Hee! Never thought about it that way. I’ll help. Of course, I may have to, uh, quarantine some of the wines in my wine fridge for a suitable period. All in the interest of safety, of course.
I got a few laughs out of the freedom fries and freedom toast thing. I giggled at the “cheese eating surrender monkeys” stuff too. But, in the spirit of making Amurrica safe from the freedom haters and Amurrica haters, I will bravely step forward and offer to quarantine and “dispose of” all the freedom wine you have. I will be steadfast and resolute, I will not waver. 
I used to make fun of the French in the silly “cheese-eating surrender monkey” sort of way. Then people started actually hating France and it wasn’t fun anymore…
I’ve studied enough history to know that nothing has a single cause. If you read my post I never said that it was all France’s fault. Yes, my country invaded another soverign state and thousands of people have died as a result. Perhaps others are in denial about this but I am not. What I said was that France and company threw up an entire series of roadblocks that derailed what might have been a bloodless course of action on the part of the United States. I haven’t got a crystal ball and can’t prove that it would have happened this way, but this is what the State Department was trying to achieve.
You mock me for basing my argument on conjecture, and then proceed to do exactly the same yourself. I don’t give a rat’s ass what “everybody outside the USA” believes about it. What they believe doesn’t prove a thing. “Evidence overwhelmingly suggests”…what evidence? Yes, the government had drawn up plans to invade Iraq long beforehand. That’s just a wise course of action, and not proof that these plans would have been used under *any *circumstances. Any general worth his salt will tell you that battles are won or lost during the planning stages (now if only they’d drawn up a decent plan for the aftermath…). Modern armies are so complex that battle plans take years to draw up.
As to your arguements about the WMD search, I can’t comment. I don’t know enough to refute what you say, but this does not mean I concede your points.
Whether France was making money under the table is *entirely *relevant. France is supposed to be our ally. They acted covertly to prop up the dictator we were trying to pressure into cooperating. The undermined the peace process by making it possible for Sadaam to hold out longer under the sanctions that they, as a part of the U.N., had helped to initiate.
No WMDs? Tell the thousands of Kurds executed with mustard gas that there were no WMDs. We know he had them. What we didn’t know is how many of them he’d destroyed, and how many he might have hidden away. Britain’s intelligence sources said that Sadaam had WMDs. Russia’s said the same. Ours said the same. So when all of them turn out (apparently) to be wrong, you make the assumption that we knew it all along but were lying about it? Please.
Saddam Housein rose through the ranks, starting as a common thug, and winding up the sole reigning dictator in a wealthy country, ruling absolutely for some thirty years. You don’t do this without being the meaning, sneakiest, canniest sonofabitch in town. He survived god-knows how many assassination attempts, coups, plots, infiltrations, and always came out at the top of the heap. If you think the rapid collapse of his military was anything other than the result of a brilliant plan perfectly executed by a first-rate force, you’re sadly mistaken.
The arguments you have laid out make it perfectly obvious to me that you’re not interested in the truth of the matter. You have decided that you know exactly what the leaders of the U.S. government were thinking, what their motives were, and that anyone who says otherwise is some kind of mindless lackey. Let’s look at your arguments.
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The US would have invaded Iraq regardless.
Wrong. If Saddam had cooperated with the U.N. and given inspecters full access to all suspected WMD sites, a bill to allow military action would never have passed through Congress. The fact that it passed was due to our country’s frustration with the U.N., which was more than happy to help draft all kinds of documents ordering Iraq to give up their weapons, but (thank you France) refused to do anything to back it up. -
What France was doing didn’t matter.
Matter to who? Are you such a moral relativist as to believe that any action taken out of self-interest is excusable? Chirac stabbed us in the back, and this is fine with you because “we were going to invade anyway?” -
We knew all along that there were no WMDs.
I don’t know which is worse: your poor memory for the facts, or your cynical need to blame the Bush administration for believing the same reports that England, Russia, and plenty of other nations believed. If Saddam did, in fact, get rid of his weapons and we invaded due to false information, then the simple fact is that we fucked up. And I’ll be the first to admit it. But no, that’s not good enough for you. There must be an evil mastermind behind this all. Please. -
Saddam was no big deal anyway.
Either you are simply indulging in a feeble rhetorical trick (“So you climbed K2? Big deal. It’s not that big.”) or you’re sadly uninformed. Go read up on Houssein if you think he was a featherweight. Then we’ll talk.
All four of your basic points are pure anti-Bush party line bullshit. If you don’t like Bush or his policies, fine. I’m not exactly a big fan of the guy either. But please don’t waste any more of my time with brainless drivel.
Then let’s drop this ridiculous France-bashing. It’s comical. On the list of Things That Contributed To The War, even the most pro-Bush angle puts it at about 1%. I think it’s at 0%, but that’s hardly much different.
I don’t believe it for a second. It is hardly conjecture that the United States was planning to invade Iraq irrespective of the results of weapons inspections or UNSC votes. France’s actions simply weren’t much of an issue.
