How exactly does helping Irag build a nuclear reactor in the late 1970s make the French Anti-American? Between 1985-1989, the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) sent Iraq up to 70 shipments including 21 strains of anthrax, 15 Class III pathogens, E. coli, Salmonella cholerasuis, Clostridium botulinum, Brucella meliteusis, and Clostidium perfringens. Between 1984-89, the US Centers for Disease Control sent Iraq more than 80 agents, including botulinum toxoid, Yersinia pestis, dengue virus, and West Nile antigen and antibody. Between 1985-89, US firms exported Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), Clostridium botulinum, Histoplasma capsulatam, Brucella melitensis, Clostridium perfringens (gas gangrene), Clostridium tetani (tentanus), Escherichia coli, and "dozens of other pathogenic biological agents," to Iraq. (http://cns.miis.edu/research/wmdme/flow/iraq/seed.htm). The US Dept. of Commerce approved all of those exports. Does that make America Anti-American too? You REALLY need to take a class in logic one of these days, instead of throwing around facts and conclusions that are not necessarily in any way causal.
I think Friedman's on to something here. France has always been out for France - 1st & foremost - even at the expense of its allies. IMO they've been obstructionist at best, downright backstabbing at worst. I think this relationship can be easily repaired with a little diplomacy. But Bush may have to be the 1st to mend fences. Most Americans don't want to pony up added billions to fix Iraq. I think it's perfectly legitimate for our "allies" to help out - if they consider stability in the Mideast to be in their best interests.
Take out the first sentence. Replace every instance of "France" with "The United States under Bush," add "though the Bush administration will have to be willing to cede some control to it's allies in order for this to happen" at the very end and I think you've got it exactly right.
Of course they do. That's why they were against creating a power vaccuum that's going to be filled either by Islamic fundamentalists or a trillion dollars of Western money.
I don't think Bush handled relations with Europe well & in return they were snotty bastards back to us as well. Doesn't mean that 200+ yrs. of solid relations have to go out the window. The trans-Atlantic p!ssing match has to end some time. Somebody has to have a clear head and approach Iraq properly. So far Bush has not had that focus. Doesn't mean that it's a lost cause as some are hoping for. Just means that there's a lot more work to do.
If you add up how France behaved in the run-up to the Iraq war (making it impossible for the Security Council to put a real ultimatum to Saddam Hussein that might have avoided a war), Friedman is talking gibberish here. France didn't make it impossible for the Security Council to put an ultimatum to Saddam. It was possibly the majority, and certainly a large enough minority, that blocked those efforts. If it had just been France and no one else (except Syria), then you can be certain that the US/UK would have put it to a vote, forcing the French to veto it. The fact that they didn't even put it to a vote indicates that there was nothing for France to veto, since the resolution would not have gained enough votes from the others. And just as a historical note - isn't what France is doing today (ie undermining the world's major empire) very similar to what the USA was doing until the middle of the 20th Century?
You mean saving Europe's SS from tyranny a number of times? Nah - France never would be guilty of that.
The problem for this current administration is that the converse of that equation is also true. Political capital = lots of money. Ole Five-to-Four just went to the American people asking for another $87 billion. And his people are going to the UN, asking them to help shoulder the burden. Problem is that those people flushed all their political capital down the crapper six months ago, and the UN, led by France and Germany, is saying "no." So that's going to be more money out of our pockets. Had the Bush administration not decided to squander all that political capital, those other nations would be helping out right now and saving us a few bucks. Personally, I don't have much of a problem with what France and Germany are doing. The last time I checked, they're still sovereign nations with democratically elected governments, not our colonies. Six months ago, we insulted them and demonized them when they wouldn't roll over for us. And now we want them to help pull our fat our the fire in a war which they opposed, which they said was unnecessary, and which, by the way, they are appearing to be more and more right about everyday? That's ballsy. And for those of you bleating about how they're not being very good allies, answer me this: How were we being good allies six months ago, when Rummy was listing Germany along with Libya and Iran as countries that probably wouldn't help in the reconstruction, and when he was smugly talking about how fighting a war without France's help was like a fish without trousers (or whatever stupid analogy he was using). Tell me, were we acting like allies or like a disgruntled empire whose colonies weren't falling into line? I like NATO and I think that it's been good for us and good for Europe. It played probably the biggest role in standing the Soviet threat for 40+ years and it fostered a lot of trans-Atlantic cooperation between us, Canada, and western European nations. Overall, I'd say that NATO's been good for everyone involved. But this little neocon adventure in Iraq has done more to scuttle NATO than anything else in the past 40 years. It's shaken the bonds between us and some of our most important allies in western Europe. It's forced those allies into thinking that they may be better off with each other and without us. If and when NATO goes by the wayside, Iraq will be a large part of its obituary. And it's a damn shame. But sadly, too many people in the Republican party care more about "freedom fries" than they do about the demise of NATO. Sorry, neocons, but your chickens have come home to roost.
