Was trashing France a good idea?

Great Debates
101

Thanks for the links. But did you envision I might not have chosen this quote randomly?

[quote]
What makes it even worse is that, in my mind’s ear, I’m hearing your posts being read in a voice which is a strange combination of John Cleese’s French Soldier from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Maurice Chevalier, which can be a bit annoying, to say the least.

[quote]

You really have an issue with “unenglish” languages and accents. Not very convincing as an argument, IMO.

And indeed you’re right, the sky is grey here. And you look a lot as a francophobic, too.

There’s nothing infantile about having an independant foreign policy. Actually, I can’t see the advantage for a country of having a “dependant” foreign policy. Not voting in the US elections, I’d rather not have french policies decided by Bush. Actually, I would rather have them not decided by Chirac, either, but at least, I’ve a theorical say in the matter in this case.

Reflexively? No. Purposefully. Not reflexively, since as you would notice if you had other concerns apart from french accent, you’d notice that french and american policies are actually often in agreement. For instance recently about Lebanon and Syria. Purposefully, because it has been a deliberate choice and long-standing french policy to counter american influence, not because french don’t like hamburgers or english speakers, or out of jealousy, but because french governments think it serves France’s interests better.

Making an Euro being a motivation? You bet it is! You somehow believe that other countries are above that?

Yes, some did, that’s quite clear to me. Policy makers? I’m yet to see the name of someone who could have been involved in the decision-making re. Irak in 2002 in the corresponding list. The closest I’ve seen so far is a former interior minister who’s a personnal and political ennemy of Chirac, and an ambassador who were both sacked by Chirac after his last election. I’m at a loss to understand how they would have had a say in the president’s decision on this issue.

On the other hand, I remember quite well that the list of names of american citizens involved in the same scandal had not been disclosed, for some (mysterious??) reason when these lists were made public. Have they been since?

I remember the french government insisting on further inspections. I remember also the american administration opposing it. Rewrite history much?

Sure, the french government did so. But not because some random people had gotten money from Saddam’s Irak. Actually, the bussiness world lobbied in favor of supporting the american stance. First because there’s a lot of trade between France andthe USA, and they were worried that this whole french boycott thing would make lose them money, and more importantly for a reason that you and many others seem to completely overlook. Everybody knew that the USA was going to attack regardless. There wasn’t the slightest doubt about it. And everybody knew too, of course, that the invasion would succeed. And french companies wanted their share of post-war juicy contracts. That’s why they wanted France to side with the USA, and not against it, as you seem to believe.

As for the real reason to oppose the US stance there were many and perfectly sensible. Here they are :

-Oppose the US unilateralism (and with a french accent) and promote unilateralism. Because that is in France’s best interest, or at least judged so.

-France was worried (and it was’t the only country worried by that) by the long-term control of oil and gas reserve. Not about short-term contracts, but long-term control. Worried by the US control of the gas reserve of central Asia following Afghanistan, by the close relationship between Washington and Ryad, by the american policies in Venezuela and Nigeria, and in this case by the likehood of an american “lapdog government” being installed in Irak. France doesn’t want the USA do have a control of the oil faucet 20 years down the road. Nobody wants that, actually, apart, of course, from the USA.

-Though it always cautiously avoided to make any public statement about this, the unnoficial french position about WMD and more generally about the risk presented by Irak was that Irak probably had some WMD (or more exactly combat gases, like mustard gas), but that 1) These weapons were in all likehood old and present only in very limited quantity 2) The state of dereliction of the Iraki army was such that it couldn’t possibly be a threat even for its immediate neighbors, let alone for western countries. And of course references to the building of nuclear weapons were just laughed at.

-The french government was fully convinced that the USA would be totally unable to handle the situation in Irak after the invasion (and was clearly proved right, as you might have noticed), and worried that the resulting chaos could spread over Iraki borders and could destabilize the whole region.

  • The french population was overwhelmingly opposed to an invasion of Irak. French politicians too keep an eye on the pools.

Indeed. Chinese market has been pretty attractive lately. Though nobody wants China to invade Taiwan. Not even french speaking french with a french accent. Actually, France would be perfectly willing to sell weapons to both sides. :wink: . Note that it’s not just about selling weapons, in reality. China has become very talented in using carrots to get things done. If you support their position, you can sell them trains, power plants, planes, etc… Possibly even Camembert.

