Article

2004-11-27 Iraq-Jordan

French reporters reach 100th day as hostages

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Posted by Anonymoose 2004-11-27 9:54:04 AM|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 French chattering classes have been responsible for brain washing the French into a paroxism of anti-American hate. Want an example? If you thought the 60th anniversary of D-Day would be a moment of reconciliation forget about it: "Le Point" (not a Communist magazine but a moderately right wing magazine) made a special issue talking about rapes perpetrated by American servicemen or about people whinning because their house was destroyed by an Allied bomb (*).

And those two particular guys were particularly virulent supporters of the Paleostinian cause and particularly virulent Anti-Americans. Far, far beyond the people of "Le Point". So if American find them, the best thing they could do is lock the door again and throw the key

(*) Many French don't share those views. One day while at the hairdresser I heard a guy who was at Normandy while still a boy. He told about how him and his parents went to a house, weren't allowed in and that house was destroyed shortly after. And how happy he was to know the Allies were coming and to see German soldiers shitting in their pants.

Posted by JFM 2004-11-27 10:54:29 AM|| 2004-11-27 10:54:29 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 JFM - Assuming Chirac and His Minions are finally tossed in 2007, and I don't know how likely that really is, is there any chance that whomever replaces them will turn off or attempt to moderate the "Hate America" flow of screed?

Public statements indicate that we are the enemies of the French Gov't. As with Germany, I would like to say (and see vindicated at the next elections) , that it's a problem of leadership, not a true visceral enmity with the people.

I'm just wondering if it's simply too late... and you're the only voice there I'd readily trust to tell me the unvarnished truth, heh. SO if you're inclined...

Posted by .com 2004-11-27 11:18:52 AM|| 2004-11-27 11:18:52 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 One thing about Chesnot and Malbrunot ("the friend of the arabs", as one jewish news agency called him, in regard of his anti-israelian/pro-paleostinian bias) : they will be released before Xmas, and they will bring with them a documentary made while in captivity detailing the activities of the "resistance".
Antoine Sfeir, director of the Cahiers de l'Orient, an arab world specialist usually well connected, has been saying so on french tv, though this was not noted by MSM, and IIRC an iraqi newspaper basically said the same.
Theses two tools are not hostages, they are guests, and they are working right now with the "islamic army", with cameras provided by the "France 2" gvt-owned tv channel.

Posted by Anonymous5089 2004-11-27 11:25:08 AM|| 2004-11-27 11:25:08 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 I think that "Hate America" and/or "Hate Anglo-Saxons" started with Charles de Gaules who never accepted that his interim goverment (1945-46) was not invited at the Yalta conference. When he was elected in 59, he asked the US to leave France, he pulled out of NATO and tried to split Canada in two, among other things. Remember his "Vive le QuÃ©beq libre". Chirac, being a pure Gaulist, carries on the good work...

Posted by SwissTex 2004-11-27 1:31:37 PM|| 2004-11-27 1:31:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 ST - Wow, I forgot about the effort to break up Canada - thx for reminding me just how insane De Gaulle really was... he was a trip, wasn't he, heh? And, as you say, Chirac is upholding the tradition. Marginlization of culture steeped in arrogance is a morbidly fascinating process to watch. Sad, however... recall Pascale, Pasteur, et al.

Posted by .com 2004-11-27 1:42:11 PM|| 2004-11-27 1:42:11 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 I think the "Hate the Anglo-Saxons" meme started with Philip of Valois. The only difference the successor to Chiraq may make is to be less maladroit, but that is improbable and immaterial to moderating the mutual distaste.

Posted by George W. Bush 2004-11-27 1:43:28 PM|| 2004-11-27 1:43:28 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 .com

It is difficult to say. Between the right wing Sarkozy has warned against anti-americanism. There are also some figures in the left who are not systematically anti-american or intelligent enough to know when France should stop bickering and close ranks with the Americans. But the chatttering classes are sold to the EU and they
have told explicitly that the EU needs hate towards America in order to create European patriotism.

Posted by JFM 2004-11-27 3:41:57 PM|| 2004-11-27 3:41:57 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 have told explicitly that the EU needs hate towards America in order to create European patriotism. - Fits with my view that France, contrary to the multilaterialist brush they use to paint themselves, is the last 19th century power in Europe. They are continuing with their united Europe (against les Anglos) project that had to be shelved for a while after Waterloo.

Posted by phil_b 2004-11-27 4:02:33 PM|| 2004-11-27 4:02:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Phil_b The problem for the frogs is that it won't be "their" united Europe. Too many Europeans have figured it out and the Germans will catch on soon. That'll leave the French with their Riviera allies, Spain, Greece and Belgium. They'll probably name the alliance The Victors.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-11-27 4:47:18 PM|| 2004-11-27 4:47:18 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 SwissTex

French anti-americanism didn't start with de Gaulle. It started for real under Napoleon III who had ambitions in South America and thus wanted to favour the Confederates, but as French public opinion wouldn't swallow helping the slavery cause French government began planting the seeds of anti-Americanism. After Napoleon III fall the third Republic was instaurated that anti-Americanism became really systematic: the French Republicans no longer needed America as a a beacon for the idea of Republican government. In fact they feared it since the French electoral system was carefully designed to give the impression of democracy while carefully emptying any influence of the people over France's government. The sending of Miss Liberty was a desperate attempt by the last pro-Americans to revive the Franco-American friendship in a rising tide of Anti-Americanism. Later, the rise of socialism and the secularization of the Republic (more exactly the atheization of the Republic since the conccept of the French "seculars" were closer to the ACLU than to the First Amendment) made that there were people interested in French people diverting their eyes from a country where blue collars became millionaires and where there was real religious freedom.

