Okay...I couldn't resist rummaging through the blogosphere's collective memory banks for Kerry's factual errors in the debate...The Corner's Jack Fowler points out un mistatement énorme...
The supposed hunky-doriness of U.S.-French relations that Senator Kerry pined for in last night’s debate is trés bogus. This is from the September 18, 1995 issue of Time:On the same archive page, Cliff May makes a cogent point that undercuts Kerry's Iraq authorization bob & weave.Last May, finally, enter the tanned, energetic Jacques Chirac, eager to reassert raison d’etat and make a splash, unfortunately too literally. Chirac, though, was acting totally in national character. Daring to be different is nothing new for France, where galling allies is as enduring a national pastime as boules. Winston Churchill, who was host to Charles de Gaulle after the majority of his guest’s countrymen had capitulated to the Nazis, grumbled famously that of all the wartime crosses he bore, the heaviest was the Free French leader’s Cross of Lorraine. It didn’t help that De Gaulle constantly nattered on about how France was the “light of the world; its destiny is to illuminate the universe.” General Dwight Eisenhower managed to avoid gagging, but did complain that of all the Allies he was supremely commanding, “those damn French” were by far the most nettlesome.
De Gaulle gave clout to the once weak French presidency and stabilized France. But jealous of the Churchill-Roosevelt wartime bond, he remained a passionate anti-Atlanticist with a long memory. In 1963, still irate over Britain’s cave-in to U.S. pressure to pull back from Suez in 1956, he vetoed Britain’s application to join the European Economic Community. (His successors obstructed the entry of Spain and Portugal.) The following year, he withdrew France from the NATO military command and asked President Lyndon Johnson to remove U.S. troops from France. A seething Secretary of State Dean Rusk flew to Paris to seek clarification: “Does your order include the bodies of American soldiers in France’s cemeteries?”
Makes your blood boil. By the way 1: If we should remember anything about France, the U.S., and John Kerry, it should be how he was there in the early 1970s playing diplomat-wanna-be with Viet Cong.
Germany did indeed declare war on the US after Pearl Harbor. But the US was already at war with Saddam in 2003. The Gulf War never ended – there was only a ceasefire.Saddam continued to claim that he had won the Gulf War, that the US had been defeated, as demonstrated, for instance, by the fact that he was still in power while George H.W. Bush had been removed from office.
There are monuments in Iraq celebrating this great victory.
Saddam never complied with the obligations he undertook in order to establish the ceasefire. That should have rendered the ceasefire null and void.
That could have been the path on which Bush proceeded to renewed hostilities. Instead he went to the UN for its blessings and got resolution 1441, in which the entire Security Council agreed that Saddam had not accounted for the WMD he was known to have had. The resolution states that if Saddam did not fulfill his obligations immediately, serious consequences must follow.
Kerry's Korean gaff is simply astonishing given that Holbrooke is an advisor and key Clinton people are on Kerry's team. Had Bush made a similar error or said he visited KGB headquarters in Treblinka Square ....the MSM media would be howling "Dolt! Cowboy!! Moron!!!"
Posted by feste at October 1, 2004 03:01 PM | TrackBackBig deal. Charles de Gaull was unpleasant and ungrateful. He is not the only person who ever lived in France. Just because of him we shouldn't forget about people like Pierre de Beaumarchais and the comte de Vergenne, whithout whom we wouldn't even have a country to defend. The point is that the French and the Germans were staunch allies of the US before the Iraq war, and are no longer.
As far as why we went to war with Saddam, it's funny that this is coming up now, insetead of before we went to war. Iraq had not complied with the obligations of the ceasefire, and that _was_ reason to go in and put them back in there place. Instead, Bush had to make a show of WMD. Why? Why not use the reasons we already had instead of making a big show? That would have been a legitimate reason to go there, and Bush wouldn't have to defend himself against the claims Kerry is making.
Posted by: Response at October 1, 2004 05:48 PMThere is one word for your argument: merde...
First of all, Bush gave 3 reasons, not 1 for going into Iraq. Pay attention next time.
Second, France was actively arming Saddam, their total trade under the Oil for Food program was the 3rd largest, they were Iraq's largest trading partner, Total Final Elf and Alcatel had a huge vested interest in Iraqi contracts. Iraq owed France $6 billion in foreign debt from arms sales and France was responsible for over 13% of Iraqi arms imports over the past 20 years.
It is not coincidence that France, Germany, Russia, and China were the biggest objectors to our going after Iraq. They also happened to be the countries with the biggest investments in Iraq and the most to lose if Saddam were toppled. Imagine that...
Historically, France's only reliable ally has been herself. During the Revolutionary War, the French double crossed us so many times, John Adams had to go to the Dutch for financing or we would have gone under.
My Dad tells a story of working closely with NATO forces. As the aide for the supreme allied cdr. for NATO, he had meticulously arranged to fly translators to Europe for the duration, as he had been informed the French required them. As some point during the visit, it became painfully apparent that all the French spoke fluent English.
My Dad called the senior French officer out to the side as a gentleman and asked him if this was honorable behavior. The French officer blushed and replied, "official orders".
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose...
Posted by: Cassandra at October 1, 2004 06:49 PM