Prostitution of the pen and the dark side of the free market

[fpb]

Four years ago, the government of the French Republic took the lead in refusing to support the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. The French, who had taken a very active and successful part in the first Iraq war, simply did not think that an invasion followed by the occupation of an Arab country was a good idea. That was their prerogative (see

Comments

[superversive]

Evidently it is to me that you refer by this violent and ignorant caricature. I do not claim, nor do I know of anyone (‘neocon’ or not) who claims, that France has been the enemy of the United States for centuries. What I do claim, and on strong evidence, is that the ostensible alliance between the two countries has masked an increasing and fundamental conflict in recent years, and that by the time Jacques Chirac made himself the vocal (though only verbal) defender of the Hussein regime, France was no more an ally of the U.S. than Russia or China. The U.S. has not claimed to be in alliance with either of those powers at any time since 1949, and it seems clear to me that its pretence of continued alliance with France is kept up chiefly to avoid the diplomatic consequences of an open rupture.

The idea that I believe in some kind of ‘Protocols of the Elders of Paris’, or find some sinister and age-old conspiracy in the acts of the various French governments since the American war of independence, is your own fabrication entirely.

[fpb]

That remains crap. For France's behaviour to be comparable with China's. the country ought to have riddled the United States with industrial spies intending to steal American secrets; to have paid cash down to at least one American president (Clinton); to have systematically ignored copyright laws across the world in order to develop its industry; to have engaged in smuggling on a hitherto unimagined scale; to have recently threatened an American ally (Italy) when, er, "French" immigrants rioted in the streets of its main industrial city at the behest of the "French" mafia; to have ignored and indeed supported the behaviour of North Korea; and to have concluded a strategic alliance with Iran. If France's behaviour were comparable with Russia, it ought to have bullied all its close neighbours with sudden deprivations of badly-needed gas and oil in order to force prices up (France, by the way, could do something of the kind, since it is a massive net exporter of energy because of its huge nuclear apparatus); to have sent government

[jordan179]

As for "protocols of the elders of Paris", it so happens that I know that such publications have been made, sold, and believed.

I did not know this. Can you tell me more about this claim that the French have been prosecuting a long-standing conspiracy against America (which strikes me as hilarious, given that the French have shown an inability to prosecute a long-standing anything regarding anything, at least since the fall of the monarchy in the first French Revolution).

[fpb]

http://www.amazon.com/Our-Oldest-Enemy-Disastrous-Relationship/dp/0385512198/ref=pd_sim_b_3/102-4460705-3775365

[kulibali]

The French oil company TotalFinaElf had the exclusive contract for Iraq's oil fields should the UN sanctions be dissolved.

While France was opposing the Iraq invasion, they were unilaterally invading Cote d'Ivoire, including destroying the air force of the legitimate government (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/09/1526243), and massacring peaceful protesters (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3997885.stm).

In addition, during the 1990s, 60 percent of tropical hardwood sold in France came from the warlords of civil-war-torn Liberia (in John-Peter Pham, _Liberia, Portrait of a Failed State_).

This may not say anything about France's status as a ally of the US, but it says a lot about its stance as an upright and responsible member of the international community.

[fpb]

Boy, have you got the wrong cat by the tail. The "legitimate" government of Laurent Gbagbo had wrecked in a few years the successful state set up by Felix Houphuuet-Boigny with French support, and showed every sign of Mugabeizing the Ivory Coast. The French intervened to stop a civil war which had been caused by Gbagbo's corrupt and tribal policies, and his support for Muslim tribes. And IIRC, the peaceful crowd in question had wrecked the capital Abidjan and beaten up everyone they met. Do not believe everything you read in the papers; let alone the BBC, which is penetrated by Islamic interests from top to bottom. If you really want to hear about French crimes, I could do better myself (Rwanda). But then, it would be wise for a Yank to keep trap tightly shut about illegal interventions in other countries - y utds, que hacieren en Chile? Or about being an irresponsible member of the international community in general.

[jordan179]

But then, it would be wise for a Yank to keep trap tightly shut about illegal interventions in other countries - y utds, que hacieren en Chile?

???

In Chile, we gave money and advice to a native political faction, we did not march our own troops into the country and oust the regime by main force. I suggest you read up on the actual mechanics of the coup that ousted Allende.

Or about being an irresponsible member of the international community in general.

Doubly ???

