Stardate 20030215.2059

(On Screen): I wrote this post yesterday, in which I argued (passionately) that we needed to make some sort of concrete gesture towards either France or Germany which would seriously harm them. I do not think we should do such a thing because I demand revenge; the reason is that we need to establish a deterrent. When others start thinking that maybe they can gain something by trying to screw us over or impede us, they need to also be aware that there will be costs associated with doing so and to consider the possibility that the costs would outweigh the gain.

I did not specify what I thought we should do. While I was composing that article, I actually had a paragraph in it at one point where I did try to suggest things we could do, but I couldn't make it work, and ultimately decided that it broke the flow of the article, so I took it out entirely.

But one of the things I was thinking was that the US government itself spends immense amounts of money to purchase things from companies all over the world, and spends quite a lot of money buying products from both France and from Germany. We do not have the ability to impose punitive tariffs (it would violate WTO rules) but there's no rule that says the US government itself has to keep buying products from companies in nations whose governments we determine are acting as enemies. So I was going to suggest the idea that a bill be introduced in Congress which stated that the US government would not be permitted to buy anything from a company in France or Germany if any other source was available elsewhere.

Patrick sends a link to an article just posted by The Observer which says that something not dissimilar to that may well happen.

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?'

Another Pentagon source said: 'The aim is to hit German trade and commerce. It is not just about taking out the troops and equipment; it is also about canceling commercial contracts and defence-related arrangements.'

The Pentagon plan - and the language expressed by officials close to Rumsfeld - has horrified State Department officials, who believe that bullying other countries to follow the US line will further exacerbate anti-Americanism and alienate those European countries that might support a United Nations resolution authorising a war.

German industry earns billions of euros every year from supporting the US Army Europe which, although reduced from its Cold War heights, still totals 42,000 troops and 785 tanks - almost three times as many as the British Army owns. Many of these soldiers and their fighting equipment, including Apache helicopters, have already been sent to the Gulf.

German industry is heavily involved in supporting the US presence. Among the defence companies which stand to lose out are missile-maker Diehl, aerospace and defence giant EADS Deutschland, armaments maker Rheinmetall and vehicle maker Krauss-Maffei Wegmann.

Fuck the State Department. They're the ones who got us into this mess, and they don't seem to have figured out yet that they've been played for suckers by the Weasels.

It is possible that this could cause long term resentment. But in the short run, it's really difficult to fathom why State thinks that some nation which is on the fence in this would decide, when it saw Germany get crunched for its active belligerence, that becoming actively belligerent against the US is a good idea. At this point I will settle for resentful support in preference to active opposition.

Nor is it clear that the nations who actually are on our side would be particularly scandalized by this. Why would the British or the Italians have a problem with this? They are not at risk of similar retribution, and in fact since they're involved in a European power struggle against the Franco-German alliance, then having Germany hurt only makes them stronger.

One of the reasons why so many nations have been willing to come out against us is because they had a perception that we would not retaliate. Thus th