Beagle, read what clairobscur and I have written, consider the significance of the the word “tonight” in the Chirac quotation above, and then, please, consider reconsidering your own post. The correct gloss is “no reason to wage a war” “tonight”.
How can you possibly accuse him of lying? The war plans were in his filing cabinet! 
Seriously, I expect the US military to have contingency plans for all sorts of remotely possible actions. Part of their job is to have plans ready, just in case, for all but the most unlikely situations. And maybe even them, too. For all I know, the Pentagon might routinely update hypothetical invasion plans for each of the world’s roughly 200 nations, and it wouldn’t bother me at all if they were that thorough.
So that leaves us with the statement about France. We can argue all day about what, exactly, they said they would vote against under any circumstances. But be that as it may, Powell’s comments were hardly evidence of mass psychosis, or even individual psychosis, in the Bush Administration.
Might sound so to you, Beagle, and I am not suprised.
But. Read for gods sakes will ya?
(My Bolding)
“The new U.S, British and Spanish backed resolution”. That would be the one that “authorized the use of military force 1-2 weeks after ratification”.
And that was my point. Out of context. Propaganda distortion or lie depending on the exact claim.
I have to admit that I hadn’t looked into exactly what France had said, and I was going by memories of sound bites. It could certainly be a distortion, as far as I know.
And , as a general hijack, I will add that I begin to be quite pissed off by the number of ludicrous statements made about France on this board. Essentially everything I read about my country here is complete bullshit. Unbased feelings, opinions given without any knowledge, out of context references, prejudices, utter lies, undigested facts or factoids. Essentially nothing written here is based on an actual knowledge or understanding of this country. Even on a topic so massively and recently covered as France’s position re the war in Irak, tons of posters show how clueless they are. So, you can imagine what level of ignorance are reached concerning less well-known facts.
People here like to claim they’re fighting ignorance, but actually, even several of the regular and usually quite intelligent posters display on this topic a level of ignorance which is astonishing and speak essentially out of their asses. I suspect this is probably true for essentially all other countries not massively represented on this board (IOW, essentially every country which is not anglo-saxon) or which aren’t very well covered in the US medias.
If you actually intend to fight ignorance, I believe you should definitely avoid to make comments about any country you don’t have an extended knowledge of (say Tamerlane-style level of knowledge about the history of various asian people/countries) and where you never lived. You can’t even imagine to which extent what one can read concerning France on this board is laughable, nor how many :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: pop up in my mind each time I read a post including the word “France”. When a similar level of ignorance is displayed on a topic american people are familiar with, it is buried under a flood of posts correcting or flaming the poster.
And I don’t intend to try to correct 200 idiotic posts a day (though there are less of them usually…but with the recent events, they are popping up like mushrooms). It’s a lost cause, and I’m not a crusader.
End of the rant.
Right. That’s not in quotations, is it? My arguments came from what Chirac actually said.
Revtim:
Understandable; that’s how we consume news everyday.
The responsibility lies with the US admin who have chosen to promote this interpretation for propaganda reasons, while they themselves know better.
Beagle:
Well if you don’t trust the PBS short version of the speach you can always find a transcript of the whole thing. Otherwise I suggest you give it a rest.
Hear, hear! May we call ourselves “anti-anti-frenchs” instead of “anti-americans”?
I don’t know how to spell this out in more digestible pieces. In response to a question about “tonight’s” resolution, fine, Chirac made some general pronouncements about what type of resolution he would support. You can say that Chirac did not mean what he said. Or, you can ignore what he said. The latter is the tack you’ve taken so far.
I’m simply pointing out that the answer to a question was obviously couched in general language. You asked for context. I gave it to you.
clairobscur,
“we don’t believe the French would have approved military action under any circumstances” is American propaganda, but “Oh, sure, we would have supported military action, but it was premature” is French truth?
Why is that? What indications were there that Chirac would have said in 30 days “Wellp, yah, the Iraqis aren’t cooperating, we’ll vote to approve military action now,” particularly considering that the French had taken the position that, even if the Iraqis didn’t cooperate fully, the inspectors could “contain” Iraq?
Sua
Wow, that certainly was very interesting… all this ranting and raving while no one really picked up on my point: ie: that this administration has been conducting its foreign policy mightly strangely.
