Asymmetrical Information

Pleeeeeese can we bash the french?

No, Kate, this is a family blog.

cf. Jacques Delors comments on the damage that he sees Chirac has done to France by opposing the US:

Quote:

Delors warns over opposition to US
By Jo Johnson, George Parker and Brian Groom in Paris

Jacques Delors, former president of the European Commission, has become one of the first senior French public figures to warn that President Jacques Chirac is leading France into a diplomatic cul-de-sac over Iraq.

"We cannot accept the Messianic vision of the Americans, but nor can we limit ourselves to simply opposing it," he said in an interview with the Financial Times.

"My position is between the two, of course. We have to find the basis for an acceptable partnership between Europe and America."

Mr Delors praised efforts by Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, to build a bridge between the Bush administration and continental European governments by pushing hard for UN supervision of the reconstruction of Iraq.

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1048313375839&p=1012571727166

Note: Delors was a member of the French *Socialist* party who became president of the EU Commission. Chirac is a conservative *Gaullist*.

Tom wrote:

Note: Delors was a member of the French *Socialist* party who became president of the EU Commission. Chirac is a conservative *Gaullist*.

Rather interesting that Tony Blair who is the leader of the leftist Labour party (abeit "New" Labour) is drawing the bulk of his support in supporting the war from the conservative Tory party whilst Jaques Chirac who is the supposed "conservative" leader of France is getting the majority of his support in trying to protect the Iraqi regime from the socialists in the opposition parties.

Bear in mind that France is dominated by elites to a greater extent than is the US, (due to the lock which is apparently held on key positions by the graduates of a few elite universities). This probably has two effects:

1) Economic motivations. Those companies which have an economic stake in the continuation of the current Iraqi regime are able to impact government decision-making to a considerable extent.
2) Cultural motivations. Large parts of the professoriate have defined themselves in opposition to Western civilization and, in any battle of a Western vs a non-Western country, would pick the side of the latter. These people have more influence in France than do their equally-crazy equivalents in the US.

My guess is that Chiraq originally intended to grandstand for a while, make France look relevant, and pounce on some "new" evidence as an excuse to come on board at the last minute. That plan went awry when Chiraq's opposition put his approval ratings in the stratosphere.

Another possiblity is that Chiraq really thought, initially, that his threat of a veto could stop the war. By the time it became evidence that it could not, it was too late, as Chiraq had totally committed himself to Saddam's peace plan. At that point, a French flip-flop would have been more embarassing than seeing the U.S. go ahead without them.

To actually address "Jane's" question:

Its possible that the motivations of those 'behind' Chirac were to fan the flames of anti-American hatred. Ultimately, this will strengthen the Franco/Belgian/German alliance and the psychological motivation for the creation of an EU superpower, in head-to-head competition with the US.

Even though the French currently have power in the U.N. (and, from what I've seen, quite a lot of influence with Kofi), the way of the French future does not lie through the U.N. Getting the U.N. out of the way is as beneficial to French unilaterism (of which there is historically quite a bit) as it is to American unilateralism. If you can get the U.S. to take the bait and the fall, so much the better, eh?

If you examine EADS, you'll see a huge millitary consortium backed by, and thus standing to profit, the French and German governments, French banks, and certain French media interests. This, dare I use the phrase?, "millitary industrial copmlex" would benefit greatly from a militarized EU.

Ultimately, I think we will see a drastic increase in French/German/Belgian power, since the three have thrown themselves into this together, but its not clear to me that Chirac, personally, will be the one to benefit at that time.

there is the possibility that Chirac was reacting to the public opinion in his country.

wimp.

Thorley wrote:

Tom wrote:

Note: Delors was a member of the French *Socialist* party who became president of the EU Commission. Chirac is a conservative *Gaullist*.

Rather interesting that Tony Blair who is the leader of the leftist Labour party (abeit "New" Labour) is drawing the bulk of his support in supporting the war from the conservative Tory party."

Try again. Two-thirds of the parlimentary labour party voted in favour of the war. The one significant national party that is against the war is the centrist Liberal Democrats (who are, in part, composed of the remnants of a rightist split from the Labour party). The Tory party are currently at their lowest ebb since, ohh, before Lloyd George in parlimentary representation.