And you need to stop confusing chemical or biological weapons with nuclear weapons. While we did had a (relatively small) hand in helping Iraq produce chemical and biological WMDs, that isn't 1/1000th as bad as providing the means to build nuclear bombs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah... History is sooooo complex... http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/index.html
I wouldn't lump Germany in with France. Our relations with Germany are extrmely close. Had a few votes gone the other way in Germany (or USA haha), there would have been no conflict with Germany.
So France sent Iraq the means to nuclear weapons 25 years ago and Saddam has been sitting on his ass since then, too lazy to build them?
Indeed. In fact, France has done more for Israel than the USA. Of course, now they're the most anti-Israel country in Europe except for Greece.
You're missing one key part of this story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/7/newsid_3014000/3014623.stm
Although they are guilty of tipping the balance in a conflict that gave a bunch of scrubby colonists their independence from the world's pre-eminent imperial power in 1783.
Right. And home of the third largest Jewish community in the world. Makes you wonder, huh? Does it? Don't you think that if they felt so un-welcome, they would have left? You should ask them. And getting back to the complexity of history, you'll remember, I'm sure,that Bush could "look into Putin's eyes, see his soul and declare him a trustworthy friend", right? http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/2003/iran-030527-irna02.htm
"The Israelis have bombed a French-built nuclear plant near Iraq's capital, Baghdad, saying they believed it was designed to make nuclear weapons to destroy Israel." So France designed a nuclear weapons plant and gave it to Iraq so that Iraq could destroy Israel? Paranoia will destroy ya.
France gave Iraq the reactor to make a profit. You wondered why Saddam didn't have nuclear weapons and I explained it to you.
Ok, and keeping with the "dirty laundry" spirit: "New York, April 25, 2003-Three days after Sept. 11, 2001, North Korea, a nation identified as a state sponsor of terror, was celebrating the launch of a U.S.-sponsored nuclear plant-and was doing so thanks to ABB, a company on whose board of directors Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense, once sat. FORTUNE investigative reporter Richard Behar probes the secretive deal behind the plant and raises new questions about Rumsfeld's involvement, and his refusal to discuss it or the controversial 1994 deal in which the U.S. agreed to provide North Korea with two light-water nuclear reactors in exchange for Pyongyang ending its nuclear weapons program. "Rummy's North Korea Connection" appears in the May 12 issue of FORTUNE and at www.fortune.com." http://www.fortune.com/fortune/information/Presscenter/0,,05122003R,00.html
Yes, it makes me wonder what you are thinking about. The only thing I can come up with is: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=non sequitur
Of course, Ben. How could you possibly think that what you just wrote was a crock of sh$t http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=stubborn
Just want to interrupt this cat-fight to say "great stuff" to ElJefe. You deserve better than the Dallas Burn.
No, I was being totally accurate. France is currently the most hostile country to Israel in Europe aside from Greece. For some strange reason, you responded that a lot of Jews live in France (and a lot more Arabs), which doesn't address France's foreign policy positions such as arguing against Hamas being labelled a terrorist group by the EU, calling Hezbollah a legitimate resistance movement, and the incessant criticism of Israel. So which countries in Europe are less friendly to Israel? If you disagree with my comment, it would make sense to explain how it is incorrect.