I watch the France 2 newscasts regularly, and all of France is gloating this week because of the cover of the latest National Journal and the article inside, which I am linking to below:
The article points out that France 's position on Iraq was borne out of learning from their own glaring mistakes, 1) in Algeria, and 2) in their appeasing/hands off policy towards terrorism in the '80s.
Dopers, do you think there are parallels between the situation in Iraq today, and Algeria in the 50s/60s ? And do you think that there’s any chance the US government will acknowledge that the froggies were right (if indeed you think they were)? Me, I’m not holding my breath.
Not being familiar with the situation in Algeria at the time, I can’t really say. But it seemed obvious to me back when the argument (and “Freedom fries” jokes) were flying back and forth that there was a risk in the United States ignoring the advice borne from experience of its allies.
Not this administration. Hell, you can’t even get them to admit when they themselves screwed up…
Interesting that the article is 5,600 words long and the word ‘oil’ crops up twice, and only in connection with the ‘Food for Oil’ programme.
Anyone with any sense agreed with those three basic “claims”. But it’s about oil, not about being “correct”. The administration lied about everything they needed to lie about - we know that. And we know why they lied, to create a scenario whereby they could go after the oil. That doesn’t make its judgements incorrect; it means they made a lot of stuff up to get where they wanted to be. In control of the supply of oil.
And call be old-fashioned, but ain’t that where they is ?
Sure, they have problems and may not hold on to everything they planned to but, as of now, France has nothing and is hoping for a call from Kofi Annan. Bush has the trophy.
So, for me, Bush can learn about *occupation *from the French experience in Algeria - he is after all, facing a similar enemy - but, thus far, he’s got everything he wanted. The French don’t, but find solace in transient US discomfort.
Quite whether will keep the prize is another matter. First calls on that can be made in November next.
Fwiw, I still think Afghanistan early 1980s is the more accurate comparison.
Quite the cynical picture you’re painting, London_Calling. If you’re right, then Bush’s puppetmasters have gotten themselves at worst a 4-year window during which they 'll take whatever they can get away with (and not just in Iraq). The prize will have been won no matter who wins next November.
While I agree with you that they have gained nothing, France isn’t spending 87 billion dollars of its constituents’ money to help secure contracts for its government’s buddies…so, did they lose anything?
Bush specifically said Saddam was NOT an imminent threat. The logic (and implications) of his major speeches were plain: the time to find out a ruthless dictator has a nuclear weapon is not the day after. If it wasn’t for Israel, Saddam would probably have a nuclear weapon today.
The French press refer to President Chirac as “Chiraq” in honor of his 30 year financial collaboration (oil) with Saddam.
The United States does not use, does not need, Iraqi oil. I just paid $1.44 for a gallon of gas. I think that’s 22 Euro cents a liter. We have untouched oil reserves in Alaska along with offshore fields in California and Florida. We could drive the cost down even lower with our own reserves. To say we would go to war for oil is just goofy.
England is an oil EXPORTING country. I don’t know what the price of gas is there but it has nothing to do with Iraq or any Mid-East Country. To say that a liberal PM would back a conservative US President in a war for oil is just plain goofy.
The United States does not use, does not need, French military experience. If we did then our aircraft carriers would be too short for our own aircraft. As for actual nation building, we learned the lessons from WWI and the results are 3 successful countries. Germany, Italy and Japan are not accidents. They are examples of real commitment to help a country rise up from the ashes of repression. At the time of their defeat there wasn’t a love fest in the streets for Allied Soldiers. They were shot at. Our commitment to Germany went as far as the Berlin Airlift. That is pretty damn serious. What the United States learned in the last century is that it is futile to simply overthrow a dictator. It requires the creation of a fully democratic process that gives the power of leadership to the average citizen.
Magiver, I haven’t the time to go back two or more years to respond to your points. Have a read of these if you’re interested in getting up to speed or try the search facility, these subjects have been beaten to death:
The report says the United States will become increasingly reliant on foreign oil. At present, we obtain about half of our petroleum from foreign sources;* by 2020, imports will account for two-thirds of U.S. consumption**, the report predicts. From this, it draws two conclusions: The United States must maintain good relations with Saudi Arabia and other oil producers in the region, and the United States must diversify oil suppliers around the world. “Middle East oil producers will remain central to world oil security,” it says, but “our engagement must be global.”* Nuclear weapons
Ritter: When I left Iraq in 1998, when the UN inspection programme ended, the infrastructure and facilities had been 100% eliminated. There’s no debate about that. All of their instruments and facilities had been destroyed. The weapons design facility had been destroyed. The production equipment had been hunted down and destroyed. And we had in place means to monitor - both from vehicles and from the air - the gamma rays that accompany attempts to enrich uranium or plutonium. We never found anything. We can say unequivocally that the industrial infrastructure needed by Iraq to produce nuclear weapons had been eliminated."
