Holland is really not such an important country =/ as much as it would like to think so and play with the big boys.
I bet you couldn't point out Peru when someone asked you on the street, and you probably couldn't tell me what country the question mark in the attached image should be..if I asked you in the streets
Speaking of the Dutch wanting to be big boys (thanks Balky), I heard we've just bought about 30 fourth generation Tomahawk missiles, and we're adjusting our ships to use them for a total of 109 million euros.
And why this? Because our idiot conservative christian prime minister (who is a shame for our normally progressive and tolerant nation) wants to be Bush' little dog.
The US government has a lot of power over our army not only because our prime minister wants to be friends with Bush and help in the war on terrorism (ummhi, in case you forgot..and most of us probably have done so, our supposedly 'best fighter pilots of the world' are or were flying somewhere in Afghanistan, and some minor operations have been and are being executed in Iraq), but also because a lot of our weapons are made by the US.
For example those Tomahawk missiles can only be fully controlled by the US or with US permission.
The latter doesn't exactly come with the purchase
We're actually only allowed to use them if both the US and the Brits (wo also owns the Tomahawk as a product) are in the same operation.
And most likely they'll also be able to force us to join in on operations later, even when we finally have a sane prime minister, not in the least place because you don't buy a shitload of missiles and adjust your ships just to let them lie around there waiting to rust.
You rock. <3
and I'm not talking about the north koreans there 