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2004-09-08 Iraq-Jordan
France Sold Arms to Saddam Until Eve of War; Possibly After
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Posted by Robert Crawford 2004-09-08 3:18:01 PM|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 But DoD didnt leak this till now. When CIA and State,fresh from crushing Chalabi, seem to behind FBI leaks of Franklin investigation, with its attack on AIPAC, Israel, Feith and all the other "enemies". The long knives are out now.
Posted by Liberalhawk 2004-09-08 3:56:10 PM||   2004-09-08 3:56:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 to me this confirms france is an eneamy of the alliance and should be terminated, those ungratefull bastards should'nt be allowed out of thier borders - i want war with the French!
Posted by Shep UK 2004-09-08 4:04:18 PM||   2004-09-08 4:04:18 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 It's a word I hate to use, but we desperately need to purge CIA and State. They don't appear to be working for the US anymore.
Posted by Robert Crawford  2004-09-08 4:04:55 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com/]  2004-09-08 4:04:55 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 Talk to any Brits who were at Dunkirk... invade France now.
Posted by Howard UK 2004-09-08 4:07:09 PM||   2004-09-08 4:07:09 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 All organizations work for themselves. CIA's and States missions necessarily make them inclined to certain viewpoints sometimes at odds with US policy. States JOB is to make nicey nice around the world, and CIAs is to gather info, in deep cooperation with other intel services. Just like a marketing dept wants better customer service even if it doesnt pay, State and CIA will pursue their missions even when at odds with US strategy. Its upto the CEO to keep everyone in line.
Posted by Liberalhawk 2004-09-08 4:08:55 PM||   2004-09-08 4:08:55 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 Shep, Howard,

France has always been an enemy of the English speaking peoples. When has France ever been an ally of either the US or the UK except at the expense of one or the other? The only reason they helped the US in 1781 was they hoped to put it to the UK. Being allied with France has NEVER been to the benefit of the UK or the US.

Let's face it, they've been petulant and destructive has beens since 1703. I hope they join the Calliphate before the big war begins so we can nuke them too.
Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-09-08 4:20:05 PM||   2004-09-08 4:20:05 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 When has France ever been an ally of either the US or the UK except at the expense of one or the other?

1914 - 1918.
1939 - 1940.
1944-1945.
In NATO, from 1948 to 1964.

As for France during the leadup to world war two, and France honor generally, I suggest reading Winston Churchills "The Gathering Storm" in which several French leaders are men of honor, and several UK leaders make mistakes as severe as any made by France.

What France did in the above article is on the heads of De Villepin and Chirac, and should not distort our view of France through history.
Posted by Liberalhawk 2004-09-08 4:26:20 PM||   2004-09-08 4:26:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 The government of France needs to know that this is what enemies of the United States do. China supplied fiber optics for radar sites for Saddam. The situation is that France should be looked at the same way as China, as a potential opponent in a war. We are not going to break diplomatic relations, but this incident with the missile hardware sold to an enemy of the US is serious. We need to end any military agreements with them, including joint manuevers, etc etc. French intelligence in the WoT may be helpful, but it seems to me that if we got into any gray areas, the French would feed us disinformation. We will have to reevaluate our relationship with French intelligence. We also need to figure out what to do about French diplomats and their movements in the US. France needs to know that there is a serious and heavy price to pay for selling hardware that puts US forces in harm's way.
Posted by Alaska Paul 2004-09-08 4:28:21 PM||   2004-09-08 4:28:21 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 What did France do for the US or the UK from 1914-1918? The benefit flowed all one way. The Brits and Americans were stooges for the French. They did nothing for us except provide graves. Ditto 1939-1940, 1944-45 and 1948-1964. They were a parasite not an ally.
Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-09-08 4:30:10 PM||   2004-09-08 4:30:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 . . .heavy price to pay for selling hardware that puts US forces in harm's way

