French President Jacques Chirac is in Georgia for the G8 SUmmit, but says he won't attend President Reagan's funeral on Friday. In the manners of Diplomacy, this is an enormous insult. Somebody tell me again about how the French are our "Allies" They don't like us, they haven't liked us for a long time, George Bush is not the reason, and it doesn't have a thing to do with Iraq. But you know what? Who gives a damn? These guys are irrelevant, and they just don't matter any more. They're about as significant as Botswana.
Honest question...is it normal for chief executives to go to funerals? Because you know, the joke about VPs is that all they do is go to them. If, in fact, most other world leaders (Putin, Blair, Sharon, etc.) are going, and Chirac isn't, he's being a big douchebag. But if most of those other guys aren't going...well, it's like the UN Security Council vote that we backed out of. Everyone blamed France, but we only had 6 votes, and needed a supermajority (9, i think, but maybe 10.) Even if France had voted on our side, we were still short. But everyone focused on France, for obvious reasons. Let's wait and see.
See, if you actually knew a goddam thing about much of anything you'd know that Heads of State DO attend these things. Usually not for the Prime Minister of Botswana, but we're supposedly a MOJOR ally, close freinds, all that rubbish. If Bush was in Europe and a former President of France died and Bush decided to not bother to go a couple hundred miles (which is all we're talking about) to attend the funeral, it would be considered a gross insult and the french would howl bloody murder. No, ignorant one, this is a very purposeful insult, it's for domestic French reasons, to show his countrymen that he can disrespect the US. They most certainly get the point. You, not surprisingly, do not.
Others not attending the Funeral: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi Including Chirac, that's half the G-8 Summit. Let's not overreact.
I must have missed the day in History class where they talked about the US saving fooking Canada from the Nazis. Or how we left 5,000 dead American boys on some beach in Nova Scotia on our way to liberate Ottawa.
Also, it looks as if Canadian PM Martin didn't attend due to standard Royal procedure. douchebag may be right http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...canada_afp/g8_canada_vote_reagan_040608215311
Which is even odder, seeing as how Prince Charles came and, frankly, the freakin Prince of Wales outranks any cheap Canadian politician as far as "representing the crown" is concerned. SO England sent the former PM, the current PM and the Prince of Wales while Chirac made some churlish comments and left town. As for Chirac's "comments" about Reagan, it's just more low-brow political posturing by a two-bit hack trying to play up to his own domestic hate market: winning votes by bashing the US is a French political tradition which has been going on since DeGaulle publicly embarassed John Kennedy. Brian Mulroney, former Canadian Prime Minister, gave a very moving eulogy at the service in which he specifically quoted former French PM Francois Mitterand - a genuine French statesman and world leader - speaking of Reagan in almost mythological terms. Chirac is a malevolent creature. It's not about the security council stuff - he was protecting French financial interests and, as it turns out, a whole bunch of his freinds and political allies who were on the "Oil for Palaces" take for millions of dollars. Rather, it's about class and dignity and respect and genuine freindship amongst true allies - something a cheap sack like Chirac would know nothing whatever about.
Not to open a can of worms...but Bill, my understanding is that Chalabi had all the files, and said what was in them, and wouldn't let anyone else see them. So the "Oil for food" scandal is still in the "interesting if true" category. Unless you trust Chalabi.