Yes. Sure. Whatever.

Actually, you don’t even know who it hurts. It might be as well americans working for a “french” company or the Japanese stockholders of said “french” company Apart in the case of small businesses, like, say, cheese producers. (that is, when the boycotters correctly identified french companies, since lists of “companies to boycott” I saw included french-sounding companies that weren’t french, and excluded american-sounding companies that were french) . Anyway, it turned out that the boycott actually didn’t hurt much.

I won’t argue against the untrustworthy assholeness of french politicians, at least not of the current ones.

And what else do you expect, exactly? The old adage : “countries have no friends, only interests” still stands. OK. There are some rare cases when policies are actually decided on the basis of what is considered right or wrong. Or it’s somewhat taken into account. Or used as a pretense.

Actually, the french assistance was quite significant and a lot of money was spent on it. Now, I’m not sure how Louis XVI foreign policies 225 years ago are very relevant regarding current events. OK. It sounds nice to mention Lafayette in a speech during an official visit. I suppose it pleases part of the audience.

102

Moderator’s Note: 1. We can generally deal with problems much more quickly when we have the cooperation of the members; tomndebb first posted to this thread about an hour after the post in question was reported to us by another member.

2. Complaints about board moderation beyond this should go in a separate thread in the BBQ Pit, so we don’t disrupt this thread anymore.

103

Why not, instead of being dismissive by trying to put words in the mouths of your opponents, simply make your case with facts and explanations. From reading most of your stuff, here, it seems that you are the one who is bending over backward to avoid giving legitimate credit to France even when it is due.

Frankly, most of your attempts to dismiss France have sounded like the worst sort of cherry-picking couched in a stereotypical “Manly Man Yanks hate French” tone of voice.

Ratchet down the personal stuff and try to address the issues.

(And, no, you had no need to report the insult directed at you, especially since you were not whining about it in the thread.)

104

To answer the OP, trashing France was stupid. Otoh, paying little heed to France was wise.

Please. All the nations backstab each other all the times.

105

So is it “infantile” for any country to wnat a foreign policy, or is it only infantile for the French to want a foreign policy? If so, why?

That’s an interesting assertion. France, has reflexively supported the United States at every turn within the past generation, with one exception. As I recall, France made one of the largest contributions to the first Iraq War and to the war in Afghanistan. Your statement perfectly proves my claim that many American conservatives have highly selective short-term memory, and make their judgements by ignoring the evidence that doesn’t support their opinions.

You claim that this is a direct quote. Do you have a cite to back it up?

You claim that this is a direct quote. Do you have a cite to back it up?

[qutoe]Their political class, on the other hand, is a pack of untrustworthy assholes (hey, I guess the US and France are almost just alike). They are neither particularly strong, nor particularly loyal. Any “favor” they do is not generosity, it is self-interest
[/QUOTE]

Let me rephrase my argument.

Any time that any nation makes a contribution to a cause that doesn’t directly benefit themselves, they’re not doing it out of generosity. They’re doing it out of a desire to get into the good favor of someone else. For instance, when Lithuania and Japan and other countries sent troops to back the invasion of Iraq, they did so because the United States was then in their debt. They expect to collect some favor from the United States at a later date.

The many major favors that the French have done for the United States over the years followed a similar logic. When the United States suddenly went into France-trashing mode, it was breaking the unspoken understanding about how foreign affairs work. It was sayings, in essence, we’re ignoring our debt to France. All of the childish insults (they smell bad, they surrendered WWII, they eat cheese, they mismanaged Haiti 200 years ago, they’re snooty and arrogant, they refuse to subjugate their entire foreign policy to the superior desires of America) only make the problem worse. Any of those insults, or similar ones, could be used to justify backstabbing other nations at any other time.

Consequently, if you’re the leader of some arbitrary other country, you see this sequence of events as a warning that the United States does not return its favors. Consequently, you become less likely to do favros for the United States, since you won’t be getting anything in return.

106

Was France trashing the US (repeatedly) a ‘good idea’? :stuck_out_tongue: I’d have to go with ‘yes’ as my answer in both cases. It lets folks let off some steam and really there is usually not much effect one way or the other. Our two nations seem to have a love/hate thing going between us, and have for some time now. I think we both compete in the same markets, we both want to be THE power in Europe, to be Top Dog™. So, periodically we annoy the shit out of each other and then resort to this kind of infantile response to blow off the excess steam…then we can be ‘friends’ again (well, at least more friendly anyway).

