!

[Righty1]

East where they will be much closer to the action and not hindered by gerdung, belchslime, frog, and has been ostrichreich cover-ups of WMD deals. I hope that the U.S. gov has this kind of a testosterone level. It will help keep the NKs and RedChicoms from making the same mistake that the islamofacists just made. Message to doltland,"we made you and now we are going to unmake you"!

[nkycincinnatikid]

Are they more friendly or just cheaper? And the best Czech beer is not Bohemias gift to the world, but Gods gift to mankind.

[a_Turk]

>> Are you talking about the Kommentar?

I'm talking about the contents of the Article. Unbelievable..

Seems Schroeder is doing everything right in order not to fall out of Saddam's and the terrorists' good graces..

In the meantime he must be thinking: Screw everyone else..

So damn typical, but never before this blatant.

[Righty1]

Precisely why he feels the knife in the back so accutely. These characters not only don't appreciate being liberated, rebuilt, and given access to our markets but, actively despise us for winning the cold war which brought them reunification. We remember the Berlin Airlift do the huns? We defended and subsidized West Berlin for decades what have the huns ever done for us? They were the mexicans 150 years ago i.e. they dumped their idle uneducated masses on the U.S. and Russia. I hope we bring them done so low that they are looking up to snake bellies in a wagon rut!

[Torie]

I don't know what caused it. Someone here at FR from Germany said it was because the German schools abandoned standards and went into PC self esteem feel goodie stuff under pressure from well, you know what, the educational unions. I suspect the malaise is deeper than that. I suspect the German culture no longer puts excellence as a primary value. But I don't know. What is really odd is that the Germans themselves are not in a state of panic over this. They should be. If their youth are not productive, and highly productive, given German demographics, the elders will be eating dog food in the not so distant future. For some reason the German culture is not very apt at introspection. I don't know why. It is foreign to the very fiber of my being.

[longjack]

Which translation do you think would be the most effective, the article, or the commentary?

Also, I sent you a ping list from the other thread. In that thread there's a link to an N-TV article that's a hammer, also.

Sooner or later some people in Germany will have to wake up and smell the coffee.

longjack

[Righty1]

They wash more, have less body hair, smell better, and don't wear those awful ugly glasses that seem to be a particular hun weakness.

[AnalogReigns]

I have a few German friends....and Schroeder is not popular with them. He won by a smaller percentage than Clinton ever won--and the conservatives in Germany have already put it on record that they would have supported us, had they been in power.

I can't see that we would "make an example" of a country with a long (by diplomatic standards) history of loyalty, just due to one stupid politician's treachery.

This story is bogus...but may have been planted to get the Schroeder administration to THINK.....

[Man of the Right]

They never get it straight across the big water.

If the Krauts were as friendly as Miss Congeniality, the troops would still go. We don't need to destroy the German economy. Schroeder's got that base covered.

[carl in alaska]

This thread explains the source of this treachery: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/844388/posts

The German foreign minister is an anti-American communist sympathizer.