You know those executives of those companies who manufactured that stuff better not show their faces around here. . . It could be rather dicey.
Posted by BigEd 2004-09-08 4:33:18 PM||   2004-09-08 4:33:18 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 in 1914 they gave thousands of lives fighting an enemy that threatened Brit control of the seas. UK in 1914 did NOT fight in France out of selflessness. Ditto for every other period (and US included) Again, for a discussion of French sacrifice, and of UK mistreatment of France, and bending over backwards for Germany, in the interwar period you should read Winston Churchill "The Gathering Storm". He worked with them closely for years, and knew them well. He did not share the opinion you express.
Posted by Liberalhawk 2004-09-08 4:34:53 PM||   2004-09-08 4:34:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 LH-Do you think the French should face a consequence? What?
Posted by jules 187 2004-09-08 4:42:14 PM||   2004-09-08 4:42:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 The UK did not fight in France out of selflessnes but out of miscalculation as Niall Ferguson has persuasively argued. The US fought out of self-interest without a doubt. While French individuals act with honor and courage, Their nation does not. It was French arrogance and vindictiveness that scuttled the peace in 1919 and laid the ground for WWII.
Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-09-08 4:43:59 PM||   2004-09-08 4:43:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 LH: yep, we were in France purely out of self interest. However, this doesn't dispel our natural enmity toward the French. My Grandfather was shot at by French troops when quitting Normandy.. allowed the Eighth army to evacuate and serve in Africa and to vanquish the Germans at El Alamein, the turning point of WW2. The same grandfather lost six uncles at the battles of Ypres. He'd never fight the Germans again but said he'd love a crack at the French.
Posted by Howard UK 2004-09-08 4:47:14 PM||   2004-09-08 4:47:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 Not 8th Army but B.E.F. (before I'm corrected)
Posted by Howard UK 2004-09-08 4:48:13 PM||   2004-09-08 4:48:13 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 I guess this blows Kerry's plan to ally himself with the French out of the water.
Posted by V is for Victory 2004-09-08 4:49:07 PM||   2004-09-08 4:49:07 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 We do not yet know what will happen in France or whether the French resistance will be prolonged, both in France and in the French Empire overseas. The French Government will be throwing away great opportunities and casting adrift their future if they do not continue the war in accordance with their Treaty obligations, from which we have not felt able to release them. The House will have read the historic declaration in which, at the desire of many Frenchmen-and of our own hearts-we have proclaimed our willingness at the darkest hour in French history to conclude a union of common citizenship in this struggle. However matters may go in France or with the French Government, or other French Governments, we in this Island and in the British Empire will never lose our sense of comradeship with the French people. If we are now called upon to endure what they have been suffering, we shall emulate their courage, and if final victory rewards our toils they shall share the gains, aye, and freedom shall be restored to all. We abate nothing of our just demands; not one jot or tittle do we recede. Czechs, Poles, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians have joined their causes to our own. All these shall be restored.
WSC
Posted by Liberalhawk 2004-09-08 4:49:17 PM||   2004-09-08 4:49:17 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 Getting back on topic, I find it interesting that this info on the Roland is coming out just now. We heard about this back during the war, and like a lot of other things, it vanished into a black hole. Makes me wonder just what else is going to pop out.
Posted by Steve  2004-09-08 4:52:24 PM||   2004-09-08 4:52:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 Yah, Ferguson thinks that if Germany had won in 1914 it would only have meant the equivalent of the EU anyway. Which says more about NF than it does about either Wilhelmine Germany OR the EU.

Churchill makes quite clear that France had no choice, without the US in the League, and without a firm guarantee of post-war borders from the UK, they had to contain Germany on their own, and tried to use reparations to do so. They could not count on the benevolence of Weimar institutions - indeed German rearmament began under Weimar. Churchill makes it clear what he thinks of Brits who failed to understand the French strategic dilemma, and who were overly sympthetic to Germany. Again, I suggest reading the Gathering Storm.
Posted by Liberalhawk 2004-09-08 4:53:47 PM||   2004-09-08 4:53:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 I don't believe the average Tommy understood the political machinations behind either war - but did understand the nature of the French.
Posted by Howard UK 2004-09-08 4:57:20 PM||   2004-09-08 4:57:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 Your headline should read:

"France Sold Arms to Saddam Until Eve of War; Probably Definitely Possibly After"

;-)
Posted by Barbara Skolaut  2004-09-08 4:57:26 PM||   2004-09-08 4:57:26 PM|| Front Page Top

#22  Talk to any Brits who were at Dunkirk... invade France now.

Not worth it at this time. I say let the Islamozoids take over and scatter the Phrench across the continent, then we go in and slaughter the Islamofreaks and then partition what's left amongst the neighbors of the former nation.
Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2004-09-08 4:57:53 PM||   2004-09-08 4:57:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 #16 V is for Victory:
I guess this blows Kerry's plan to ally himself with the French out of the water.
Why would you think that?

