Thursday, April 17, 2003
EuroPundits (permalink not working) (Via Instapundit)
Some few in France have been questioning their country's actions. Worth reading in full:
[...]We were recently pleased to confront American narrow-mindedness with French intelligence and to confront the New World, led by “King UbuBush,” with Old World wisdom. And what was the result? One of the most appalling dictators in the Middle East fell, and France did nothing to contribute to his demise.
On the contrary, she did everything that she could to slow down Hussein’s fall. When Baghdad danced, France pouted. While certain intellectuals and politicians expressed their confusion, indeed their “nausea” when faced with an Anglo-Saxon victory, the weekly magazine, Marianne, led with “The Catastrophe” on the day that Baghdad tasted its first hours of deliverance. We just have to accept that there will always exist in our democracies a significant number of citizens from whom a dictator’s demise will be a cause for despair. This land of human rights perhaps doesn’t care so much for the liberty of others as she claims to and publicizes. From Jean-Marie Le Pen to Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Saddam Hussein had, among us, many friends, discreetly born again as “friends of the Iraqi people.” Will the Republic, along with Berlin and Moscow, institute a day of national morning for the disappeared dictator?
The second Gulf War has been a wonderfully revealing incident. An outbreak of anti-Semitism and ethnic hatred, an economic and social crisis, the desecration of a British military cemetery, the beating up of Jews and Iraqi opposition during the great “peace” marches, an alliance…with the unsavory Vladimir Putin, butcher of Chechnyans, the reception of the African despot Robert Mugabe in Paris, public insults directed to Eastern European countries who committed the sin of not slavishly obeying us—our great nation is not in the process of writing its most glorious page in the Book of History. [...]
On the contrary, she did everything that she could to slow down Hussein’s fall. When Baghdad danced, France pouted. While certain intellectuals and politicians expressed their confusion, indeed their “nausea” when faced with an Anglo-Saxon victory, the weekly magazine, Marianne, led with “The Catastrophe” on the day that Baghdad tasted its first hours of deliverance. We just have to accept that there will always exist in our democracies a significant number of citizens from whom a dictator’s demise will be a cause for despair. This land of human rights perhaps doesn’t care so much for the liberty of others as she claims to and publicizes. From Jean-Marie Le Pen to Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Saddam Hussein had, among us, many friends, discreetly born again as “friends of the Iraqi people.” Will the Republic, along with Berlin and Moscow, institute a day of national morning for the disappeared dictator?
The second Gulf War has been a wonderfully revealing incident. An outbreak of anti-Semitism and ethnic hatred, an economic and social crisis, the desecration of a British military cemetery, the beating up of Jews and Iraqi opposition during the great “peace” marches, an alliance…with the unsavory Vladimir Putin, butcher of Chechnyans, the reception of the African despot Robert Mugabe in Paris, public insults directed to Eastern European countries who committed the sin of not slavishly obeying us—our great nation is not in the process of writing its most glorious page in the Book of History. [...]
From the Second World War and on into the Cold War, the USA got into bed with a lot unsavory characters. We did things as a nation that, while perhaps justifyable in the long-run, would be difficult to comprehend in isolation. We, at least, can say that we were opposing a totalitarian Empire in the Soviet Union, who themselves propped-up any two-bit despot that would serve their interests.
Now it seems that France has decided to do whatever it takes to pursue their own Cold War against the United States. They seem willing to slow-dance with any ugly character at the ball if it just seems to them to enhance their own power against the United States. Do they really believe the goals of the USA are that bad? Is it really worth it? Only time will tell.