-XT

107

Just because a small country (population under 10MM- #99 in this list) doesn’t have a dominant role in the world scene, that doesn’t make them a “shitty little country.” Israel’s influence is WAY disproportionate to their population (and that isn’t some anti-semetic slur- just the facts)- they are a lot bigger players on the world scene than similarly sized El Salvador or Tajikistan, or countries twice as big, such as Zimbabwe and Ecuador, or even countries that are more than 10x bigger, such as the Phillipines or Ethiopia. They’ve proven time and time again that they can stand up to their hostile/ formerly hostile neighbors that outnumber them 19-1 (last big conflict- 1973 Yom Kippur War- current population of main Arab participants, i.e. Egypt, Syria, Iraq & Jordan- ~128MM; current population of Israel- 6.7MM; proportion doesn’t count other Arab countries that sent minor contributions, or Cuba and Uganda, who also reportedly sent minor contributions). France also has power and influence in excess of their share of the world population (#20 in the world, counting only Metropolitan France). I’ve granted that they are more powerful and influential than the following countries that outnumber them, population-wise: Thailand, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Ethiopia, Germany (for now), Vietnam, the Phillipines, Mexico, Japan (for now), Nigeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Brazil, Indonesia, and maybe India. That’s 15 or 16 of the 19 nations that are bigger in population than France.

If I were a French Ambassador, I might call France a “Shitty Little Country,” but I’m not and I haven’t. I figured it wasn’t a random quote, but if you are trying to blacken my name with a comparison to an undiplomatic French diplomat, I take offense at this affront to my honor. I demand satisfaction. [sound of gauntlet being thrown down] (for the humor impaired… I’m not really challenging clairobscur to a duel)

I think I see the problem here. You seem to think that, if I say a country is not a big player, that it is some sort of insult. It’s not an insult, just a statement of fact.

You seem to really have an issue with humor (however bad it is, I thought it was pretty obvious that it was a joke, what with Monty Python being involved, plus an entertainer that was pretty much a French caracature). I guess I’ll have to pencil in “lacks sense of humor” under the French page in my handy-dandy, US State Department issued book: “National Stereotypes for Fun and Profit.” (that’s another bad joke, if you couldn’t tell).

Well, if it’s any comfort, the sky here was black with little white specks when I wrote that last post. I guess that makes me dishonest, to boot.

If you would take the time to read a complete sentence, you would see that I said “As long as France has the infantile need to prove it has an independent foreign policy, they are going to reflexively oppose the US at every turn, especially if they can earn a Euro doing it.” “Infantile” modifies “need to prove,” not “ha[ving] an independent foreign policy.”

Allies usually act as a team. There might be minor departures from the unified line, but as a whole, they are, dare I say, “dependant” on each other. When one member of the team decides they don’t like the play-calling, and goes his own way, then the team would be better off without him. France, upset that the team doesn’t always run her plays, and a little jealous of the relationship between two other team players, has decided time and time again to do what France wants, the team be damned. Then France gets upset when the rest of the team reacts with bewilderment.

In other words, France will only consider France. Don’t be upset when America only considers America (of course, our friends and allies often benefit at least as much as us from our pursuit of our interests).

No. Just don’t be upset when French motives are sometimes called “mercenary.”

Don’t know. Don’t really care. The former French Interior Ministry folks might have had some lingering influence- France didn’t change tacks after sacking the offenders we know about.

The French position seemed to be that, if the world only said “Pretty Please” enough times, Iraq would finally cave in and allow inspections (if only to shut France up). The US/UK position was that jaw-boning, even French jaw-boning, wasn’t doing the trick, and force or threat of force was required.

All perfectly good points. IMO, the American invasion has been a series of fuck-ups (most of the avoidable, especially with more cooperation from more partners). Things might have gone a whole lot better if we were able to threaten Saddam with a UN stick, instead of actually using a smaller stick (only the “coalition of the willing”).

