Silflay Hraka has an interesting “paranoic’s worst-case scenario” explanation of the E.U.’s opposition to the U.S.-proposed military movement against Iraq.

These things we know: 1. Saddam is attempting to build a nuclear bomb. 2. Saddam cannot do this successfully without foreign technology and assistance. 3. In the past, Saddam has obtained foreign technology and assistance from, among others, France [snip] and Germany [snip]. 4. Who is taking the lead in opposing a US attack on Iraq? France and Germany.

What if instead the leadership of those countries, and perhaps the leadership of the E.U. as a whole, are more concerned with a U.S. invasion because of the likelihood that the invasion will expose a far more intimate degree of German and French involvement in Iraqi missile and nuclear development than heretofore suspected?

[…]

The second, darker scenario, is that U.S. forces uncover evidence that such a technology and materials transfer has been ongoing for a number of years, and that the transfer was not done despite the best efforts of the French and German administrations, but with their full aid and approval, perhaps using E.U. companies as a front for illegal technology transfers.

Such a scenario presupposes only that the European resentment of U.S. hegemony is not the surface thing that it appears, but is instead far deeper and more malevolent. The politics of the European welfare state effectively prevent the massive increase in defense spending that would be necessary for the E.U. to oppose America militarily. The only state with even a ghost of a chance at doing so alone, Germany, could not do so without setting off all sorts of historical alarms. So the question is, how could the E.U., or radical elements within the E.U., oppose the U.S. and weaken it enough so that Europe could regain its historical role as Western civilization’s center of gravity?

Personally, I like the ideas behind large conspiracy theories — in the realm of fiction, the Grand Plan Behind It All is a compelling and interesting thing — but I don’t hold much truck with them in the real world. There’s a few reasons for this, but it boils down to two main points:

People aren’t that organized: Seriously, I can barely get six people (all of whom I know pretty well) into the same room at the right time more than twice every month. Pondering the idea that disparate shadow governments, none trusting another entirely, with a history of mutual agression, regular political regime changes, and no common language (meaning the proposed German/France consortium secretly aiding Iraq) are somehow secretly organizing a grand, half-decade plan meant to destabilize the U.S and bring Europe back to the center of Western Civilization makes me think “Are you kidding? We can’t even decide what kind of food we should order, how are they pulling this off? Answer: they probably aren’t, at least not at that scale.”

Truly organized people/organizations stand out in a world of mediocrity. This is true of business and governments both, and I think that a solid, organized rock of conspiracy would be readily visible in the random, chaotic stream of politics that the world-wide intelligence community spends its time fishing in.

Everyone thinks they’re the good guys: This is a more philosophical argument, but it’s my belief that with the exception of a few particularly burnt, ash-like souls in the history of human development, most people have seen themseves as The Protagonist… they may be doing questionable things, but they believe (or at least want to believe) that they are doing it for the right reasons. Presented with the full scope of a truly dastardly plan, most people will (perhaps not right away, but eventually) realize that the plan is too evil for the goal itself to be good. Faced with that, many will draw away from the plan. That doesn’t mean such a plan will fail, but it will eventually lack the strength of universal support. (This might mean that I think most normal, sane people are essentially good. I guess I do.)

None of this means, however, that I think the sort of supposition that Silflay Hraka has posted is useless. It isn’t, for at least two reasons:

1. Dial back the paranoia level from 11 to about a 6, and there are some thoughts there worth considering. There still may not be anything to the theory, but if there is something there (anything at all), I think that its presense in the real world would perhaps have that level of potency. That’s still a pretty scary idea, and not impossible at all. Evil does exist, it does have mindless zealots to assist it (pity organized religion for being the breeding ground for so much misdirected anger), and they do accomplish horrific things.

2. Keep everything exactly as proposed and use it in fiction, where secret organizations aren’t hindered by second-guessing subordinates and leftenants with a crisis of conscience. Nothing might ever come of it in the real world, but in the realm of the mind absolute evil exists and it has many sneaky minions to do its dirty work. Throw in the reanimated corpse of Hitler controlled by Morlock priests, and you’ve really got something.

So I’d say ‘go check out the post’ — even if you completely disagree with the idea, it’ll make you think.

Not sure that's exactly why Germany and France are against the entire thing.

It's more of a case of keeping the Greens and Communists in the various collilition governments to keep the guys at the top safe from an election...

However...