Also, if you bothered to read the Delors article, you'd find that 73% of the French public support Chirac's stand. As a casual review of the last election would show, 73% of the French public don't vote for the socialists (if they did, I'd bet Jospin, even though he's an ex-Trotskyist, wouldn't have screwed up as badly as Chirac).

The fact that Delors, who was a potential alternative socialist candidate to Jospin for the presidency, is more pro-US than Chirac is significant.

Y'all are analyzing this far too deeply, as deep thinking political scientists (whether you have an accredited degree or not) are wont to do. It’s a far more simple, gaming theory situation:

On the positive side for France’s current stance:

1) US does what you (France) want: French international influenced greatly increased
2) US does not do what you want, but loses war: French international influenced greatly increased
3) US does not do what you want wins war but alienates much of the world political leaders: French international influenced greatly increased
4) US does not do what you want wins war but alienates much of the world population: French international influenced greatly increased (Yes, I know it’s similar to argument three but critical in it’s different in its probability and influence)

On the negative side:

1) US wins war with relative easy: Iraqi public rejoices, France is cut out of any economic benefit or control of the “new” Iraq

On the ambivalent side:

All other situations: could go one-way or the other. BUT being the alternative to a US hegemony that you’re afraid of it makes sense to side with the most powerful “underdog”

Assuming that Chirac wasn't trying to hide some dirty dealings with Saddam, I would say that Chirac 'misunderestimated' American resolve on the issue. This caused him to back himself into a corner.

I think there's also the German angle.

To what extent was France swayed by the apparent willingness of the Germans to join them? Thus, a tactical maneuver (make the Americans pony up some chits for French acquiescence) gets subsumed by a suddenly larger goal: An EU where the Germans and French co-dominate, and better yet, Berlin is prepared to grant Paris an equal share of power (which normally, Germany, w/ its larger economy wouldn't be prepared to do)?

If France stays on our side they have no chance of being in charge, or even being particularly influential. They're condemned to being a sideshow at best. But if they split and form a coalition of the disaffected - be Burger King to our McDonalds, so to speak - they have a chance to call the shots. Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven, and so forth.

But, you ask, are they so reckless that they'd risk a nuclear Saddam to achieve it? Nope. They know we're going to rid the world of Saddam et. al. They can free-ride on that while putting themselves at the forefront of the opposition.

And yes, I suspect they forsee the costs in terms of US reaction to be low enough to make it worthwhile.

Anybody here ever have dawgs?

I know that Ms. McArdel has a pooch. But what I want to know is: Has anyone ever had more that one at a time?

See, when you have one dawg it's relatively easy to discourage bad behavior. Soon enough, the new puppy is housebroken and is careful to resist the temptation of the delicious smellin' trash can. If you scold and spank then barking can be kept to a minimum.

Get two dawgs (or more) and it's a whole new ball game. They reinforce each others bad habits. You come home from work and there's trach spread all across the kitchen. They find one spot and decide that this is where they'll lift their leg. One dawg barks, the other one barks. You can stand there with your growly scolding voice and a rolled up newspaper and they'll still bark. You can modify their behavior, but it's tough. If you don't step in and keep on top of it then things can get out of hand.

So France started to engage in really stupid behavior, pissing off the world's only remaining super-power (and one which actually listens to what it's citizens want). There were good reasons they did this, a greater share of power in the EU being one of them. It probably wouldn't have gotten past the annoying-but-pissy stage if they didn't start to get positive feedback.

First they started to get approval from the voters back home. Then Brussels, the seat of influence for the EU, started to pat them on the back. Then the voters REALLY started to approve as mindless anti-Americanism set in. Then Germany wanted in, and those scary guys from across the Rhine even wanted to follow the French lead! Next thing you know you can't get those poodles to shut up.

The point is that it spiralled out of control. It's not really a plan, just more like a few actions that went against the odds and had really big short-term payoffs. France is like the housewife who is planning the yearly budget on the money she knows will just roll in by the millions because she won $100 on a scratch-and-win lottery ticket.

So now the US is talking about getting out the economic newspaper and rolling it up. The French say that OF COURSE there will be no consequences.

Time to spank some furry poodle butt.