In 2005, China passed a law that basically threatens Taiwan with invasion and/or destruction if it “secedes” (the official PRC gov’t English translation uses language trying to equate Taiwan with the southern US states in 1860). France, through it’s Prime Minister, says “The anti-secession law is completely compatible with the position of France.” The US, UK, Japan, and the EU as a whole disagree: “[The European Parliament expresses] its deepest concern at the large number of missiles in southern China aimed across the Taiwan Straits and at the so-called “anti-secession law” of the People’s Republic of China that in an unjustified way aggravates the situation across the Straits; calls on the People’s Republic of China and on the R.O.C. in Taiwan to resume political talks on the basis of mutual understanding and recognition in order to promote stability, democracy, human rights and the rule of law in east Asia[.]” source France seeks to end the EU weapons embargo (I presume it’s so that France may profit from selling China weaponry, that may be used against Taiwan and the US). Luckily, the majority of the EU disagrees.

Sell them all the trains, power plants, planes (civilian planes only, please), etc. you can. Please don’t sell them things that will, in all likelyhood, be used to threaten Taiwan and America. America will be (justifiably) pissed at that borderline casus belli.

I know China hasn’t been front page news (except for their economic vigor) for about 4.5 years, but they’re still the threat they were 5 years ago.

What part of “boycott was unproductive” was unclear? I assume French food products are still made by French farmers (that is, when they aren’t busy burning down McDonald’s restaurants). I assume French companies still employ French workers (that is, when the younger ones aren’t burning down the rest of Paris), no matter where the stockholders reside. Even when I agree with you, French contrariness pops up. If I add in “the boycott was silly, stupid, crazy,…(insert long list of derogatory adjectives)…”, will that be enough?

It’s universal- the job tends to draw dishonest assholes, whether it’s in France, the US, China, or Burkina Faso.

Then, going back to the OP, since France is not a friend (countries don’t have friends), and often acts contrary to US interests, it’s just fine for people in the US to mock, deride, and/or ignore France. I’m glad we agree.

It was important enough to be mentioned in the OP, which I was answering. It tends to be thrown around every time an American has any cross words to say about France. It wasn’t motivated out of any republican zeal by Louis XVI; it was motivated by the urge to help British colonists kill British soldiers (in other words, stirring up shit in a rival’s realm). The reaction of the Marquis de Lafayette and Comte de Rochambeau (the two French aristocrats leading their contingent), once out of earshot of Washington, probably both exclaimed “Sacre Bleu! They weren’t supposed to win!” Louis XVI was a bit pissed when the revolutionary spirit came home to roost in France 8 years later (I hear he completely lost his head).

108

The words I was “put[ting] in the mouths of [my] opponents” were only slightly paraphrased. I’ll stick to direct, cut-and-paste quotes from this post on (excepting speculative quotes from long dead historical figures and one or two sentence reductions of long-winded statements from diplomatic blowhards). The one bit of predictive putting-words-in-the-mouth-of-my-opponent (you’d probably reply “The sky’s grey here, you Francophobic Ignorant American. Now go away before I taunt you a second time.”), was greeted, in response, with “…the sky is grey here. And you look a lot as a francophobic, too.” I didn’t know I was capable of a Jedi Mind Trick. I’ll have to remember that ability the next time I go to the bank (While waving my hands around, saying “My balance is… ONE MEEEEELION DOLLARS”).

And it seems to me that everyone debating me is bending over backward to avoid placing legitimate blame on France when it is due (unless, they cop to something and follow up with a tu quoque). If my opponents can’t make a legitimate counter-arguement, do I have to make it for them?

And most of the counter-examples have sounded, to me, like the worst sort of blame-shifting and glory-grabbing, couched in a stereotypical “strange combination of John Cleese’s French Soldier from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Maurice Chevalier” tone of voice. Different strokes for different folks.

Is this a semi-official warning, or just debating advice? If it’s the former, I must protest that the only “personal stuff” was the joking Monty Python/ Maurice Chevalier reference- if that’s what qualifies as a personal insult, then maybe your semi-offical warning shouldn’t contain such gems as “‘Manly Man Yanks hate French’ tone of voice.” Just sayin’, for consistancy’s sake.

109

See above.

France has reflexively supported the US at every turn within the past generation, except at every other turn in the past generation, when they haven’t. Your statement perfectly proves my claim that many (insert pigeonhole here) have highly selective short- and long-term memory, and make their judgements by ignoring the evidence that doesn’t support their opinions.

