A powerful piece from Le Monde: http://europundits.blogspot.com/ What joy it is to see the jubilant Iraqi people celebrating their liberation and…their liberators! A couple of months ago, France claimed to be funneling the US’s belligerent ardor into a legal, UN channel. Unfortunately, the opposition to the war degenerated into a systematic opposition to Washington. Whether correctly perceived or not, our leaders gave the impression of protecting Saddam by insisting upon arm-wrestling with the Anglo-Saxon allies. ...By its intransigence and its promise of a veto “regardless of the circumstances,” our country divided Europe, paralyzed NATO and the UN, destroying the possibility of avoiding a military confrontation through a precise, joint ultimatum that would have forced out the Iraqi dictator. Far from avoiding a war, the “camp of peace” precipitated one by playing Asterix against Uncle Sam... ... A ridiculed France has now removed itself from the game. You don’t run a great country by getting high on media successes and rhetorical jousts. In this regard, Tony Blair, who took the risk of confronting his electorate while remaining faithful to his convictions, revealed himself to be a true head of state... ...In the future, we will talk about the hysteria, the collective intoxication that shook France for months on end... ...we will have to study the media’s partisan coverage of the war—with few exceptions, this coverage was more activist than objective, minimizing the horrors of the Baathist tyranny in order to better reproach the Anglo-American expedition, guilty of all crimes, all problems, all misfortunes in the region... For weeks, Television Baghdad invaded our brains and our television screens to the point where the very few Iraqi dissident guests had to apologize for existing…to the point where a French singer, in an act of remarkable obscenity, left the stage of a variety show on France 3 upon the arrival of Saad Salam, a film-maker and Iraqi opponent... ... We will have to explain why the Kurdish minority was, during this period, forbidden from protesting when Saddam’s hatchet men paraded on our boulevards, brandishing Saddam’s portraits, screaming slogans to his glory, going so far as to lynch the poet-in-exile, Salah Al-Hamdani... ...Anti-Americanism is a political creed that unites one person to another, in spite of their differences—the Front national and the Greens, socialists and conservatives, communists and separatists…On the left as well as on the right, it is rare to find someone who did not give in to this “nationalism of imbeciles” which is unfailingly symptomatic of resentment and decline... ...When Baghdad danced, France pouted. While certain intellectuals and politicians expressed their confusion, indeed their “nausea” when faced with an Anglo-Saxon victory, the weekly magazine, Marianne, led with “The Catastrophe” on the day that Baghdad tasted its first hours of deliverance. We just have to accept that there will always exist in our democracies a significant number of citizens from whom a dictator’s demise will be a cause for despair. This land of human rights perhaps doesn’t care so much for the liberty of others as she claims to and publicizes.... ...The second Gulf War has been a wonderfully revealing incident. An outbreak of anti-Semitism and ethnic hatred, an economic and social crisis, the desecration of a British military cemetery, the beating up of Jews and Iraqi opposition during the great “peace” marches, an alliance…with the unsavory Vladimir Putin, butcher of Chechnyans, the reception of the African despot Robert Mugabe in Paris, public insults directed to Eastern European countries who committed the sin of not slavishly obeying us—our great nation is not in the process of writing its most glorious page in the Book of History...
Late breaking news: not everybody thinks alike in France. As in "these aren't second thoughts for the writers of this article", see?
Bill Archer just wanted to say "powerful piece". And the Le Monde means "the world", doesn't it? Thus every one is being a hypocrite. If Le Monde means, "the mound" or "the Monday", please ignore the above.
I just thought he wanted to say: "The French Have Second Thoughts" as the thread header indicates. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "powerfull piece", yes, it is, wether you agree with it fully, partially or not at all. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As for this:"Le Monde means "the world", doesn't it? Thus every one is being a hypocrite" It does mean "The world" but I don't see the correlation you seem to imply, sorry.
Re: Re: The French Have Second Thoughts Q: What do French recruits learn in basic training? A: How to surrender in 17 different languages.
Re: Re: Re: The French Have Second Thoughts That is 16 more languages than the average american can speak. I have some good jokes book which I will be please to offer you for your 12th birthday.
Re: Re: Re: Re: The French Have Second Thoughts And 16 more than the French can speak! ------- Question: What English word has no equivalent in the French language? Answer: Gratitude.
Re: Re: Re: Re: The French Have Second Thoughts American to Frenchman: "Do you speak German?" Frenchman: "No." American: "You're Welcome!"
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The French Have Second Thoughts You are probably the most annoying poster on BS! And you know what? "gratitude" is a word which has been adopted from the french word "gratitude". You Vollidiot! domingo
Funny how you Europeans try to silence us on this issue but no matter what you do the truth will come out. Those Iraqi archives are starting to yield interesting information about America's pro-Saddam erstwhile allies. London's Sunday Telegraph reports it has obtained documents from the Baghdad intelligence headquarters that show "Germany's intelligence services attempted to build closer links to Saddam's secret service during the build-up to war last year": The documents show that an agent named as Johannes William Hoffner, described as a "new German representative in Iraq" who had entered the country under diplomatic cover, attended a meeting with Lt Gen Taher Jalil Haboosh, the director of Iraq's intelligence service. During the meeting, on January 29, 2002, Lt Gen Haboosh says that the Iraqis are keen to have a relationship with Germany's intelligence agency "under diplomatic cover," adding that he hopes to develop that relationship through Mr Hoffner. The German replies: "My organisation wants to develop its relationship with your organisation." In return, the Iraqis offered to give lucrative contracts to German companies if the Berlin government helped prevent an American invasion of the country.
What is "this issue"? Posting stupid anti-French jokes on BS? Who is pro-Saddam? Well, interesting story, but you should provide a link. Otherwise it sounds made up by yourself. What intelligence services do they mean? And... the name Johannes William Hoffner sounds a bit funny to me. If you have a link, post it. I´ll reply on that! domingo
Another silly reply from LiveFreeOrDie! domingo P.S.: Give a link for the Johannes-William-Hoffner-situation.
OK what this article says is, that there was an agent called Hoffner, who had a meeting with an Iraqi general. The outcome was that the general was pleased to have relations "under diplomatic cover" with a german intelligence service. Hoffner replies: "My organisation wants to develop its relationship with your organisation." And after that the general "offered to give lucrative contracts to German companies if the Berlin government helped prevent an American invasion of the country." Right now there might be 1000 resembling contacts between intelligence services all over the world. To this point I would call it a non-story! domingo