Iraq has traditionally bought most of it's aircraft from France and used French designs on it's nuclear plants as well as using alot of French and Germans on oil field consturction while the British and Americans did Iran and Saudi Arabia. At the end of the 80s, the Iraqis did start to buy fighters from the Soviet Union, I mean it was 2.4 million for a MiG 29 and 6.7 million for a Mirage 2000.

The bunkers and airfields in Iraq are all done by German firms while the recent telecomm stuff was handled by a German-Chinese joint effort.

Iraq did get almost all of it's SAMs and AAA from the Soviets, cause the West wasn't big into SAMs or AAA.

That's sort of the point I was going to make...money talks.

And some sources indicate that the US and UK now have access to the blueprints of the Iraqi bunkers built both before and after the Gulf War.

And dispite a UN embargo on Iraq, the Germans and Chinese have been doing alot of work in Iraq since 1996 and it has increased in volume since Desert Fox in 1998.

German firms from both West Germany and the United Germany have been sticking thier beaks into all sorts of nasty places building nasty things since the mid 70s.

Places even the CIA stays the hell out of for the most part.

Nuclear Proliferation and the Snail...

If one looks at Nuclear Powerplant design in nations working on nuclear weapon projects, you may find alot of Jerry Lewis VHS tapes around...

Pakistan - French with some later Chinese support
India - French/German with later Russian support
Israel - Home grown with American initial fuel
North Korea - Russian
Iraq - French - twice
Iran - French now Russian support that sabotaged it recently
Libya - French/German with a little Pakistani support
South Africa - Home grown with some Israeli support
Egypt - French/Libyan/Iraqi/Pakistani

"...Such a scenario presupposes only that the European resentment of U.S. hegemony is not the surface thing that it appears, but is instead far deeper..."

This would not surprise me.

I can certainly see France, Germany, et al. wanting the US to stay out of Iraq because it might expose the degree to which they (or, rather, their businesses) have been willing to go around the UN-mandated embargo (which, of course, they formally support, though not enough to avoid tsk-tsking over the poor Iraqis being starved to death over it). Just like France has evidently, in secret, been negotiating to keep it's peacekeeping troops out of the ICC, too, even while lambasting the US for doing the same.

I can see France and Germany et al. being desperately afraid of their sizable Arab minorities. I can see them being willing to give the "cowboy" US a poke in the eye, or even think they can control a nuclear-armed Iraq.

But the Grand European Conspiracy to Take Back the Mantle of Western Civ from Those Irksome Yanks? Nah. They can't even run the EU well, let alone a conspiracy.

The side note to the money talks train of thought; Cheney's old oil complany did major work on the oil fields after Desert Storm.

"Truly organized people/organizations stand out in a world of mediocrity. This is true of business and governments both, and I think that a solid, organized rock of conspiracy would be readily visible in the random, chaotic stream of politics that the world-wide intelligence community spends its time fishing in."
Unless the American Public chooses to ignore it, which is indeed the case. Americans don't care what happens beyond our own borders, unless it affects us directly. This is of course true for all countries. It seems incredibly naive to equate organizing a Few Elite via powerful Oil Cartels to organizing a neighborhood barbecue.
There are only a few who know the truth as it began in the days of Truman, and it will ever be so.

I'm certainly not implying that such a high-level, country-spanning conspiracy would be obvious to me. My statement was that it would be obvious to the intelligence community at large.

That the rank-and-file members of a society are oblivious to the greater conspiracies that turn the world goes without saying.

Until now, of course.

Yea Halliburton and all the others worked in the oil fields after the war, but those are the Kuwaiti fields that Iraq torched.

I don't think that a conspiracy of much mangnitude can survive simple because people talk. If Martha Stewart can't sell some stock on her private jet without someone talking, could there really be a global conspiracy without it leaking? I doubt it. Clinton was getting blowjobs in his office and the world found out, so I doubt long lasting conspiracies are possible...

However...

A much looser organization of contracts and work and Governments pushing in directions either on thier own, or lightly orchistrated like nations in the EU being on the same page, or California and New Mexico agreeing on a course of action is more possible.

I doubt anything is obvious to Intelligence services that don't rely on alot of Human Intellegence, after all MI6, FBI, KGB, CIA, and Stasi had no idea the Berlin Wall was going to be torn down.

CIA didn't get that those Iraqi columns were on thier way to Kuwait City.