I made no such claim. Being that it was a general paraphrase of non-participants in this debate, I used quotation marks, instead of quote tags (per the closest board rule I could find, those of the Pit):

Apply this to the “put[ting] words into the mouth of [my] oppponents” stuff above, as well.

I made no such claim. See above.

If American back-stabbing self-interest can justify anti-American feelings (which, judging from a plurality, if not majority, of GD and the Pit, it can), then French back-stabbing self-interest justifies anti-French feelings. If they can’t run with the big dogs, they should keep their ass on the porch. If France wants to be the Terrell Owens of the western world, they should probably be traded off the team (they seem to be begging to be traded to China), for the greater good of the team.

110

Hey, fantastic. Now that you’ve claimed that the sentences you put in quotes were “slightly paraphrased” versions of real quotes from the French, why don’t you show us which real quotes you were slightly paraphrasing? For instance, you claim that the French said:

only not in so many words. Are you going to provide us a link to an instance of the French giving us a slightly more long-winded version of this quote?

Then you also claimed that the French said:

I’m also waiting for a link to the instance where the French said something that means the same as this.

Your original quote was:

By using the words “reflexively” and “every”, you were stating that the French have opposed the interests of the United States on each and every issue that was brought up for international debate, in all of history. Thus, to prove your statement wrong, I only need to cite one instance where France did not oppose the United States. I provided two such instances, and I could easily have provided ten. Are you still holding strong to your claim that Frances will “reflexively oppose the US at every turn”, or have you retreated from that claim?

111

Just debating advice.

I’m not really excited about participating in this thread, but I would have to say that you have gotten a large number of your talking points wrong and doing so in a dismissive and flip manner makes it look as though you know less about the topic than you may.

Your claims (as expressed) about France’s position of WMDs was wrong.
Your claims (as expressed) about Haiti were silly.
Your claims (as expressed) about French participation in the Oil For Food scandal are too broad, attempting to link a nation with a small number of crooks within that nation looks like so much American jingoism.
Your claims (as expressed) that France is not a significant player in the world economy or world power struggles is baseless and appears to be driven by an emotional need to discount things with which you disagree, even when you have no facts to support your position.

112

Can we add Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands and England to the list of countries that left messed colonies behind? Or does that get on the way of your France-bashing tirade? Blaming France for the entirety of Haiti’s situation reveals a great deal of ignorance on the subject. I expected better of you.

113

Come to think of it, I haven’t heard of big political or other problems from the République du Congo, the former French colony that is the former Zaire’s neighbor. Wasn’t that where dinosaurs were rumored to be living?

114

Well, I didn’t blame France for the entirety of Haiti’s situation. I said they contributed to it (which they undoubtedly did). Anyone claiming otherwise is setting up strawmen.

As far as the colonization hijack goes, add Belgium, Italy and Germany to the list. They messed things up in Africa as well. The legacy of European colonization has left shitheaps all over the world. Whether those shitheaps would be worse or better off if Europe had left them alone is debateable.

The most successful former UK colonies (US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) are only, or mostly, that successful because of policies that were either bordering on, or well past the line of, genocide.

Maybe we can start a new great debate on the legacy of European colonization. If I don’t see one in the next few days, I’ll start one myself.

115

Well, other than the point that what you quoted was in reference and respose to tomndebb’s accusation of me putting words in my opponents’ mouths (in that case, clairobscur). I also said, farther down, that “quotes” from long-dead historical figures and diplomatic blowhards were paraphrased. Where I said “paraphrased” there, maybe I should have said “totally made up, based on my observations of their actions (which supposedly speak louder than words).”

Since I purged my hard drive last week, I don’t have my archives of my wiretaps of the French UN ambassador’s phone, or my recordings of the wires I had on several top Chinese officials. You’ll have to pardon me if I can’t produce the actual transcripts.

