France issues 'please explain' to US

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler
- correcting function of the judiciary weakened

Eh?

And, yes, I still eat french fries

Wouldn't you rather eat Belgian fries considering that's where they originate? I have no idea how they came to be called french. Is french toast even french?

[Ned]

Originally posted by Odin
People should't be bashing France, they should be bashing Chirac, the hyper-nationalist Degaulle want-to-be, if the Frenchies knew how he helped Saddam with nukes The french army would be in Bagdad with us. We shoulden't be harrassing the French people with boycotts, just embarrass the crap out of Chirac.

Odin, I don't buy this. The people of France supported Chirac's position by a 90% favorable position. This means all of France supported Chirac, from the extreme left, to the center to the right. Perhaps the only people who did not support Chirac were some fringe group of French veterans of WWII who still like Americans.

[Ned]

Originally posted by GePap

Well, we were\are under attack. Bush is responsible for preventing further attack. He gets to pick the plan and he will be responsible if it fails. That's just the way it works. So I don't know who is or isn't being rational. I just know that the system is working the way we planned it to.

There are just so many things to say about this comment, so many!

Lets begin: Iraq has 0 to do with 9/11, (attacking Iraq does nothing to weaken Al qaeda, the ones that carried out 9/11, as this week shows), except ina a round about way: the American people would support the pres. attacking anywhere if they thought it would somehow make them safe post 9/11: 9/11 gave the admin. the excuse they needed to carry out policies they had pre-planned but could not have pushed politically otherwise.

Iraq was, well, about Iraq, not 9/11. People who think Iraq is about 9/11 are overlooking some very BIG things along the way, and if they think attakcing Iraq will make us safer from Al qaeda, well, that is just another huge misconception.

GePap, do you totally discount the possibility that a hostile country that has bio-weapons and was developing nuclear weapons could give those weapons to a terrorist group to use in a clandestine attack?

This was the nut of Blair's argument, BTW.

FYI, the Brits believe the ricin that was used in the recent attacks in England came from the terrorist base in Eastern Iraq.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Our Foreign Minister is asking the US government to take steps so that its services stop giving false rumors to the media that will further hurt France's image.
At least, that's what I read in the article.

Even though nobody is happy here on the consistent degradation of France in the US media, our government isn't trying to shut the FOX up.

Spiffor, welcome to the world. The US media has a long history of uncovering the dirty on dirty politics. Right now, FOX and its allied media are on the warpath against the French. There is nothing the US government can do about it, and you should know that. de Villepin's thesis seem to be that the US government is behind FOX's assault. I really doubt that. But if you or anyone has any evidence that the US government has fed FOX false information about France, I may change my tune here.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Most US apologists in France come from the right, if not all of them. During the pre-war diplomatic crisis, former PM and influent advisor Alain Juppé suggested to tone down the opposition in order not to rip apart the transatlantic friendship.

However, it is true the right-wingers can be antiamerican to some extent, and this antiamericanism is the result of the clash of egoes between our two countries. Both France and USA are countries with universal values, i.e countries which know better.
And the typical antiamericanism in France comes from the fact we are pissed that the cowboys are now in charge rather than the rational and intelligent us (ok, I'm exaggerating ). More seriously, the American messianism bothers the left wingers like in most other left-wings in the world. And it pisses some right-wingers because it is not France which is doing the job.
There was a classical assumption in the wake of the French enlightenment that France was a special country which was lucky enough to host this enlightenment, and had to spread it around the world. At least, it was the ideological background behind the agressive wars waged by the Revolution and by Napoleon. This "Civilizing Mission" was also the ideological justification of the African colonization.

This messianism is a real trauma to me, as it has been a complete failure. The noble ideas behind spreading democracy and modernity to the world have been spoiled by megalomania, greed, and the ignorance of what the targeted populations wanted.
When I see Bush's US, I think they are doing exactly the same mistakes as 19th century's France. Exactly the same.

Spiffor, finally, an intelligent post.

So, in your terms, the French left sees French idealism and messianism as a colossal failure and opposes American idealism and messianism for the same reason. The French right still sees France in the role moving the world toward a better future. Thus their leading role in the formation of the European Union for example. They resent that America has taken over the leadership position in spreading "enlightened" civilization to a relatively uncivilized world.

