Quote of the Day

"Occasionally it looks as if Schroeder - the highest lobbyist of Germany Inc. - is striving for a second office: that of the most important sales representative of Russia Inc."

Süddeutsche Zeitung, January 19, 2005

Comments

[Rosemary]

I believe it. I never truly believed the cold war was over. It was just down low on everyone's radar. I sure do hope he is careful. Have a nice day.

[PacRim Jim]

Willie Lohman, nicht wahr?

[neilja]

And in Süddeutsche too! Bastion of right-wing, anti-Schroeder bias.

[FranzisM]

If Schröder had nothing more than capitalist motivations to get this job, the issue would be little more significant than India's policy to make business with Iran while politically going with the West - but that he is trying to sell his move as a "matter of honor" in the national interest of Germany is disgusting.

The German national interest is to see the democratization of Ukraine continue and regime change in Belarus happen, not to split European nations over Russia policy by building permanent energy dependencies on bypasses around remaining outposts of tyranny that are falsely assumed to be permanent in the thinking of Putin.

This project is just as stupid as the establishment of a storage site for nuclear waste near the border to the former DDR in his home state of Niedersachsen in the 1980s, which now might be shut down because the fall of the iron curtain has created new circumstances.

Schröder must be living in a yellow submarine in the Baltic sea, when Lukaschenko goes the way of all dictators the seabed bypass will be just another Investitionsruine. I wonder what will be his next move when Putin has got enough of him, maybe re-discovering his love for Gaddafi?