They didn’t use words to send all of these messages. The French position, IIRC, was that they wanted weapons inspectors back in Iraq. Since Saddam made it clear he wasn’t going to allow that, the French escalated the pressure- they asked again to send inspectors. That didn’t work. So the French ratcheted up the pressure- they asked again to send inspectors. All the while, France made it clear that they would veto any authorization of force. All the while, the US & UK were standing around, tapping there feet, looking at their watches, saying (and this is another dramatized “quote,” please don’t hold me to finding the documentation) “If we don’t get this done soon, we won’t be able to do it 'til next winter.” (Since just about everybody at the time thought that Iraq had, at the very least, battlefield chemical weapons, the invasion was going to be done in MOPP gear, which is like trodding around in your own little portable Turkish bath- miserable in late winter, impossible in the spring, mind-blowingly suicidal in the summer.) Since Saddam had repeatedly demonstrated his intransigence (recall the lead-up to the first Gulf War, when Saddam wouldn’t heed UN calls to get the hell out of Kuwait, even when there were armies from around the world poised to force him out), so asking him over and over “pretty please, can we send in inspectors?” was futile. “Accept the inspections gracefully, or we’ll make you accept the inspections at the point of a gun” might have worked. Hell, even “Let Hans Blix in, or we’ll send our crack commando mime troupe to do the inspections” might have worked. By saying they’ve veto any UNSC resolution calling for force to back up the requests, they basically said “Don’t worry about letting inspectors in”- even if they intended to drop the veto threat later, since “later” meant that force wasn’t going to be used (except by those that wanted to choose between mustard gas and heat stroke for their method of suicide).

This is the easy one. Let’s break it down:

“Want to go ahead and annex Taiwan? Why don’t you wait until we can get this EU arms embargo lifted?”: While on a state visit to China, then-Prime Minister Raffarin lent support to a new “Anti-Secession” Law, saying “The anti-secession law is completely compatible with the position of France.” He also vowed to keep pushing for an end to the EU arms embargo. (April 2005, One source, of many) Chirac and current PM de Villepin have also affirmed the desire to end the arms embargo. (source, another source) The EU in general doesn’t feel this way: one EP vote on this matter (cited above- link), in summary:

More detail (source, page 11)

I couldn’t find detailed vote counts, but I would suspect the minority (opposing this statement) is mostly French.

“Then we’ll sell you some functional armaments for you to use, instead of those cheap, Chinese knock-offs of Soviet stuff.”: Pure speculation on my part, based on the evidence that it’s mainly the French in favor of dropping the embargo. As has been stated by people here arguing in France’s favor, France acts in their own self-interest, which includes making a few Euros off weapons sales. I doubt they would come right out and call current Chinese weapons systems “cheap Chinese knock-offs…,” but that’s what most of China’s armaments are. Hopefully, they work as well as most of the Chinese merchandise I’ve had the misfortune of purchasing.

“Our Exocet missiles are proven to be effective against both Royal Navy and US Navy ships!”: More pure speculation on my part. I’m sure the official brochures from Aérospatiale don’t brag about their success against Royal Navy ships (Exocets were used by Argentina in the Falklands War, sinking a destroyer and a logistics ship, and damaging another destroyer) or a US Navy ship (USS Stark, struck by two Iraqi Exocets in 1989), but I’m sure the sales pitch includes something about it. They probably fail to mention that missiles hitting the two RN destroyers and the USN cruiser didn’t work right, unless they also say “Hell, even when they don’t work as designed, they still fuck up the target.” Exocets killed, by my count for these incidents: 34 RN sailors, 2 Royal Fleet Auxilliary Seamen, 8 British merchant mariners (the last two categories were on the logistics ship, a requisitioned merchant ship), and 37 US Navy sailors. (I’m not saying that weapons from US or UK sources haven’t ended up killing French soldiers or sailors, or American or British, for that matter. I’m saying that it would be against US and Taiwan interests to sell them to the Chinese. The US is supposedly an ALLY of France, and Taiwan supposedly has friendly relations with Taiwan- or, as about as friendly as the insecure cross-strait bully will allow.)

You win. I should remove the words “every” and “all,” from my vocabulary, because they’ll be taken literally. I “retreat from that claim” (and I’ll bite my tongue there). They haven’t opposed the US at EVERY SINGLE FREAKIN’ TURN. They’ll go along with the US occassionally, especially if they can make it look like it is the US going along with them.

Touché

OTOH, you claimed that

(bolding mine, source: post #105). I’ve supplied two examples (Iraq and China), and I could easily provide ten. You only said there was one exception (I assume you meant Iraq with the one you concede), and I’ve proven this wrong.

I guess we’re both wrong. Fucking absolutes (“all”, “every”, “always”, etc.).

116

You recall poorly.