Of course, every govt has contingency plans… they rarely ever make it into the news unless there is an unofficial leak. These types of documents are deeply inbedded in the files of the bureaucracy. I am thinking that this particular plan to bomb the nuclear facility [a targetted hit not likely to bother any neighbors…] was leaked in order to show the North Koreans how far the US could possibly go. I think this was a power leak to scare the infamously mule-minded North Koreans in to negotiations for the upcoming talks…
The France comments were open and totally undiplomatic. Again, was this cage rattling… “You don’t agree with us; you are against us and you will pay for it”. Again, this isn’t going to scare France into agreeing with the administration’s policies just like tromping thru Iraq will scare the Iraqis into democracy.
Yes, I agree that thinking out of the box can be creative and productive. I find this new undiplomatic “diplomatic” behavior distructive.
I’m afraid that this adminstration thinks that God is on its side and might makes right… scary thoughts, don’t you think?
Sua, you’re condemning someone for not answering to your liking a question they were never asked, about a situation which was never going to be allowed to occur. Time to give it up, friend.
kilfa, it isn’t psychosis as such, just simple ideologuism - the tailoring of one’s factual interpretations according to a particular intellectual filter. In other contexts, it’s the same as religious belief. Another aspect here is the marginalization and even denunciation of those who fail to share that ideological bent.
Chiraqs statements in the first two paragraphs of the quote refer to the resolution at hand. That is quite obvious to the reasonable reader. Do you refute this?
Here are some other quotes from news stories referring the same interview. They also has these statements referring to the actual resolution draft at hand at the time. Pertinent parts highlighted by me.
The Globe and Mail:
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030311.wiraq0311_x/BNStory
Clearly connects the statements of paragraph two to the resolution draft.
The Salt Lake Tribune:
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Mar/03112003/nation_w/nation_w.asp
I think Sua’s question is right on the money. Even granting that a reasonable person could parse Chirac’s words to assume he is referring very narrowly to the specific resolution at the specific moment - where is the evidence? What signal or statement did the French release, especially in the wake of such wide-spread American condemnation - to clarify that they were not unalterably opposed to some military action at some future date?
- Rick
Bricker (and Sua):
First:
It is not the case that “a reasonable person could parse Chirac’s words to assume he is referring very narrowly to the specific resolution at the specific moment”. (My bold)
It is the case that a reasonable person should interpret Chirac’s statements as refering to the matters at hand. Consider that he in the same interview was asking for more time for the inspectors; “months”.
Now; Sua’s questions. Valid concerns for the people pursuing the war. But totally irelevant to the current discussion. This argument was sparked by Revtims recollection of how “France said they’d veto under any circumstance”. This I called a distorsion / lie; which it is.
And that’s what’s being discussed, not how the french would have acted in the future.
That all of this is one big hijack, is of course another matter.
Their own words, Rick. You and Sua are both projecting.
clairobscur, to be fair some of the anti-French spin was produced by Blair, and not all American posters have been as prone to scapegoating or demonizing the French. Still, I understand how you must feel. Bon courage. 
Beagle, your paraphrase is still a bit misleading. You wrote, “In response to a question about “tonight’s” resolution, fine, Chirac made some general pronouncements about what type of resolution he would support.”
A better paraphrase would be, “In response to a question about the resolution then on offer, Chirac made some pronouncements about how he would respond to that particular resolution at that particular time.”
Bricker, any reasonable person who read the entire text of Chirac’s comments would have easily been able to “parse” his meaning. That certain words may have been taken out of context in some articles isn’t Chirac’s fault but the fault of the journalists in question, no?
Clair: I might agree with you about American ignorance about France. But perhaps you might also agree about the astonishing level of ignorance you Europeans have about America. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen a European come up with some bizarre assertion about America and Americans.
And of course, I’m also tired of the assertion that Americans are brainwashed by the biased American media, while Europeans are educated by the unbiased European media.
Folks, for some more context on France’s position, see if this works for you:
Frankly, France’s position was entirely consistent with the (US sponsored) UNSC Resolution 1441. Add to that the context that France voted for UNSC Resolution 678 that previously authorized the use of force against Iraq (regarding Kuwait). Further add to the context that the US agreed to remove “automaticity” from 1441 in order to get unanimous UNSC approval.
Can we put this hijack to rest?