“While most believe that countries have the right to go to war if they have evidence they are in imminent danger of being attacked with WMD, only a minority also believes that the US had such evidence (32%) or, given what is known now, that Iraq in fact posed such a threat (35%). A majority (53%) believes the US had evidence that Iraq was acquiring WMD that could be used against it at some point in the future, but only 31% said such evidence legitimates going to war.”
From this I can only conclude you’re not up to speed with your own countrymen and women.
I’d suggest reading those links and following your nose. Good luck!
You’re quoting RITTER? He quit inspections in 98 claiming Clinton was too easy on Saddam only to be resurrected as a Bush basher for the opposite reason. Fine. Lets start with the fact that Saddam even HAD a nuclear power plant. Iraq is sitting on the 2nd largest oil reserves in the World. It was like selling Saddam sand. There was only one reason a user of WMD needs a nuclear power plant. To process weapons grade fuel. Have you seen the underground facilities that have been discovered? Saddam spent billions hiding underground factories for no particular reason. Why? Do you think we found them all? Do you think he might have built, or funded facilities in other countries that would sell him weapons? Maybe North Korea, who was already courting him with missiles? Try spending 5 minutes thinking of what YOU would do if you had unlimited sources of money and a desire to kill people. I guarantee you Saddam spent more than 5 minutes thinking about it.
What part of 22 cents a liter and untapped oil reserves do you not understand? . I’m not even going to go into the vast oil reserves in South America The only reason gas isn’t cheaper in the United States is because the capacity to process is getting maxed out. We can’t process it fast enough. Th reason we are driving gas guzzling SUV’s is because we CAN. Gas is as cheap as it was in the 70’s (adjusted for inflation). When gas goes up everybody will switch to hybrids. If you look at the new Toyota (sweet) you will see that the future of sports cars will be in hybrids because electrical motors have huge low end torque capacity. Natural gas is a much greater problem and if you read the BBC today you would see a deal with Saudi Arabia for natural gas.
If all we wanted was Iraqi oil then I’m sure France would lead the parade to lift sanctions. One little UN document and Iraqi oil flows freely. Why would the US spend Billions on a war in order to buy oil? Why continue with sanctions and the unending search for WMD?
I sure would love it if you could provide a cite for this…especially considering that
1- Chirac has been president since 1995, so a 30-year collaboration seems unlikely-do you mean he 's had a personal financial collaboration with Iraq that goes back 30 years?
2-The French do not spell Iraq the way we do - they spell it Irak.
I offer you the opportunity to back up your statement, in the interest of fighting ignorance and all…
Well, the US in fact does not (or I should say did not…we still don’t, but I suppose that could change) import oil from Iraq (or from Irak either :)). However, I think THEIR point, Magiver, isn’t that the US will gain from the oil…its that Bush’s buddies will (i.e. the ‘war for oil’ was about Bush and his cronies lining their pocket at the expense of American blood and money, yadda yadda). In point of fact, some of them WILL gain from this, though I understand that the no compete contracts are being phased out now…I could be wrong about this, just something I remember reading in passing a week or so ago. Personally I don’t think this is WHY the decision to invade Iraq was made…its more on the order of a fringe benifit. However, I think thats what they are getting at. If I misrepresented London and Ackafool, my appologies.
I think your arguements on US reserves and oil consumption, as well as the ability to ramp up to hybrids easily/quickly are a bit shaky, but this is a debate about France.
As to the OP: Will we learn lessons from the French? Probably not. Does this make us somehow unique as a nation?? Did they learn lessons from us? Did they learn lessons from Britian? Hell, did the French learn lessons from their OWN past? lol. Does a child understand that fire burns on a basic level, before s/he gets burned? I think not, baby puppy. Its basic human nature…sad but true.