But most French believe the new "cowboys" in charge of the American government are repeating the mistakes that the French and other Europeans made in the 19th and 20th centuries during their colonial periods. Is this a correct summary?

[Ned]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler


It is changing, and is already quite different from western europe. Short list:
- role of money in campaigns
- institutionalised corruption in shaping policies
- fundamentalist influence
- extreme nationalist influence
- spoils system
- disfunctional media
- correcting function of the judiciary weakened
- much bigger role for character assassination

Except for the third item on your list, electing an honest politician has helped tremendously on reversing the decline of the '90s.

[HershOstropoler]

"Eh?"

Your SC is a political joke.

"Except for the third item on your list, electing an honest politician has helped tremendously on reversing the decline of the '90s."

You mean "would help".

[Whaleboy]

"France has embarrased herself", "France smeared the US to the whole world", other such quotes and conceptions are of course entirely subjective, as are the many counter arguments available to the US. They all boil down to a stalemate, a state of equilibrium in which no-one side is more correct than another.

Therefore, it is inprudent to use ones own subjective when dealing with anothers subjective. In that sense, one must seek an objective solution.

Penalising the French, or penalising the Americans, or the British, or the Germans, or the Russians, or indeed the entire UN (for whatever reason, that is irrelevant) for daring to defy the will of the US (boo hoo) is clearly not a reasonable solution. Be that via xenophobia, trade sanctions, or indeed entire trade wars.

The objective solution would be to "kiss and make up" so to speak. I repeat that I fail to see why punitive retaliatory measures do anyone any good. In these days of unstable economies, some aspects of the US and UK in recession, Europe doing little better, it is prudent to work together, cooperate, trade with each other, not antagonise each other.

Xenophobia, ignorance, patriotism and demonisation (among the people) have a nasty habit of turning into all out racism. In this day and age, it is the last thing we need. The USA have reasons for what they did, the French have reasons for what they did, both happen to disagree with each other (the reasons are not being discussed).

Respect the fact that each other have reasons and respect them, and get on with running your respective nations, without trying to outdo, attack or discriminate others.

[Sandman]

FYI, the Brits believe the ricin that was used in the recent attacks in England came from the terrorist base in Eastern Iraq.

What attacks?

[Ned]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler
"Eh?"

Your SC is a political joke.

"Except for the third item on your list, electing an honest politician has helped tremendously on reversing the decline of the '90s."

You mean "would help".

No actually, most Americans agree with your list. Many voted for Bush precisely to elect an honest politician. Gore lost almost solely because he was linked with the most corrupt and dishonest person who ever held the job as president. (Despite the fact that he did an good job, overall.)

[HershOstropoler]

Clinton may have been the most dishonest, but was his more corrupt than the Bush admin? Hard to tell.

The only difference may be that for Bush and co, ideology and corruption have converged.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Sandman


What attacks?

A few months ago, IIRC. I can get you links if you really want them. However, you should know better than I abuot these attacks. What I heard, though, is that the Brits believed the ricin involved in those attacks was made in Iraq.

[HershOstropoler]

They found ricin that was supposedly planned to be used in an attack, IIRC.

As for the source, can't remember. Maybe Tony read that in a polsci master's thesis.

[Ned]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler
Clinton may have been the most dishonest, but was his more corrupt than the Bush admin? Hard to tell.

The only difference may be that for Bush and co, ideology and corruption have converged.

Well, HO, you may believe that every action that Bush takes is for a corrupt motive, but very few here in the US believe that. The ones that do appear to be politicians who have an interest in making the accusation without proof, and the extreme left who appear to actually believe it (and many other conspiracy theories) without proof.

There is no denying that Bush was elected in a time of peace and prosperity over the popular VP of a sitting president because of the massive corruption of the Clinton regime.

[HershOstropoler]

"Well, HO, you may believe that every action that Bush takes is for a corrupt motive"

Not every. As far as one can see, it is a mix of corruption and ideology. Also the decision making is broader, obviously.

I don't think the tax cuts are primatily bribes motivated. The awarding of contracts to Bechtel is either corruption or cronyism. Like all of Bush's business "career".