James

I think all the posts above have elements of truth. But there's more:

Remember that 90 percent of Europe, and probably the world's population, oppose this war. My feeling is the primary reason is that world fears a superpower that feels that it has the right to overthrow governments, at potentially great cost to civilians, even absent a direct threat. This would greatly diminish world stability, as well as further embolden a superpower to behave even more arrogantly in the future. Face it, the world fears us, and that fear has been unnecessarily exacerbated.

France is now perfectly positioned to lead an anti-American coaliton which need not have existed. It's difficult to predict the future. It all depends on how the war turns out and what the diplomatic follow up is. But if the neocons continue controling policy, then the US will have much of the rest of the Western world, as well as the powerful, developing nations like Mexico and Argentina, as potential strategic competitors. Unless we act to undo the harm we've done, we will not be a democracy to be admired, but a power to be contained.

France, and Chirac, is their spokesman. And we just handed the world to him.

France had a lot to lose as soon as the first shot was fired -- a ready customer for French products and technology, and a generous oil exploration concession, for starters.

A strong fossil fuel supplier could prove very useful if the French economy cannot muster enough funding to overhaul the nation's aging nuclear power generation infrastructure, in which case it may have to explore fossil-fuel alternatives.

Chirac has a long-standing and pleasant relationship with Saddam. Somebody in the blogosphere scared up a 1976 photo of the two working the Osirak deal a couple months ago, IIRC. And if I am not mistaken one of Saddam's few visits outside the Arab world was to France, back in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

Probably doesn't help that France's estates ("outer-city" slums, basically) house many thousands of disenfranchised Arabs willing to riot at the drop of a hat -- and bear in mind these are neighborhoods where the police speed up.

And since anti-Americanism has been strong in France for a very long time, vocally opposing US policy was a sure-fire political credibility winner.

And if it chose to support the US, or at least not actively oppose it, France had to gain...? (Bearing in mind they probably didn't anticipate just how fierce the boycott could be.)

Remember that 90 percent of Europe, and probably the world's population, oppose this war.

You're prepared to prove that? I've seen such numbers bandied about previously and I get the feeling there's a lot of circular sourcing at work. Given that probably at least 10% of the world's population could likely be entirely uninformed or ambivalent on the matter...

France is now perfectly positioned to lead an anti-American coaliton which need not have existed

From here, it looks like there's been long term anti-Americanism worldwide--it's not new at all.

Perhaps France so this as an opportunity to get out in front of the parade.

The WSJ had a long piece on this right as the war started. They summed it up as a combination of 1) European land powers being more risk adverse than the US and other maritime powers; 2) the French seeing an opportunity to forge a strong bond with Germany, assuring an EU dominated by a Franco-German alliance; 3) acting as a counterweight to US power; 4) feeling snubbed at a NATO conference, where the US didn't ask for their help in Afghanistan; 5) mercantile interests were also a factor.

One thing along that line. Many years ago, I had a job that required a security "refresher" each year taught by FBI counterintel agents and our security staff. We were told that if we ever went to France on business, assume that all communications were monitored, all our luggage searched, and our rooms bugged. Their security agencies are active in spying on behalf of their companies. In other words, the paranoid fantasy of leftists seeing the government as a tool of the corporate interests is true in France.

The French were motivated by the same demons that have driven many Arab lunatics into suicidal behavior, both figuratively and literally: Envy, along with distorted notions of pride and honor. Since the French lack the barbarism of the Islamists and the Pan-Arabists, their suicidal charge was of the diplomatic variety, but the underlying motivations were still the same. As will be the final results.

France is slowly descending into irrelevancy, a death of a culture and people who could not find a place in the emerging world.

It's all about language for the French and French Canadians! Since France was secularised after the French Revolution, the French language and its promotion throughout the world replaced ardent catholicism. Similarly in Quebec after the so-called Quiet Revolution, the oh so dominant Catholic Church lost its power and the French language became the new religion. Did you know that Quebec's Bill 101 for the protection of the French language does not allow the English language to be displayed out of doors unless it is part of the name of a commercial establishment? Did you know that any business with more than fifteen employees must conduct its affairs in French if one French speaking employee demands it. Yes.ndeed, it's the law. However, in spite of that all the pure and applied sciences and all the technology of both Quebec and France uses the detested English language as its life support system. Jacques Chirac wants to start global TV networks to rival CNN and Sky because the domination of the English language must be stopped. Well good luck! At a rough guess French first and second language speakers in the world amount to about one hundred million - not exactly a good augury for a global French TV network.