Kerry will just consider it nuanced - and be jealous he didn't get a cut of the profits.
Posted by Barbara Skolaut  2004-09-08 5:01:28 PM||   2004-09-08 5:01:28 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 Steve, I agree with you re getting back on topic. Bitching about what France did in WWI & II is a waste of time. I remember this story and it was reported that the Rolands were not newly manufactured. I don't recall how this was verified or by whom. It is consistent with comments that I heard from a CIA-connected individual that the French assisted Saddam's people in spiriting WMD's out of Iraq immediately before the war. Since there is no way to confirm it I say we just put our heads down and get the current job done. If we find any French folks in Iraq who don't have a real good reason to be there, consider them an enemy spy and shoot them.
Posted by remote man 2004-09-08 5:05:03 PM||   2004-09-08 5:05:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 If the Germans had won we would have had the EU without the CAP, another way the French draw reparations in perpetuity from the Germans. The Germans have been beaten so senseless the The Brits, Americans and Russians they no longer know any better.

France had destroyed the chances of Versailles being a treaty of peace long before the Senate rejected the League.

Steve is correct; but it will be in no one's interest to reveal everything or connect all the dots, so France's treachery will go unrequited.
Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-09-08 5:05:24 PM||   2004-09-08 5:05:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 

From Drudge
In a secret Paris cavern. . .

Police in Paris have discovered a fully equipped cinema-cum-restaurant in a large and previously uncharted cavern underneath the capital's chic 16th arrondissement.
Officers admit they are at a loss to know who built or used one of Paris's most intriguing recent discoveries.

"We have no idea whatsoever," a police spokesman said.

"There were two swastikas painted on the ceiling, but also celtic crosses and several stars of David, so we don't think it's extremists. Some sect or secret society, maybe. There are any number of possibilities."

Or it could be where Chirac goes to hide from the public duriong a bipolar episode. . .

It seems to all fit a pattern, though this is probably off topic.
Posted by BigEd 2004-09-08 5:22:31 PM||   2004-09-08 5:22:31 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 Prieure de Sion.
Posted by Howard UK 2004-09-08 5:23:43 PM||   2004-09-08 5:23:43 PM|| Front Page Top

#28 This article is probably both things incorrect and correct towards roland missiles:

Incorrection: In 2003 roland2 missiles werent built anymore, roland3 and VT1 were in place.

Probably correct: the missiles came from a revision on manufacturer and with that violating sanctions
Posted by Anonymous6361 2004-09-08 5:27:35 PM||   2004-09-08 5:27:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#29 ima think howard kinda right on that biged but itn probly templar knights.
Posted by muck4doo 2004-09-08 5:32:20 PM|| [http://meatismurder.blogspot.com/]  2004-09-08 5:32:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#30 Howard & mucky :
You guys may be right, but I still like it as a hideaway for Chirac's episodes.
Posted by BigEd 2004-09-08 5:39:50 PM||   2004-09-08 5:39:50 PM|| Front Page Top

#31 Sinclair family bar.
Posted by Howard UK 2004-09-08 5:41:06 PM||   2004-09-08 5:41:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#32 All organizations work for themselves. CIA's and States missions necessarily make them inclined to certain viewpoints sometimes at odds with US policy. States JOB is to make nicey nice around the world,

State's JOB is to represent US interests around the world. If that means making "nicey nice", that's what they should do. If it means knocking over tea carts and insulting the sultan's daughter, that's what they should do. It may cost a State official his nice "speaker" position with a Saudi (or French) think tank, but that's the price of service.

and CIAs is to gather info, in deep cooperation with other intel services.

And when those other services feed the CIA false information -- like the forged papers that France handed out -- and when it's the other nation's policy to arm our enemies, the CIA might want to move that other nation from the "friendly and cooperative" column to at least the "unfriendly and uncooperative" column.

Just like a marketing dept wants better customer service even if it doesnt pay, State and CIA will pursue their missions even when at odds with US strategy. Its upto the CEO to keep everyone in line.

When State and the CIA are pulling this kind of crap, they're not pursuing their missions. They're haring off on their own, private foreign policies!

This isn't a matter of boys-will-be-boys bureaucratic infighting, it's borderline (at least!) insubordination. This isn't something we should be hearing about through a quietly published book, but from prosecutors. A whole hell of a lot of people in State and CIA should be facing jail time over this!
Posted by Robert Crawford  2004-09-08 5:48:03 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com/]  2004-09-08 5:48:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#33 Mrs Davis

Please, do your homework in history before posting.