Sorry, but on the blame list, they’re wayyyy down. This France-bashing phenomenon is nothing more or less than misdirection and junior-grade bigotry.
This is just sad - I can’t believe you’re trotting this one out now. Yes, we know Iraq used WMD fifteen years ago. *How does that make Iraq a threat in 2003? *
Look, if the United States invaded Iraq over what it did to the Kurds, great. Dunno why they’d wait that long, though, and if that’s really the case, then it’s kid of silly to bash France for dealing with Iraq when the USa did plenty of business with them in those bad old days of the Iran-Iraq War and gassing civilians.
For Christ’s sake, man, look at what side you’re talking. THE UNITED STATES WAS WRONG. THERE WERE NO WMDS THERE. THERE WAS NO THREAT. And you’re blaming a country that wasn’t even a combatant. Moral relativism, my ass; this is a matter of ignoring the redwood jammed into your own eye to scream about the speck in your brother’s. Oooh, the nasty French didn’t play along in your splendid little war. Get over it.
I don’t HAVE to prove Iraq did not have WMDs or that Bush knew they didn’t; I simply have to point to the naked facts. They didn’t have them, and the Bush administration, while claiming they did, behaved as if they did not. It is fact, not conjecture, that the Bush administration lied about the “African uranium” stories, lied about the “aluminum tubes” story, and very deliberately drew a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida that simply didn’t exist. That U.S. troops exerted virtually no effort in securing WMD sites is a fact, not an opinion, and one that’s been discussed here a thousand times. If you’re going to start a war and kill thousands of civilians, the onus of proof is on the aggressor. Where was the proof?
Okay, I did. Here are some facts:
Date of Start of War: March 20, 2003
Baghdad Falls: April 9, 2003
Total Days: 20
WMDs Found: 0
You’re telling me this country was an actual security threat to the United States of America? With what? It wasn’t WMDs, and it wasn’t their stellar army. You disagree on whether or not Bush was lying? Fine; but bashing France is just putridly stupid. The French act in their own self-interest, to be sure, and so do all the other sovereign nations on earth.
If the Bush administration had gone to congress and the UN honestly, and said, “This country poses no threat to us at all. The dictator is a ruthless jerk, but he had nothing to do with the 9/11/2001 massacres. We want to depose him, and impose US-style democracy. This war will cost $200 billion,” how many supporters do you think they would have had?
Just out of curiosity, why are so many people willing to believe that everybody was misled by “bad intelligence” except for President Bush? If he’s as phenomenally stupid as the liberals claim, then how did he know so much more than everyone else in the world? How did he see through all the bad information that fooled everyone else in the world and become a liar rather than just another person acting on bad data?
Keeping things on track with the O.P., I didn’t really fault France for saying they wouldn’t participate, but when we found that they were selling weapons to Hussein the whole time, I got pretty pissed. They weren’t just declining to help us–they were actively supporting our opponent, providing weapons that could be used to kill our troops.
This is exactly what I was referring to. The only place you encounter the term “freedom fries” is from the left.*
You used it in the OP, which is what I was requesting that you give up.
By better judgement are you referring to the fact that they didn’t want to give up all of the sweet deals they had with Saddam’s regime, including the Oil For Food Program? The French have a word for a person who believes the French were simply “showing good judgement.” 
- [sup]This petty tactic is used by both the right and the left. I don’t care for it in either case.[/sup]
First off, I apologize for the tone of my post yesterday. I must’ve been in a grouchy mood because It’s really not like me to be as deliberately rude and insulting as my post reflects. That being said, I’ll answer your points as best as I can.
The President of the U.S. is not a dictator, and can’t go to war without the approval of the Congress. And there is simply no way that Bush would have gotten the votes needed to authorize military action if Saddam had bowed to pressure and stopped interfering with the inspections. Our own people were suspicious enough of Bush’s motives, and not very many bought the Iraq-Al Qaeda connection. Plus, Bush had plenty of enemies in Congress after the bitterness of the 2000 election. He was skating on thin ice the whole way, and a great many Americans (myself included) only supported the war once it passed through Congress with such overwhelming support.
Bigotry? My family is French, thank you very much. My argument is with Chirac, not with the French people. And yet again, I am not trying to shift the blame on anyone for the actions of my country. We invaded. France did not. We did what we thought was necessary to protect ourselves, based on the information we had at the time. If I say that France bears culpability for what happened, it is the same culpability as someone who sells a gun to a criminal, knowing that he intends to rob a neighbor.
See, this is where I get frustrated. Critics of this war are incredibly cynical about America’s intentions and motivations, but seem perfectly willing to overlook thirty years worth of lies, deceptions, and system manipulation by Saddam. Over and over and over again you say that there were no WMDs. Then you admit that he had them fifteen years ago, but attach no significance to it. The point is that HE HAD THE WEAPONS, AND WAS WILLING TO USE THEM. And that we had no proof that these had been destroyed. HE HAD THEM. That is undisputable fact. The question that you should be asking is what happened to them.
The matter of blame has already been addressed.