Most of the trouble America has gotten into has been because we have tried to be a hyper-responsible member of the international community. We have intervened against invasions (such as the North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam) which most of the world community was willing to idly watch completed by conquest. If not for us, the Soviet bloc would have captured the Third World during the Cold War

[fpb]

When people brag of their own responsibility, others usually stop their noses. I suggest you ask a few Latin Americans about the responsibility of American intervention in Latin America over the decades. Even when they eventually converted to imposing democracy instead of brutal military tyranny, their bullying ways and imposition of inappropriate free marketeering managed to make democracy itself look odious. The results you can see right now in places such as Bolivia and Ecuador, where the anti-American backlash is entirely local in origin, let alone in Venezuela.

[dirigibletrance]

While indeed it was a bit silly to say that France has always been our enemy (if they're our enemy at all, it's only recently), I also have to wonder if, perhaps, France's own motives for opposing the invasion were so pure either

[jordan179]

It would, after all, benefit them economically in the long run. Creating an alternative, second Superpower in the world, in the form of the EU, would mean that many smaller countries no longer feel the need to Kowtow to America, that alternative markets exist for goods, and that America, itself, will have to walk a little softer from now on.

If I really thought that France was seriously trying to become the nucleus of a second, also peaceful superpower, I would cheer them on. The world could use a backup "globocop."

However, I do not believe that the French are realistic about this, and I believe that the Europeans are even less realistic. They are fantasizing about "soft power" while a darkness rises in the Mideast, stretching forth its hand to seize nuclear weapons; they are trying to lever us out of the area while imagining that they can appease the growing mass of Islamic Fundamentalists by throwing them both the Israelis, and their own daughters, as so many sacrifices

[fpb]

Sicily was once Muslim. Continental Southern Italy never was, except for a few brief occupations of coastal cities.

Most European countries are awake to the threat of Islam (I would say that Sweden, Norway, Belgium and to some extent Britain and the Netherlands are still in denial). They tend to deal with it mainly as a matter of internal security, on the assumption that the immigration from the third world cannot really be stopped; but action is being taken, and in this field, incidentally, the French have been blazing the way. At any rate, Islam is not the only threat, as has been shown by the recent Chinese riots in Milan and the incredible behaviour of the Chinese government.

[headnoises]

Most European countries are awake to the threat of Islam

*hugs*
That is the most reasuring thing I've read in a week.

It's like we're facing the hordes that tore down Rome, but we know about it, and just watching....

[jordan179]

Sicily was once Muslim. Continental Southern Italy never was, except for a few brief occupations of coastal cities.

... and Italy is prepared to yield Sicily and some "coastal cities" to a resurgant Caliphate?

If not, it is in Italy's interest that America kill the Beast from the East in the womb.

[fpb]

Leave us to worry about Sicily. You have clearly not understood the nature of this conflict. There is no army to be defeated in battle: time and time again, the enemy has proved itself unable to withstand any modern army - not even that of Ethiopia, let alone that of the US. But there are a minimum of one billion Muslims. Each of them may at any minute become a jihadist, without consulting anyone except the books of his faith; just as any of them can become as selfless and heroic a person as my beloved friend kikei. The religion allows for both. But the jihadist can happen anywhere, any time, without need of organization. And we cannot kill them or hope to restrict them to a Muslim reservation out of which they are forbidden to go. No, they will live among us. And that being the case, the name of the game is endurance. We must steadfastly apply the laws, refuse fear and flattery, continue in our belief that our society is better than theirs, defend our ways in everything we do in our ordinary life. That is what defeated the

[jordan179]

Leave us to worry about Sicily.

We very well may, if the French get their way. That's my point.

You have clearly not understood the nature of this conflict. There is no army to be defeated in battle: time and time again, the enemy has proved itself unable to withstand any modern army - not even that of Ethiopia, let alone that of the US.

In some phases of this conflict, there have been main forces; in others guerillas; in others terrorists. Simply because we have forced the enemy down the ladder of dispersal to pure terrorist operations does not mean that some Great Mystical Law decrees that they shall forever be limited to such operations, save by our continuously applied strength.

If we stopped applying force against the enemy, where they live, the terrorist groups would coalesce into guerilla bands, and the guerilla bands into main-force armies. They had both in Afghanistan and Iraq, before we destroyed them.

But there are a minimum of one billion Muslims. Each of them may at any minute become a jihadist, without consulting

[kulibali]

Neither the Barbary pirates nor the slave traders of the early 19th century had an army to be defeated in battle, yet both the US and Britain succeeded in their "War on Piracy" and "War on Slavery".