Why the UK went to war with Germany? First, because the Germans were aiming to have a Fleeet able to defeat the English one. Second, because it has been a constant policy for England (like stated explicitly by Churchill in his history of WWII) to ever oppose the strongest power in the continent: the easiest way to keep control of the seas is to ensure the continental power is forced to maintain a strong army for defence against continetal powers. 3) Because the Germans invaded a neutral (Belgium) and perpetrated a number of war crimes there (like using civilians as human shields). The later probably didn't influence those cold monsters called politicians but it did influence the British public.

Now about Versailles. Sorry but the drivel about reparations is German/Nazi propaganda. Let's remember the situation. THe Germans had destroyed the industry and mines of most of Belgium and of a large part of "industrial France". Did I mention fields who would not bear crops for many years due to being chock full of mines and unexploded shells or poisoned by the metals from bullets and shells?

Meaning that after the war the Germans would have cornered european markets due to the absence of their French and Belgian competitors. It was thus logic to have them not only pay for the damages but to block them from reaping the fruits of the destruction they had caused. Just what YOU would do if someone did the same to your house and your business. However after much meddling by British and Americans (very generous with other people's money) the reparatiuons were scaled to having each German pay thirty marks per year (remember the destroyed Bekgian and French plants ) and even that they did not pay.

About Dunkerque. There is some bad blood in the French side because for days the British cared only about their own while they were constantly bombed (it was the small boats, fishing and pleasure who saved most of the British army and geography precluded the French to use their own). You could also remember that it was Belgium's surenderring who left British flank on the air and that one of the reasons for the Dunkirk miracle was French retarding action (mostly at Lille).

I would also suggest you google a bit about what happenned to 1300 French sailors from battleship Bretagne at Mers el Kebir, July 3, 1940

Oh, BTW, this noon I lunched with a co-worker and we talaked about how much the loath and shame we feel about Chirac.
Posted by JFM  2004-09-08 6:04:09 PM||   2004-09-08 6:04:09 PM|| Front Page Top

#34 I think I have more male relatives buried in France than England.
Posted by Howard UK 2004-09-08 6:08:58 PM||   2004-09-08 6:08:58 PM|| Front Page Top

#35 George Ellison Yup, Check the date and check the Ellisons who fought in the Barnsley pals/Yorks and Lancs. Fuckwit. That's why I have no respect for the French. Check the 'England' family who fought too.. that's why I have minimal respect for the French... oh and let's get onto WW2...
Posted by Howard UK 2004-09-08 6:27:51 PM||   2004-09-08 6:27:51 PM|| Front Page Top

#36 And if you don't believe me ... check my site you wanker...
Posted by Howard UK 2004-09-08 6:31:08 PM||   2004-09-08 6:31:08 PM|| Front Page Top

#37 Howard check your #36 link. . .
Posted by BigEd 2004-09-08 6:34:49 PM||   2004-09-08 6:34:49 PM|| Front Page Top

#38 I really think I'm too upset to post any more.
Posted by Howard UK 2004-09-08 6:36:02 PM||   2004-09-08 6:36:02 PM|| Front Page Top

#39 JFM we can argue all we want about WWI, but after WWII it was done differently with a lot less French input and seems to have worked out a little better.

Let's also not forget how well the French repulsed the Americans when they invaded French North Africa.
Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-09-08 6:37:02 PM||   2004-09-08 6:37:02 PM|| Front Page Top

#40 OK, I hate me for doing that, but the Washington Times recycles information here that has been discredited months ago.
The Roland 2 missiles that were found in Iraq, could not have born a label that the batch was fabricated just months before. The production of Roland II stopped in 1988, and even the U.S. Army has conceded that those Rolands were imported into Iraq before 1990. The Polish had to apologize to France for making a claim about the recent production date: they simply took a date that probably indicated a last Iraqi inspection of the missiles for the French production dates. Roland 3 missiles were never exported to Iraq (and would not have worked with the launch system anyway). They have not been found either so the point is obsolete. Also France has not produced any Roland missile type since 1993. (I know about these missiles.)
The blank French passports probably originated from the looted French embassy. Note that every embassy stocks empty passports. Collaboration between the French and Baathists can simply not be proven by that (not that it is impossible or improbable). In Marseilles a gang stole thousands of blank passports, but none of those ever showed up in Iraq (French police recovered most of them later).
As for the trucks, radios and RPGs with French-made night sights, they don't prove that France sold them. All these can easily be smuggled into the country by arms dealers. If your local burglar shoots you with a German gun, don't hold Germany responsible for that either. If you buy 10 grams of excellent shit in San Francisco, that doesn't mean that the government of Jamaica sold the stuff to the United States.
I'm not trying to downplay things here. But the arguments made by the Washington Times for recent collaboration between France and Saddam have either been proven false months ago or are irrelevant for proving anything. The rest is mere speculation.
Posted by True German Ally 2004-09-08 6:46:29 PM||   2004-09-08 6:46:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#41 Howard -- it's OK. LiberalHawk is being very selective in his quoting of Churchill, ignoring the bits where Churchill reports a Frenchman saying (paraphrasing here) that it would be better to be slaves to the Nazis than partners with the British. He's also glossing over the glee with which the French collaborated.

