France announced plans to sell nuclear reactors to Libya as well as 10 billion euros of trade deals, as President Nicolas Sarkozy welcomed Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi for a five-day visit…
Later at the Elysee Palace, the two countries announced the nuclear cooperation accord and some 3.2 billion euros (4.7 billion dollars) of contracts for European planemaker Airbus — for 21 aircraft purchased by Libyan Airlines and Afriqiyah Airways.
Paris and Tripoli agreed to work together to develop the “peaceful use of nuclear energy”, including “the supply of one or more nuclear reactors for the desalinisation of sea water” and uranium exploration and exploitation…
It is the second nuclear cooperation deal between France and an Arab country, following an accord struck by Sarkozy in Algiers last week. A similar agreement is in the pipeline with Morocco…
Libya also signed a memorandum promising to negotiate exclusively with France for all future military purchases, though details were not released.
Let’s see: we have bi-lateral diplomacy between an Arab state and a Western nation headed by a conservative. This results in business deals in both directions – including the peaceful use of nuclear power.
Sounds logical to me. Now, this is the kind of diplomatic leadership we can… Oh, that’s right. The U.S. wasn’t involved.
That’s because we only play nice with people after they get their nukes.
Well “obviously” we need to bomb the nu-cu-lear plants in France before the knowledge of the technology gets transfered to a Muslim terrorist.
Dag burned internationalists!!!!!!
Of course the US wasn’t involved. Not with the Chimperor in Chief in charge. He’s more into re-naming French fries and supplying his trophy war with rapists and criminals than any of that faggy “peaceful” stuff. Come on! This is a guy who, at the slightest provocation, attacks the deadly “Crawford Ranch Brush” with a chain saw.
Kadhafi has actually been playing pretty nice since that 2000 pound bomb went off outside of his tent a few years ago. At least now he is very quiet about his terrorist support.
France is nuts though. This will come back to bite them.
Don
Who ever gave the US the authority to decide which country is allowed to have nukes or not?
I look forward to more sensible conservative leadership like Sarkozy, and, “finger crossing” whoever comes out of this election. And, it’s amazing how Kadhafi has come around and decided to make Libya a reasonable member of the world community.
Bobbo, quit making fun of Clinton’s accent. (Of course most people don’t know he pronounced it that way; the news media covered up for him, just like they covered up that nasty temper of his.)
#4, Don, looks like France did not learn any lessons in Algeria. The West changes, Islam does not.
Seriously #3, tell us how you REALLY feel? Let that hate just take you over fully.
geez…
>>(Of course most people don’t know he
>>pronounced it that way;
Tee hee! Man, you are desperate. What did “the media” do, have a voice-over guy dub in “nuclear” in all his speeches? And how did they get past the personal appearance thing?
Can’t be a leftie-commie drive-by media thing; they didn’t cover it up for Jimmeh Cahtah.
Or maybe they just burned out trying to cover it up for the Chimperor in Chief; every sentence he utters is filled with so many grammatical, syntactic, logical, and pronunciation errors that it would not be possible to cover them up.
People, please! He’s The Decider or The Commander Guy…
Sheesh!
Would it suprise anyone to know that the U.S. does not object to Iran building nuclear reactors.
All the fuss is about what Iran intends to do as part of its nuclear research program – and whether they intend to use the byproducts of the nuclear power stations to build weapons.
The U.S. claims that Iran is trying to develop weapons-grade enriched uranium. You don’t need weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear reactor.
Heh. They just did not draw attention to Clinton’s flaws the way they do Bush’s.
So, how many of the people who are for gun control in the US also are in favor of Iran having nuclear weapons? Do you trust murderous, right wing religious fanatics more than you trust average citizens?
Hmm, I wonder what caused Libya to give up its nuke development and join the world community? Could it be Khadafi was scared by what happened in Iraq? And the President dropped sanctions in exchange! I thought he was a neo-con that would only invade, insisting on demcoracy?
And now the intelligence agencies are telling us that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program around the same time.
If I don’t move to Portugal, then I’m moving to Paris.
Answer, you want to move to Andalusia? The Moslems figure that is part of dar al Islam.
That could have been the US getting that deal and the money and the benefits. Better to have Iran as a trading partner, everyone else is.
It seems the US thinks it knows best about everything and is the best at anything. However American know how got up and left to be manufactured in China.
#14 Attack and the threat of same is not the answer as Hitler later found out.
Cheers
#19 Well said. Muslim Indonesians have Christmas day off as it is a national holiday and have no problem with Christmas, Santa, decorations and the like.
When I worked there I was told by many Muslim Indonesians that Christmas was a great time of the year (also near their Idel-fitri Festival) so what is wrong with giving and getting presents, Santa and singing songs? They did not see any of this as a threat to Islam; Jesus was a great teacher and should be respected.
This is a lesson for many.
Cheers
First of all, it was more than taking down Iraq–it also took us taking a ship bound for Libya that had a few nuclear-related no-no’s on it in order for Libya to do an about-face. Even so, the ‘conversion’ is sketchy. Or it would be except Al-Qaida has aligned against him.
(Btw, Omar didn’t completely change his stripes after the tent-missile either. He just stopped being so blatantly ‘Chavez’ about things.)
Most Americans would gladly not worry about Iran *except* for the fact that the Iranians are state-sponsorers of terrorists. Did you people forget about Hezbollah and Hamas? Did you people forget about how Iran is sheltering members of Al-Qaida? Does anyone remember the concern about suicide bombers going off in the US should we challenge them, based on the fact that they already have sleeper cells here since before 9/11?
How much more difficult if we’re put in a position to take them on if they have full nuclear capability.
It isn’t an enviable position to be in. Iran exerts influence in Iraq and Lebanon, to the point that Saudi Arabia and others are seriously considering nukes of their own. And Iran can already threaten the world economy without the use of nukes. They’ve developed plans to asymmetrically attack US ships in the Red Sea through use of boat ‘swarms’, not to mention the usual (mines, etc.).
So…if Iran was a regular nation-state we probably wouldn’t care. Except it sponsors terror AND his leader thinks he’s the Islamic messiah to usher in a new age where there is no Israel—you may not care about that last little detail, but either way Iran is not a ‘quaint’ little country.
When their government moderates or is overthrown perhaps it will be a moot point. In the meantime Europe will do what it will in North Africa while telling itself that diplomacy is the only way with Iran. Years of talk have done nothing to stop them, and the situation will only get worse.
#22 Yadda Yadda Yadda.
I am sure that you have been to Iran and spoke to many Iranians. No?
I haven’t been to Iran but I have spoke to many Iranian business people at trade shows and our Turkish clients do a business with Iran and I hear the same thing. “Don’t confuse the (idiot) president with the people.” Seems Iran has the same problem that the US has. 😉
The US attacked Iraq under false pretenses, WMD, correct? But hell Saddam was a bad guy anyway so the end justified the means right? Would it not have been better to get closer to Iran before sending in the troops to Iraq? Ask any cop responding to a domestic disturbance call from the beaten wife they must be careful as she could turn on the cops if they are rough on the husband. See the point? I guess not.
Getting closer with Iran does a lot more in the middle east then not. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” Better to have Iran inside pissing out than outside pissing in.
Cheers