Okay, I have had a very bad day. I was just alerted to this:

US to punish German 'treachery'

Peter Beaumont, David Roseand Paul Beaver
Sunday February 16, 2003

The Observer

America is to punish Germany for leading international opposition to a war against Iraq. The US will withdraw all its troops and bases from there and end military and industrial co-operation between the two countries - moves that could cost the Germans billions of euros.

The plan - discussed by Pentagon officials and military chiefs last week on the orders of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - is designed 'to harm' the German economy to make an example of the country for what US hawks see as Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's 'treachery'.

The hawks believe that making an example of Germany will force other countries heavily dependent on US trade to think twice about standing up to America in future.

This follows weeks of increasingly angry exchanges between Rumsfeld and Germany, in which at one point he taunted Germany and France for being an irrelevant part of 'old Europe'.

Now Rumsfeld has decided to go further by unilaterally imposing the Pentagon's sanctions on a country already in the throes of economic problems.

'We are doing this for one reason only: to harm the German economy,' one source told The Observer last week.

'Our troops contribute many millions of dollars. Why should we continue to support a country which has treated Nato and the protection we provided for decades with such incredible contempt?'

The rest of this ugly development here

Comment: I know that the Pentagon Hawks are miffed that any nation that disagrees with them on any point is guilty of a punishable offense, but this is just absurd. Germany has been a good friend of the US since Hitler's demise. And yes, this very well may be more toothless puffery, but it does show the world that the US is in no way a responsible leader. Rumsfeld appears more and more to be an anachronistic relic of the cold war. A hollow septuagenarian husk of a man that dreams of youthful conquest unrealized. It's too late, Donald. Step into the 21st century, or step aside.

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