Thanks, Zyme. We appreciate such recommendations.
Off-topic is not a problem.

If anybody wants to recommend a news articles or anything else that's on the internet, then either send us an email or by just writing a comment as Zyme did.

Writing a comment is a faster way to share something, since it takes some time until I get around to writing a new post.

Besides, I will not write a new post about every link we receive.
Thus feel free to use the comments section to recommend news articles and other interesting stuff. I don't have a problem with off-topic suggestions as long as they are about transatlantic relations in one way or another.

Yes, a transatlantic free trade zone should not be exaggerated. Though such a free trade zone would be more significant than free trade zone with South America, Russia etc due to the much bigger amount of trade with the US.

I don't want exaggerate the repercussions of the murder of this Russian journalist either. However, combined with many other troubling developments in Moscow, I do have the impression that the German-Russian relationship is getting much cooler and more realistic.

The wishful thinking towards Russia is over. That's my impression from reading the newspapers.

EU leaders realized that at their recent summit, when talking about Russian energy exports and democracy etc. And newspaper editors realized that as well. The murder of the journalist was just the tipping point.

The buddy relationships between Helmut Kohl and Boris Yeltsin are over. And the Schroeder-Putin relationship will not happen again either.

Schroeder is a lost case. You mentioned the ARD documentary. Who was it???

I did not watch it, but I read this about Schroeder:
[quote=Ex-leader of Germany finds fault in religious bent of United States - Europe - International Herald Tribune]Schröder said he was "anything but anti-American, even though he openly challenged U.S. policy in Iraq. In the Der Spiegel interview, he described how he had tears in his eyes as he watched the events of Sept. 11, 2001, on television. "It was important to me that Germany fulfill its requirements as an ally," he said.

But when it came to the planning for the Iraq war, Schröder, referring to Bush, told Der Spiegel that "if a person adopts a policy based on what he gleans from his prayers, in other words, a personal talk with God, it can lead to difficulties in democracy."

Schröder went on to criticize the growing role of religion in U.S. politics.

"We rightly criticize that in most Islamic states, the role of religion for society and the character of the role of law are not clearly separated," he said. "But we fail to recognize that in the U.S.A., the Christian fundamentalists and their interpretation of the Bible have similar tendencies."

When asked by Der Spiegel if he still believed Putin was an "impeccable democrat," as Schröder himself called him during one of his several meetings with the Russian president in 2005, he replied: "I have nothing to correct."

The interview with Schröder coincided with the murder of the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya outside her Moscow apartment over two weeks ago. Putin said her influence had been exaggerated.[/quote]
[url]http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/23/news/german.php[/url]

Schroeder seems to be pretty much the only one who thinks so highly of the Putin. Not even Steinmeier says anything close to that. (Steinmeier is the only one who suggested a free trade area with Russia, I think)

Translation: "Wegfall der Geschäftsgrundlage" is the legal term for "Frustration of Contract"


"Germany always had the strongest economical ties with Iraq of all western nations"

But not during the sanctions regime between 1991 and 2003.

Are you sure about those government guarantees (Hermesbürgschaften)?

Möllemann was an undersecretary in the foreigen relations ministry in the 80s.
He was only minister of the economy from 1991-1993.
For those who don't know and might blame the "Socialists" again: Möllemann was a member of the Free Liberal Democrats party, which has been running the ministry of foreign affairs and the minstry of economics throughout the 80s and much of the 90s. This party is what comes closest to the two US parties in terms of their policies.

In my opinon, the German government should not have issued those export guarantees in the 80s.

Germany has sold a lot of stuff to Iraq that should not have been sold.

Though, other Western countries have armed Iraq as well in the 80s.

For the US, Germany and the rest of the West Saddam was the secular Arab nationalist, who was fighting those evil religious Iranians.
And he was considered to provide stability...

All of that ended in 1990. As far as I know Germany did not sell much at all to Iraq after 1990. No more Hermesbürgschaften (government security guarantees), no weapons etc.