None of that really matters; the critical issue is that France is at this moment behaving as an enemy of the United States!

I was joking the other day when I remarked that France's paying ransom for their kidnapped journalists was a way for them to openly fund the terrorists in Iraq. I'm not so sure about that anymore.
Posted by Robert Crawford  2004-09-08 6:47:45 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com/]  2004-09-08 6:47:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#42 I think we should put the Anglo/French history debate back in the coffin...
Posted by Bulldog  2004-09-08 6:53:01 PM||   2004-09-08 6:53:01 PM|| Front Page Top

#43 Thanks - I speak French fluently and must admit that this has come from the frequent visits to war graves in Normandy. I also long to see the graves of my family in Khartoum when this WoT shit is over.
Posted by Howard UK 2004-09-08 6:54:34 PM||   2004-09-08 6:54:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#44 Uh, Howard...Khartoum may be a glowing ash tray by the time this WoT shit is over.
Posted by remote man 2004-09-08 7:03:49 PM||   2004-09-08 7:03:49 PM|| Front Page Top

#45 Howard...graves...your family in during the time of Gordon Pasha...another Mahdi Army casualty...or later. I was in country for several years.
Posted by RN  2004-09-08 7:13:02 PM||   2004-09-08 7:13:02 PM|| Front Page Top

#46 TGA - ne paniquez pas. Tu es un vrai amis!
Posted by Howard UK 2004-09-08 7:14:37 PM||   2004-09-08 7:14:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#47 TGA -- you're sure the information YOU'RE using is accurate?
Posted by Robert Crawford  2004-09-08 8:04:24 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com/]  2004-09-08 8:04:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#48 Thanks, TGA. Nonetheless, the French are clearly no longer our allies and Chirac and De Villepin are untrustworthy -- in my book rating somewhere below Kerry, who rates somewhere well below the worst used car salesman.
Posted by Tom 2004-09-08 8:54:27 PM||   2004-09-08 8:54:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#49 Robert Crawford, the only "hard" information is about the Rolands, and this one is definitely false. That the WaTi trots out the same old, long discredited Roland story is telling.

The passport story has never been more than a rumor published by the Washington Times quoting "anonymous sources". No U.S. official has ever confirmed the story, none of these passports has ever been shown. The Washington Times itself had this to say:

"Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security this week concluded an intelligence investigation that said that reports of France's role in providing passports to former Iraqi officials could not be confirmed. According to the defense officials, the French passports found in Iraq were obtained by U.S. military teams in the country within the past several weeks.
The teams are searching for weapons of mass destruction and gathering intelligence on Iraq's arms programs.
"There were about a dozen French passports recovered that we know of," one defense official said. No other details were provided.
The official said the passports themselves do not mean that France provided the documents and that the passports may have been looted from the French Embassy."

Oh and had the French wanted to help leading Baathists to escape they would certainly not have provided blank passports, but filled in ones. They might have wanted to know WHO uses their passports, no?

As I said: It's pure speculation. I'm so tired of these "anonymous intelligence sources" who never produce a shred of public evidence. Also the Washington Times never bothered to publish the categorical denial issued by the French Foreign Ministry. Of course the French may not tell the truth but it's basic journalistic style to publish the comment of those you accuse of something.

Also Powell's statement is taken out of context. It did not refer to possible French collaboration with Saddam. Here's the correct quote (Evian summit)

"QUESTION: A question for Mr. de Villepin and Mr. Powell. Can you comment on the state of Franco-American relations? How would you
characterize them now?

