I forgot one thing.

[Guest guest]

FACT: The Nice Treaty (expansion of Europe), was rejected 1st time round, not because of farmers (people are leaving farming you know). It was rejected 1st because, of the way it was worded. Because Ireland is a "neutral country", any changes that are made in our Law has to go to the people. The Nice Treaty was not worded correctly, and it left a loop for our neutrality to be effected. People were opposed to the fact that we would loose our neutrality not that we didn't want Europe to expand.

Once the Government had reinforced our neutrality laws, the Nice Treaty was put forward to the people again and we accepted it in a great majority. We want the Eastern European countries to join, but we want to stay neutral.

A S <yorkshire wrote:

this is a on vegetarianism. if there are political thoughts to be vented, there are plenty of for such debate. i will weigh in with this though. i work for a prominent united states senator who sits on the senate foreign relations committee. he/she opposes war with iraq and voted against the resolution back in november. his/her staff shares this view. don't get me wrong, i think bush needs to balance military action with other things in its foreign policy but, before you decide to get on your high horse and condemn american foreign policy, i would like you to consider a few things. we spend money on defense (not just weapons), because the rest of the free world relies on it. do you honestly think germany's, france's, or even ireland's military budgets would be so low if america's weren't so high? europe's contribution to military action in kosovo and afghanistan was well below par for what these countries are capable of. we contibute 25% to the united nations budget. our troops have been involved in nearly every single un peace keeping operation around the globe. american diplomats (not just british and irish as you so presume) tirelessy and forcefully for peace in northern ireland. in fact, it probably would not have resulted in the accord had it not been for clinton's pressure. american charities and operations feed, educate, and shelter millions of people around the globe. no other power in the history of the world has acted with such a clear conviction that american power should be used to promote and maintain the rights and liberties that have for over two hundred years formed the core of our society. in addition, as citizens, we many not always have access to information that motivates our leaders to act in certain ways. i am certainly no bush fan, but i have to assume that he is operating not just on a personal vendetta but solid intelligence that baghdad poses a clear and present danger to world security in some way. finally, since you seem to love generalizing that americans are all that is wrong with the world, let me throw this at you: the irish government secretly aided Nazi Germany during WWII against Britain by allowing German spies to operate in Dublin. It's well documented. Should I then assume that all Irish are Nazi sympathsizers? of course not. and you should not make the same leap. and you make the skirmishes in northern ireland seem so trivial. shall i remind you of the real ira herding people in the center of town and then blowing them up after a peace agreement was signed? or how about ireland at first rejecting expanding the eu because irish farmers were afraid that subsidies would then shift away from the country toward the more poorer countries of the east? sounds very anti-bono to me. rather than fuel antiamerican sentiment, how about engaging in productive debate and policy discussions america has done more for ireland and the irish than anyother country on the planet. i am well aware of the problems of the rest of the world as are most americans, and we do work toward achieving solutions, although it's not always in the newspapers. bush represents a small sect of political ideology in america and i won't have a misinformed world citizen claim that i am a gun crazed, selfish and blood thirsty american.Peter--On Tue, 14 Jan 2003 11:11:42 Pinky Sweety wrote:>>I think Americans are really aggresive. Especially, the way people have been in this group. It is so sad. >Add on top of that, the fact that have to listen on radio and TV everyday, that planes containing troops are landing in Ireland (which is a neutral country). These planes contain weapons of destruction, but the Americans are getting away with it, because they are bullies, and think they have power over little countries like Ireland and break our laws. It is horrible.>Lighten up America, stop being so aggressive. Be nice people instead (and nice to people in other countries). Stop this war and bringing weapons into Ireland. We don't want your weapons of mass destruction, only peace.>(I'm sorry, but this disgusts me so much what America is doing to Ireland and would like to hear Americans views on why they are letting this happen). Don't vegetarians disagree with the killing of animals, well I think the killing of humans and the transport of weapons is just as bad. >pINKy>>>>>>With Mail you can get a bigger mailbox -- choose a size that fits your needs>___________Get 25MB, POP3, Spam Filtering with LYCOS MAIL PLUS for $19.95/year.http://login.mail.lycos.com/brandPage.shtml?pageId=plus & ref=lmtpluscontact owner: -owner Mail list: Delivered-mailing list List-Un: - no flaming arguing or denigration of others allowedcontact owner with complaints regarding posting/list or anything else. Thank you.please share/comment/inform and mostly enjoy this list