I think Iraq is fairly unique…I see more parallels between Iraq and Algeria than Iraq and Vietnam, but its still fairly tenuous as far as I’m concerned. Also, though I know that the anti-war crowd is chomping at the bit to rush in and judge this war (in the worst possible light), my own thoughts are that we are all a bit too close to this thing. It will take a decade at least before we REALLY know wtf is going on, and what the ramifications are going to be. It COULD very well be America’s great fuckup of the century. Then again, it might be a shinning spot for America. Or, more likely in my mind, it will be some muddle inbetween. But I seriously doubt ANYONE is qualified to judge things right now…its too soon, and we are all too close…IMO.
Here are some of the things that I remember Bush and his administration saying in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq:
In fact, the only way to preemptively invade Iraq without UN approval, and not be in blatant violation of the UN Charter and recognized international law, would be if the threat from Iraq to US national security was imminent. Please back up your assertion.
Without goint to the same level of citation on the oil issue, your post demonstrates that you either don’t understand economics or you have little knowledge of the world oil market, and the US dependence on foriegn oil supply.
That’s right. And if you’d read very much on the issue you’d understand why that was because it really isn’t terribnly difficult to grasp; In Ritter’s view, Clinton did not allow the UN to fulfil it’s mandate to explore every avenue to its ultimate conclusion. Clinton wanted doubt to remain, even just a little.
Bush was a liar knew nothing about nothing and ignored the UNSCOM findings because they conflicted with his need to create an “urgent” crisis.
Btw, are you inferring Ritter was in any way wrong in his assessments and Bush - having not spent seven years in Iraq with UNSCOM - was in any way correct in his assessments (of Saddam’s capabilities) ? I’d hope not.
If I thought you were genuinely asking questions or had even begun to read some of the links I offered, I’d explain further. But it reads like you have your worldview and that’ll do for you.
Enjoy your “$1.44 for a gallon of gas”, I’m sure that’s all you need to know.
I’m quite amazed- but not too surprised. I think it is quite amusuing that we are so politically correct on this message board that “white trash” is considered bad form, but people still use the obviously racist term “froggies.”
NO NO NO
I know there are more important points to be made but it’s NOT England that is an oil exporting country. It’s the United Kingdom.
England is only part of the UK. In fact the oil is mainly off the Scottish shore.
The French are not the only ones who said - and knew - what is printed in that article.
They are also not the only ones with experience of colonisation in that region and elswhere.
And that is visible in the way the English military in Iraq (and elswhere) acts the way it does. Once the combat faze over you see them trying to come across as persons in uniform ready to communicate with local leaders and with local people.
This in very sharp contrast to the US military. Acting like machos, in love with their uniform and guns, no clue about local sensitivities,(and while writing this I have a stupidity of the US army in mind that had all potential to announce the start of WWIII). They shout at people as if they are dogs (and expect everybody to understand English of course) and seem to be trained at acting with an arrogance such as no person in the world - let be people with a culture of honour and pride dominating daily life - accepts from an invading stranger.
By the way: When I briefly looked at the article mentioned in the OP I asked myself: How come the author seems to think that the French were only active occupyers in Algeria.
As for making “comparisons” between the situation in Iraq and whatever in the past: I think that is premature and thus leads nowhere. The time is extremely different, the situation is extremely different, the country is different and so are all the people involved.
Salaam. A
Now wait a minute. I always thought that the term “froggies” was rather mild, like calling a German person a “kraut” - not at all in the same league as say, calling a black man the N word, or a jew the K word. Am I wrong?
If indeed the term is offensive, I shall have to curb its use - although, being first generation French-American, I really was using the word in a lighthearted, self-deprecating way.
Aldebaran, what did you mean by your sentence in small print?
Yes, and when you translate a French/”Irak” connection to English you get “Chiraq”
I don’t have high speed internet so I am not going to spend a lot of time surfing your request. This is what I came up in a quick search. Although I don’t like citing a statement someone else made (about something) I thought the commentary about French newspapers was interesting.
Indeed CHirac was PM under Giscard d’Estaing in the 70s and Mitterrand in the 80s. How does that back up your statement?
2)I asked you for a cite from the french press, and you give me a link to the “messengers of messiah” and “westoo.uk”?
Yeah, right. Must be your internet connection.
Just curious: If you don’t like citing commentary from a 3rd party, why do it at all…you may have found those links interesting, but they in no way back up your claim.