I have already admitted that by all appearances, we fucked up. Massively. Unless and until it can be proven that Saddam’s stockpile was transported to Syria or some other such place (which, believe me, I’m not counting on) we have a heavy burden of responsibility. Where you and I may never agree, however, is on how much of this Bush knew in advance. In order to believe that Bush lied – as opposed to believing false information – one would have to accept that he was in possession of intelligence that nobody else in the world had. Intelligence that contradicted what we were being told by multiple countries. Until I see proof of this, and much more solid proof than what you have offered, I’ll accept that Bush acted on flawed information.
Your statistics, while interesting, don’t prove anything. Hannibal slaughtered some 70,000 Romans on a single afternoon – with almost contemptuous ease – and while badly outnumbered. Does this mean that the Roman armies were insignificant?
The rapid collapse of the Iraqi regime was due to three factors. 1) A well-thought out and perfectly executed battle plan. 2) A superior army. 3) The failure of Saddam to take the threat of armed action seriously. This last was admitted by Tariq Aziz as he made his permanent departure from the Iraqi embassy. Saddam assumed that we would back down yet again, hopelessly entangled by the refusal of the U.N. to enforce their own decrees. Based on past history, his was a perfectly logical conclusion. Assuming that we were only bluffing, he failed to organize a proper defense. End of story.
Once more we return to the issue of France. What Chirac did was morally reprehensible. And I feel perfectly justified in saying that he is no ally to America, nor is anyone who supports his administration. That does not mean I’m going to beat up the first Frenchman I come across, or start a campaign to nuke Paris. But I will continue to see Chirac and those who participated in his little scheme as backstabbing bastards who collaborated with our enemies behind our backs and deliberately sabotaged what we were trying to achieve. This is not childish or imbecilic. It is an appropriate reaction to a betrayal of such magnitude.
He wasn’t smart enough to know that Iraq didn’t pose a threat to the United States, which most everyone else knew at the time.
Either that, or he did know Iraq wasn’t a threat, then played up the WMD Fears™ anyway to sell the war – which makes him a liar of the highest order.
Is there any credible cite that France was actively selling arms to Iraq right before the war? The only references I can find refer to claims by various members of the GOP, who obviously had a vested interest in perpetuating that meme.
To quote from Media Mouse,
Um, you do know that biological and chemical weapons have an active “shelf life” of five years, max, under ideal storage conditions, don’t you? You can’t just stick this stuff in a cupboard, wait twenty years, then dust them off just like that.
Yeah, we still have the receipts.
It all turned into useless sludge.
Kizervexious, your points are well taken and I will reply in more detail later. Since you’re not bashing the FRENCH, but rather just Chirac, I’m not even certain you’re the subject of debate. 
While I am generally on your side of this debate, rjung, that sounds very suspiciously like nonsense. “Biological and chemical weapons” have a five year storage life? Which ones, specifically? “Biological and chemical weapons” includes thousands of possible weapons, warheads, payloads, delivery systems, etc. I find it unlikely in the extreme that there is no chemical weapon you can’t store for over five years. You can store an ordinary smoke grenade for longer than that, without any rudimentary maintenance.
RickJay, I agree. Think of two of the most basic chemical weapons–chlorine gas and mustard gas. They’re not exactly the greatest things to use in battle, but I still don’t want to go inhaling them or getting it on me. I bet you can stick some chlorine or another nasty simple gas in a gas canister for far longer than five years and still do actual chemistry with it, besides trying to kill people with it. Heck, I’ve used chemical compounds in lab work that have been sitting in the stockroom since the 1970s, and they work just fine.
There’s a cafe-style restaurant in Bel Air, MD that proudly serves not only Freedom Fries, but also the Freedom Dip sandwich. I have no doubt as to the conservative nature of the restaurant, its owners, or the county in which it resides. From Washington Post (via AP):
Small dint it makes in their profits, but that’s one restaurant I’ve sworn to never visit again. Not in the mood to have ideology crammed down my throat with my roast beef and au jus.
Let’s ask Scott Ritter, then:
Or how about the US Defense Department?
A pesticide expert speaks:
Maybe, but – aside from possibly mustard gas – there sure didn’t seem to be any in Saddam’s arsenal. And that was the reason we were given to go to war, remember?
I got nothing against the French… really. Maybe Chirac, but not the French in general. My only problem is that they can’t tell a joke. Not even simple ones. Here’s the Frenck version of a knock knock joke:
Knock knock
Who’s there?
I give up.
Damn, that was just mean. God forgive me.
Referring the OP: I believe that as soon as Bush got back on Air Force One, he went straight back to “Jeez - did you get a load of those effing frog pussies?”
History books are likely to say that France tried to make nice and have it both ways, but as Bush and the fiendish war-wankers he surrounds himself with were determined to conduct aggressive war against Saddam from day one, so ultimately it really didn’t matter what the French said or did.
But any American who uses the French as some kind of scapegoat for our subsequent troubles in Iraq - is it total ignorance? Brainwashed foolery? Jingoistic idiocy? Je ne sais quoi.