If all these Europinks (who, by the bye, really need to stop mistaking themselves for World Opinion) are so frightened of us, why don't they act like it? Why aren't they clamoring for a crash rearmament program to counter the American menace? Why aren't they begging their governments, in the meantime, not to do anything to provoke us?

To ask the question is to answer it. These are people who know perfectly well that they have nothing to fear from the US, but who share the belief (not limited to the left, but much more popular there) that the Argument from Personal Fright actually proves something.

Megan: An interesting question and a lot of interesting comments, most of which, I'm sure, are true to some extent. I think Chirac has made a blunder of historic proportion but his motivation was, I'm sure, extremely complicated and he was probably influenced by most, if not all, of the factors others have mentioned. Personally, I see Chirac as a second Petain who will cause the French as much grief as did Petain in the 1940s. In 1940, Petain replaced Renaud (and shortly after, the Third Republic). He was an old man, a defeatist and animated, to a large extent, by antipathy towards the Anglo-Saxons. His main motivation though was probably his belief that the future lay with the Nazis, that France would be best served by collaboration, and that England -which he disliked - would soon be defeated. History proved him terribly wrong but many brave Frenchmen and Frenchwomen had to pay with their lifes to rid France of Vichy and its henchmen, and the whole nation suffered terribly. Unfortunately, however, it is true that Petain's appeasement was overwhelmingly popular with the French for at least the first year; in August, 1940, his popularity was probably greater than Chirac's is now. Certainly, when Daladier and Chamberlain sacrificed Chezcoslovakia in 1938, they were both greeted as conquering heroes on returning to their respective capitals. I see Chirac as Petain's reincarnation.
Just as France, in the 1930s, had a large number of citizens for whom "Better Hitler than Blum (a Jewish ex-prime minister)" was the slogan, she now has a significant population for whom "Better Saddam than Bush" appears in their hearts, if not on their banners. Many, but not most of them, are the 5 to 10 million "beurs", or second generation Arabs, who populate the suburbs and whose rage and disaffection frightens much of France. It certainly, I believe, frightens the ruling party. I think Chirac has made the conscious decision to cast France's lot with the Arabs, to appease the Arab quarters of the French cities, to befriend Saddam, to tighten ties with Libya and to hear "Vive Chirac" in Algiers when the crowd is really screaming: "Visas". Why is he doing this? I think he fears the consequences of opposing the Arabs when France has millions of unassimilated Arabs in its midst. How else explain the government's repudiation of laicite (Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite et Laicite) in deciding to construct mosques at state expense, the inclusion of fundamentalists on the Muslim Council the government is organizing, and his opposition to any steps against Saddam at the risk of alienating the Americans other than by a decision to appease the Muslim fundamentalists.
Also, I think that Chirac and de Villepin (the latter with his longing for doomed Napoleonic glory) are chasing the old Gaullist chimera of an independent third force, a united Europe under French leadership, which will challenge the American hegemony. But they think they can add to it the Arab nations, or at least some of them. Why does Chirac think he can meld so much of the world together under his leadership? I'm afraid that he believes that he really was the choice of 80% of the French at the last presidential election and has forgotten that at least half of the people who voted for him did so under the slogan "Better a crook (Chirac) than a fascist (Le Pen)". The fact that his public approval is now in the 80% range just reinforces this "folie des grandeurs". Mike

I think everyone is missing the point with the grand and sophisticated theories about why Chirac follow such a self defeating strategy (for France as a nation)over the last few months.

The answer is very simple. Type the words “Chirac” and “corruption” into Google and start following the 20,000 odd results.

Chirac is a deeply vain and profoundly corrupt politician with long standing financial ties to Saddam. Le Canard Enchaine published an article about Saddam bank-rolling Chiracs 1977 campaign for mayor of Paris, right after Chirac personally organized Saddam getting his nuclear reactors. If the article had been untrue or a misrepresentation of the facts Chiracs could have sued the ass off the magazine under French law. He never did.