A better description of the event was that Bush went to the UN looking for a pretext for war. France thought the first proposal was valid: invite the inspectors back in or we are going to resort to force. So France backed the resolution. Following which, Hussein invited the inspectors back in. Bush stamped his foot and said “But that won’t give me my war! Let’s ratchet up the pressure.” To this France responded, if you needed a war, you should have used a better pretext. (And why are you shipping troops over to the Middle East when Hussein is cooperating with the resolution that you introduced?)
So Bush came back with a new resolution that would have allowed a war on false pretenses, (since, as you have already noted, Bush was going to have a war regardless). At that point, France said, No, you wanted a resolution; you got a resolution; Hussein is complying with that resolution; we will not allow you to use the UN in violation of its own charter to give you a false cover for your personal desire for a war and we will never support this second resolution.

Had Hussein prohibited the inspectors in the winter of 2002-2003, there could be some criticism of France, but he let them in and your storyline sounds as though it was taken from the Rove playbook, not a recounting of the actual events.

117

I stand corrected tomndebb on the Iraq issue. Mea culpa. Ignorance fought.

Now what about China?

118

Don’t leave out Portugal. Madame Kerry was born in colonial Mozambique.

And Spain. Remember Fernando Poo? The coup d’état there almost immanentized the Eschaton.

119

Actually, though I don’t remember now if it was publically or not, officially or not, France admitted that the presence of US troops in the gulf was serving an useful purpose to pressure Irak into accepting full-scale inspections.

I would also note that until maybe december or january (I can’t remember when anymore) France still envisionned the possibility of sending troops to Irak too. Chirac warned the french population at least twice (maybe more, but I remember having heard it two times) that french troops might have to be sent to fight in Irak. At this time, there were reports in the medias about troops training, what kind of gear they would have (mentionned because NBC gear implied that France thought chemical weapons could be used), this sort of thing. So, until some months before the invasion, a french military involvment wasn’t off the table.

More exactly : the last french proposal was to allow pursuing the inspections for, I believe around two months (I’m not sure of the exact delay) and then coming back to the UN to decide what to do in case of non-compliance by Irak or incrimatory findings by the inspectors, not excluding the use of force in these cases. The last US proposal was a two weeks delay (once again, I’m not sure it was exactly two weeks) after that the use of force against Irak would be allowed in case of non-compliance.

The two main problems with this US resolution were :

  1. That the delay was totally unrealistic according to essentially everybody (in particular according to the inspectors) to establish the facts that were to be established. Is was judged as being plainly materially impossible. The (non-official) reason for this short delay allegedly was that the USA had already set in stone the date of the invasion and didn’t intend to change it in any case.

  2. While the french proposal meant that the UN would have to eventually decide about the use of force at the end of the delay, the US proposal aleady included the authorisation to use it if Irak didn’t comply, without any precision about how and by whom it would be decided it didn’t. So, it would have allowed the USA to decide single-handedly at the end of this period that Irak wasn’t compliant and to launch a “lawful” invasion, regardless of the finding of the inspectors. Basically this resolution would have been the equivalent of stating “The USA (or anybody else) can invade if it feels like it at the end of these two weeks”.
    This is this project of resolution that France opposed completely, stating that it would veto it regardless [ it refered to this particular resolution, and the regardless refered to regardless of what other members of the UN security council would do or vote, though it was presented by the american admnistration (and some medias) as “regardless of the circumstances, at any time in the future, for any reason”. I posted once a link here to the actual transcript showing clearly that what was discussed was this resolution, not any kind of absolute refusal to ever authorize the use of force].
    The UK tried briefly, and without success, to hammer out some sort of compromise.
    After an intense lobbying on both sides (I remember in particular the comment of a high ranking official of an African country that unfortunately happened to have a seat at the UNSC at this time, explaining that an US and a French representant both came basically to blackmail his country into voting respectively “yes” and “no”, with dire consequences in each case), the USA eventually gave up, when it became clear its resolution wouldn’t get even a simple majority at the UNSC (though a super-majority was required for the resolution to pass, and though a single veto would also have had be enough to block it, the US admnistration thought that at least a single majority or ideally a super-majority blocked by a french veto would give the military option, if not a “legal” ointment, at least a moral one and would be good PR).

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clairobscur,

Thank you very much for setting the record straight and exposing the falsehoods sneaked in by tomndebb.

IMHO, tomndebb is quickly becoming the major embarassment among the moderators group, with his baseless partisan fabrications.