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2003-02-24 Iraq

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Posted by Steve White 2003-02-24 09:07 am|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Though, the cross-continent bashing between the United States and France has been on since decades. But it was for no reason that Mark Twain wrote in 1879 for a journal, "There is nothing lower than the human race except the French."

Based on the historical record, it is not difficult to pronounce the French as cowards. But perhaps that is propagating a silly myth. There is another point that often does not meet the eye in the discussion and that is the menacing evil they harbour against the English-speaking world. The French in post World War II order of things have come to suffer with a devilish combination of cynicism and narcissism and that same thread runs in their policy and governmental issues.*1

Just a step back in the argument, the French lost WW II to the Germans in about 20 minutes. Americans along with the British in which about 150,000 soldiers were killed getting their country back for them. The French in contrast suffered 23,500 casualties. Their leader, Charles de Gaulle, insistently and at the expense of bad relations with Churchill and Eisenhower led the victory parade after the liberation of Paris.

The defeat of the French in the WW II was not a first time happening if one were to count the major surrenders in the French history, the run from AlÃ©sia, Gaul, 52 B.C. VercingÃ©torix surrendered to Julius Caesar up to Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam, March 13, 1954 when General de Castries surrenders to the Viet Minh. In all that makes fourteen of them.

And despite all that people in the know have quoted Steven Spielberg say the French would not even let him film the D-Day scenes in âSaving Private Ryanâ on the Normandy beaches. They want people to forget the price we paid getting their country back for them. Just forget it, it ever happened.

They have a tract record of protecting genocidal regimes like :â¦â¦.
* In 1994, the French at their African bases were the one military power who could stop the Rwandan genocide of the Tutsi by the Hutu. Alternatively, in Operation Turquoise they created a safe haven for the culprits of the genocide, the Hutu Interahamwe militia. Only because the Tutsis chasing the murderers had become Anglophones in exile and French cultural vanity couldn't allow losses in a French-speaking country.

* During the Balkan wars, pro-Serb French military officers allowed the murder of Bosnian politicians in convoys they were supposed to protect and continuously passed NATO classified information to Slobodan Milosevic.
The French were the main obstacle to any pragmatic intervention against "ethnic cleansing" until the United States stepped in to break the stalemate. Yet even after NATO intervention, French officers deliberately leaked information that enabled Radovan Karadzic, to escape twice.

In the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq, it was the French, not the Americans as often alleged with the Russians and Chinese were arms suppliers of military hardware to Saddam Hussein. Later on, they were major beneficiaries under, âOil for Food" program minting cash all over again.

French delegations have been visiting Parliament flew to Baghdad on the face of it to bear on Saddam for serious complying with the all demands of United Nations . But Le Monde quoted that that the trip also was made for "the defence of French economic interests in Iraq." And it was those interests that made France as Iraq's largest European trading partner in 2001, which got them $1.5 billion worth of business. Mr. Chirac has personally visited Iraq in 1976.

Under the U.N.'s "oil for food" program, France has pulled together $3.1 billion in trade since the program began in 1996.

Baghdad International Trade Fair in, November of 2002 French companies were conspicuous among the 1,200 firms represented. Among them: car manufacturer Peugeot, maker of medical equipment Cercomex and pharmaceutical house Nutris and French pharmaceutical manufacturers organisation TULIP were present. Of course not to forget TotalFinaElf the French oil company
Russia, France's partner in undermining the Bush administration at the U.N., also has quietly positioned its petroleum giant LUKoil to exploit Iraqi oilfields. Iraq owes Russia $8 billion dating back to the Soviet era.

So when career diplomats like M de Villepin, 49, the French foreign minister believes and quotes those romanticisms in his speeches at the UN that France is living up to its historic grandeur whenever it is led by men (there is rarely mention of women) of vision, intelligence and courage. He sees himself in thatmould.

His model is Napoleon Bonaparte, his quest is for glory and his belief is in swift, decisive action. The crisis over Iraq has given him an opportunity to try out his philosophy.

In a book authored by M de Villepin,(a self âpublished poet also) on Napoleonâs last 100 days in power, "Les Cent-Jours", he says that France is never greater than when it is fighting against the odds of a more powerful opponent. To him, the clash with the United States is just that.

In reference to a comment from Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defense Secretary, who brushed off France and Germany as being part of âold Europeâ, M de Villepin said that he was from an âold countryâ, one that had known âwar, occupation, barbarityâ, one that was standing up for what it thought was right. He describes Napoleonâs philosophy in chimerical terms as: âVictory or death, but glory whatever happens.â

Winston Churchill, it is said, had one thing to say about the leader about French leader he complained that, of all the crosses he had to bear during World War II, --putting up with de Gaulle--was the heaviest.

France and its leaders have an unresolved Past, with an imperfect present and future. And George Bush has to live with that tradition.

*1 (Everybody remembers Michel Garretta, the director of the French National Blood Transfusion Centre (during 1985) , who knew very well that testing blood supplies for traces of HIV infection was necessary Yet he deemed that French blood supplies did not need the American-pioneered tests or treatment and ordered "the normal distribution of non-heated blood products as long as they were in stock." At his trial, in 1992 Dr. Garretta admitted that he knew about the possibility of tainted blood: "Everybody knew about it, including me....â the French health minister and other technocrats they were charged with abstraction called "the national interestâ. However, the national interest dictated that the test should be "made in France." And not use the American made. By that time, however, hundreds of haemophiliacs and others receiving blood transfusions had contracted HIV through tainted blood products. The prosecution admitted that by blocking the tests in part was to give the French Pasteur Institute time to develop its own procedure rather than use the one made in America.)

Posted by ISHMAIL 2003-02-24 05:55:54|| 2003-02-24 05:55:54|| Front Page Top

#2 After the war, our country should seriously examine the issue of whether the UN is just irrelevent, or is it something much worse; a device that inherently protects dictators.

Posted by mhw 2003-02-24 08:01:35|| 2003-02-24 08:01:35|| Front Page Top

#3 Completly off-topic, but I'd just like to say I've been impressed by recent Ishmail's comments. That's the kind of (long) informative NB that balances nicely the funny smarth-mouthings. Oh, and I agree with that last one, and I'm a froggie, too.

Posted by Anonymous 2003-02-24 09:38:10|| 2003-02-24 09:38:10|| Front Page Top

#4 A very good and well thought out comment, Ishmail.

Posted by Ptah 2003-02-24 11:38:14|| 2003-02-24 11:38:14|| Front Page Top

#5 I'm sorry but hanging Vercengetorix's defeat at Alesia on the French is ridiculous. Back then the Gallic tribes were Celtic, a very different culture. And lest we forget those very Celts were the first to sack Rome around 300 B.C. Sorry I don't have my Livy with me, so I don't remember the exact date.

Also, the French poilus conduct in World War I was courageous and they took appalling casualties.

I prefer to think that the average French man-in-ranks is brave, but betrayed by utterly unprinicipled leaders.

Posted by Dreadnought 2003-02-24 12:20:34|| 2003-02-24 12:20:34|| Front Page Top

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