Bush's own man trashes his SOTU claims on WMDs

[Ned]

Well, Spiffor, I think France did the right thing -- at least at the beginning. When the locals wanted France to leave, France should have done so "peacefully."

[Pax]

Ned,
I think you are sorely misinformed. The Africans were treated like slaves in their own country at best. Basically, natives become cattle for the rulers.

What was the premise for the colonisation of Africa and Asia. To bring civilisation and christianity to the savages. These people already had there culture and religion. The real goal was to take advantage of these people.

To me, U.S. ships disapearing off the coast of North Africa is nothing compared to a whole people kept in bondage or genocide of another people during the same period of time.

Also, the colonisation of North Africa by France was not peaceful so why should the departure be peaceful. It just goes to show 1. No country has the right to subjugate anyone and 2. The only way you are going to get any real freedom is to fight for it yourself. That is the problem in Iraq.

American schools teach little to no Asian, African or Islamic history. I cannot speak for those communities, but from what I have read of European and American History, Britain, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, France, and the U.S. are respoonsible for some of the worst crimes against humanity and all claiming to be god fearing and loving. It's very hypocritical.

[Ned]

Pax, perhaps the French were not as "enlightened" as they claim to be. Still, you have to admit that the French intervention in North Africa finally solved the piracy problem in the Mediterranean that had existed since the fall of the Roman Empire's African provinces to Arab conquest. Nothing short of European conquest would have done that.

This said, what happened next may have been less than ideal to the people of Africa. Still, in many respects the French government obviously provided better government to the average person than the governments that succeeded colonial rule which in many cases where murderous tyrannies bent on wholesale genocide.

[Pax]

The most stable government of the former french empire I believe is Vietnam and that's no thanks to the French.

If the mission of Europe was to bring good government to the world they failed miserably.

When the Roman conquered a region they made those peoples members of the Roman Empire. They were a lot of benefits to being conquered by the Romans as opposed to the French, English or Americans.

The Romans brought citizenship and slavery. The modern Europeans brought slavery.

[Ned]

Pax, I agree. The Romans were certainly better at government than the French, Brits or perhaps anyone else.

I would also like to point out that the Romans did not appear to be racists.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Pax Africanus
What was the premise for the colonisation of Africa and Asia. To bring civilisation and christianity to the savages. These people already had there culture and religion. The real goal was to take advantage of these people.

While colonization was clearly imperialistic and evil, it is a mistake to completely forget the ideological motive for it. I can't speak for Britain or Netherlands (the two other main 19th century colonial powers), but French politicians believed strongly in the "white man's burden", in spreading Christianty and technological progress to the unlucky non-Europeans.

While the Arabs and Asians were considered as Civilized, it was deem their society didn't progress anymore, and thus they needed the betterment that is perpetual, European progress. As for the Africans, they weren't deemed civilized at all, and some time needed to pass before scholars understood there were interesting cultures there. The politicians needed a very long time to understand they were replacing culture, rather than bringing gifts into an uncultured place.

And thus, the French Republic did many efforts in order to bring civilization to the savages and the stuck ones. Many children learned at school, in Africa or Indochina, that their ancestors were the Gauls. France had even quite a few westernized scholars from the colonies (unlike Belgium, which had one scholar coming from Congo, since Belgium was believing there was no room of improvement for those half apes ).

France may very well have been Rome, if it hadn't been racist. Indeed, France built infrastructure, literacy, hygiene in places that didn't know it. Unfortunately, the natives could barely profit from it, as their fate was to work slave labour without any hope of getting the French nationality.
This racism was strongest in North Africa, where the Jews living there for hundreds of years got the French citizenship (and were equal to any other Frenchman), while the Muslims couldn't benefit from citizenship

In the end, we had to fight two decolonization wars because our rule was not acceptable anymore by exploited locals, and we also ended up giving their independence to all our colonies in subsaharian Africa, provided they kept a "partnership" with France (only Ghana rejected the offer, and wanted full-fledged independance; to show us our disagreement, we sabotaged all of the infrastructure we built upon living).

Since then, France has had the most evil postcolonial policy, favoring any petty despot that would be our b!tch in his country. We sustained Bokassa and Mobutu, and we are still sustaining Bongo.

But despite all this scum, all this shame, all this plundering, one of the reasons to go there wasn't evil. We wanted to share the chance we had to be Europeans, to be in a society of progress, to the obviously inferior people.

[Spiffor]

Useless to say, I couldn't help but feeling ashamed during the whole time I wrote the previous post. Our African policy (and to less extent our Indochines policy) is probably the worst thing France should be ashamed of. It is probably the only occurence in our history when our country has been so systematically, no willingly evil

[Pax]

1. I don't blame France or any country for taking advantage of a situation. I just pray that one day we can all have a semblance of peace, freedom and equality.

2. Spiffor, I did not know you were French. Have you been to the 18th arondissement in Paris or the banlieus. I'm writing a screenplay based on the minority experience in France and would love any input.

[Kuciwalker]

Spiffor, I did not know you were French.

[CharlesBHoff]

Originally posted by Spiffor

DanS would not agree with your version of history. The US continued to pay tribute after the barbary wars.

Well I knew we pay tribute as it was cheaper than maintain than contantion military prestion there. Pritacy still go on in Indonesia and the Philippines water today.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Pax Africanus
2. Spiffor, I did not know you were French. Have you been to the 18th arondissement in Paris or the banlieus. I'm writing a screenplay based on the minority experience in France and would love any input.

I live in the banlieue (albeit a rich one), and I occasionally went to the 18ème arrondissement, although quite rarely. I'm ready to give you any input, if I can answer. There are many areas near Paris that I never visited, simply because they were residential areas I had no reason to visit.

[CharlesBHoff]

Bush is too pro Israel and too anti-Islam to be than legal president of the USA. I remember when Israel illegality attack one of our unarmed ship in 1967 with they air force and I will be very happy when Israel is 100 % complete destory by the Arab's of the middle east.

[Ned]

Originally posted by CharlesBHoff
Bush is too pro Israel and too anti-Islam to be than legal president of the USA. I remember when Israel illegality attack one of our unarmed ship in 1967 with they air force and I will be very happy when Israel is 100 % complete destory by the Arab's of the middle east.

Charles, I think one of the reasons that Dean's candidacy went into the tank is because he criticized Bush in just this way.

[Pax]

It does raise the question of whether or not Bush believes Islam to be and inherently evil godless mass versus and Jews and Christians who are all Saints.

I wish the President would stop referring to America as the Homeland

[Ned]

PAX, Bush has been the leader in saying that Islam is a peaceful religion hijacked by extremists. I actually believe he repects Islam a great deal due to their obvious piety.