For De Gaulle, he wasn't antiamerican in 1940 and many of its traits should have contributed to make him American-friendly (his religiosity, his poor opinion of French self appointed elites, his belief in the need to change the system in order o empower the people). However Roosevelt administration's backstabbings spoiled him (plus the fact that the Allies had to account for De Gaulle's unpopularity in France after backing the British on the attack against the French fleet in 1940). When he returned to power in 1958 he had good relations with the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, was the first to support America during the missile crisis but with Johnson things went down with faults shared by Johnson (who was as anti-french as Roosevelt) and by De Gaulle who had become bitter and resentful (he was also resentful against the French) as he knew that crucial years had been wasted between 1946 and 1958 and that now it was too late both for him and for France. But De Gaulle knew when it was no time for power plays and triangulations (like during the missile crisis) and I have no doubt that he would have sided with America against any two bit dictator trying to get WMDs, even if for the simple reason that a Saddam with nukes would have been a threat for France too.

Note: De Gaulle had to deal with a country who had been deeply shaken by the 1940 defeat and the capitulation (the poison of it is still undermining it even in 2004). In order to restore some of France's self confidence he had to magnify Free French contribution to WWII and minimize Allied contribution to liberation of France. It was not specific to America: the way he treated the Spanish who fought in the Resistance (and were crucial in the liberation of Toulouse) was not precisely fair and full of gratitude.

Posted by JFM 2004-11-27 6:05:27 PM|| 2004-11-27 6:05:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 JFM - Thx, bro - very interesting info - especially about De Gaulle.

As for the next French President, are you predicting anyone? Sarkozy? Any more on our friend, Sabine?

Thx - an educational thread!

Posted by .com 2004-11-27 6:17:00 PM|| 2004-11-27 6:17:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Mrs. Davis, your parochialism is showing. You are grouping together France, Spain, Belgium and *Greece* when they have nothing in common that distinguishes them from the rest of the EU -- except ofcourse an opposition to the Iraq war. But like it or not the Iraq war is not the pivotal event of human history or EU history -- in a Europe which on the public level was opposed to the war throughout the continent it's not even a significant fault line. Greece is not an "ally" of France even if we consider antiAmericanism alone -- Greek antiAmericanism seems to me for example to have very different roots than French antiAmericanism, since for example in Greece the most anti-American tend to also be the most anti-EU as well, representing an aversion to the whole of the West.

Europe is not divided in new and old, in good or bad, depending on their stances towards America. You could have chosen economic, geographical, cultural and political criteria, and different lines would have emerged, but with none of these would you have placed France, Spain, Greece and Belgium in the same category to the exclusion of the rest -- except through, as I said, an insane amount of Iraq-centered parochialism.

Posted by Aris Katsaris 2004-11-27 6:18:47 PM|| 2004-11-27 6:18:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 I think the light is starting to dawn among the Frenchmen on the street that France is returning to equilibrium as a large, but weak nation, agrarian in nature, whose prosperity depends on the more powerful nations nearby. The real centers of power will, with reform, properly be Germany and Poland. They will be supported and balanced by a large second tier of nations that form and reform into blocs based in geography and economics. Any extra advantage the French will gain will be by unilateralism and treachery--and like with NATO, they may be the first to renounce the EU and leave.

Posted by Anonymoose 2004-11-27 6:39:27 PM|| 2004-11-27 6:39:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Europe is not divided in new and old, in good or bad, depending on their stances towards America. You could have chosen economic, geographical, cultural and political criteria...

Faire un oeuf [or fair enough]. To my mind the greatest divide within Europe is between on the one hand the media and political elites who by and large came out of the student movements of the late 1960s and 1970s, as well as their trade union vassals, and the broader European public.

The latter are in my experience likely to be anti-American only to the extent that they have been taken in by the distortions and relentless agitprop of the media/political elites. Otherwise, Europeans today are far more sympathetic to US-led global capitalism, US technology, and US culture than their elites would have one believe. I'd expect that as Holland's sad experience begins to be replicated in other EU countries, their publics will also come around to supporting the US-led war against jihadi fascism. The key for us is to break the media monopoly and stifling groupthink that the 1968er generation has imposed on Europe. We complain about our idiot MSM, but there's even less counter-meme dissent and debate in those nations than here. The view of the world from Le Monde, Der Spiegel, the elite press across continental Europe generally is a snapshot of a caricature of a fantasy.

Today, America's MSM. Tomorrow, Europe's.

Posted by lex 2004-11-28 12:03:01 AM|| 2004-11-28 12:03:01 AM|| Front Page Top

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