SECRETARY POWELL: The United States and France have been friends and allies for many years, more than two centuries, and we remain friends and allies. We have had a serious disagreement in recent months. We're not going to paper it over and pretend it didn't occur. It did occur.
And we're going to work our way through that. But we will always be pulled together by the strongest ties of common values, a belief in
the individual rights of men and women, democracy, the free enterprise system, and all that our two nations and two peoples have been through
together for the last 225 years.

The disagreement refers to the French position in the Iraq War, not to possible French arms sales.
Posted by True German Ally 2004-09-08 9:23:44 PM||   2004-09-08 9:23:44 PM|| Front Page Top

#50 This is also not reporting but a puff piece to promote a book written by Gertz, a reporter at the WaTi, so we aren't getting everything, just enough to make us want to buy the book. It is also a first of three.
Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-09-08 9:27:27 PM||   2004-09-08 9:27:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#51 "It is believed.."
"It is well known that.."
"...could not be confirmed."

Plus starting out with a clearly false claim.
I don't think I will buy that book.
I'm sure there is plenty of evidence that France (and others) closely collaborated with Saddam until 1990.

That France (and not rogue arms dealer) sold arms to Saddam lately will be hard to prove. I'm not holding my breath.
Posted by True German Ally 2004-09-08 9:39:01 PM||   2004-09-08 9:39:01 PM|| Front Page Top

#52 Mrs Davis

I hope you read this. The definitive book (be it in English or in French) about Vichy's Army has been written by American historian Robert Paxton: "Parades and politics at Vichy".

According to it the French officers loathed the idea of having to fight Americans instead of, say Germans, (fighting the British was another matter: there was a lot of resentment for Mers el Kebir, specially in North Africa) problem is: 1) they had orders 2) Most of them wanted Operation Torch to succeed but not opposing enough resistance would trigger a German invasion of Vichy France (in fact that was the final outcome).

Posted by JFM  2004-09-09 1:45:52 AM||   2004-09-09 1:45:52 AM|| Front Page Top

#53 TGA and others:

SECRETARY POWELL: The United States and France have been friends and allies for many years, more than two centuries, and we remain friends and allies. We have had a serious disagreement in recent months. We're not going to paper it over and pretend it didn't occur. It did occur. And we're going to work our way through that. But we will always be pulled together by the strongest ties of common values, a belief in the individual rights of men and women, democracy, the free enterprise system, and all that our two nations and two peoples have been through together for the last 225 years.

Powell is wrong. When you read the French press or waitch the French TV it is obvious that the leading classes are conditionning the French for a full (cold) war against the United States. France will not be a difficult ally like in times of de Gaulle (who was the first to side with Ammerica during the Cuban missile crisis), not a rival but an ennemy. The French ruling classes NEED French people hate America in order to make the French accept the european dreams of their leaders and not questionning their model of society.
Posted by JFM  2004-09-09 2:00:56 AM||   2004-09-09 2:00:56 AM|| Front Page Top

#54 JFM - but it is a policy doomed to failure, unless the French manage to form a solid alliance with states other than the rest of the EU. The EU is already slipping from the clutches of France and, at the end of the day, most Europeans won't be interested in a pointless French ego-trip showdown with the States. So that leaves Russia, China, and/or the Arab/Muslim world. We've seen in the last week or so just how deep Arab affection for France runs, and I doubt either Russia or China have much more interest in alliances with France, and besides, presently neither seem to be interested in Mutually Assured Destruction wars with the US.

Running against the EU is just propelling France further and further into the abyss of irrelevancy. It's the familiar story of tough domestic troubles being masked by scapegoating and aggression towards others. Displacement activity, if you like. Bad for France. Could also be bad for France's neighbours in the long run.

Do you think the French elite is acting more as a result of calculated strategy, or an unconscious ego-driven desire to challenge an America it perceives as inferior/undeserving of its position of pre-eminence. Is there some sort of 'cultural exceptionalism' attitude at play, where French civilisation is almost regarded as divinely inspired and therefore divinely capable and protected (similar to Muslim delusions of predestination in that respect)? Do they realise how futile their anti-Americanism is, in other words?
Posted by Bulldog  2004-09-09 5:53:00 AM||   2004-09-09 5:53:00 AM|| Front Page Top

#55 Running against the EU..

I mean US.
Posted by Bulldog  2004-09-09 6:05:13 AM||   2004-09-09 6:05:13 AM|| Front Page Top

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