French politicians are not known for their diffidence when it comes to suing the media.

My uneducated guess is that Chirac's personal cut from the GulfTotalFina Majnoon deal probably runs to a healthy eight figure sum. That was the going rate under the previous tenant of the Elysee Palace.

So why did Chirac do what he did? Because that is what Saddam paid him to do.

Maybe they thought that it was more important to preserve the system of international security than to validate the "US is boss" new system. Iraq was probably on its way to getting good grades from the inspectors. Whether you think the Iraqis have chemical weapons (nothing has been found as of this writing) there was a value in maintaining the process of inspections. Now why would any country bother to obey the nuclear non-proliferation treaty? You get blown up anyway. You can say that the old system was anachronistic but the new one is just plain anarchy.

So they blew themselves up for altruistic motives? Don't buy it. Especially since the system you say they were trying to preserve has been blown up along with them.

What the French did was for the French. But what were they trying to do?

It's quite possible that the French did not think about what they were doing at all, and let their emotions get the better of them. They are jealous of America, desirous of our military and economic influence but resent the means to go about achieving such status, and are almost racially nationalist when it comes to their foreign policy.

Furthermore, they have few if any moral scruples, and were covetous of their oil contracts and financial influence in Saddam-led Iraq. They buy well into the p.c. victimization ideology, fanning the flames of resentment among their Arab population and causing them in general to blame Jews and Israel for all the faults in the middle east.

France isn't the leader of the world in representing Anti-Americanism, because no one in the world wants to follow a loser. And France lost, big time. The world needs the US more than it needs France. Their pathetic apologies are falling on deaf ears as the French public continue to exhibit amazing displays of anger towards America and Britian (defacing cemetaries, for example, or rioting in Paris).

If they WERE thinking, they'd realize, like Tony Blair, that Saddam was a common threat to the freedom and security of the West, would soon acquire weapons that would make his elimination impossible, and that the interests of America are the same as all free and democratic states (especially since America provides a security blanket that France continues to sleep over). But, they simply didn't think.

One day, the Eiffel Tower will be destroyed by Arab terrorists. What will France ask of America then? Will we respond? Don't think it could happen? September 11th proves that anything can happen.

Here is what France was thinking:

http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_4677.shtml

Despite all the blather about the longstanding relationship between the United State, France and Germany, the three countries have been unable to present a unified front to the threat of Saddam Hussein. Why? France and Germany's unwillingness to cooperate with efforts to disarm Saddam Hussein is best described as an attempt to free ride on American power and resoluteness. Ultimately, the leaders of both countries know the U.S. will remove Saddam from power, regardless of what they say in NATO or the Security Council. What the leaders of France and Germany are less sure about is the response of their local Muslim populations (which constitute between 5 and 10 percent of each country’s population) to a decision on their part to support the ouster of Saddam Hussein. While Saddam is a secular leader, Iraq's population is 95 percent Muslim and any attack that country will likely be viewed with contempt by the Muslims in France and Germany and used as a pretext by extremists for violence. While militant Islamists were content to use Europe as a staging ground for the 9/11 attack, it's not unreasonable to expect that attacks would take place in France or Germany after an invasion, especially if the two countries support the U.S. in efforts to oust Saddam. By making a grand show of opposing the United States in its efforts to disarm Iraq, France and Germany have signaled to terrorist groups in the Mideast and potential attackers within their own country that they aren't as worthy a target as the U.S.

By way of comparison, the leaders of Eastern Europe which have demonstrated much greater support for the United States have negligible Muslim populations to worry about, primarily because they lack economies capable of attracting large numbers of immigrants. Small Muslim populations, combined with a desire to maintain good relations with the U.S. to serve as a counterbalance to France and Germany's efforts to dominate the European Union, has led to Eastern Europe’s support of American policy.

Ironically, Germany and France can let the U.S. go it alone on Iraq because they know their protector was too traumatized by the 9/11 attack to ignore the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. For Bush, the threat of another 9/11 attack on U.S. soil is an imperative to which he must respond. For Chirac and Schroeder, the threat of another 9/11 on U.S. soil is insurance the U.S. will do what is necessary to disarm Saddam, even in the face of withering criticism.

I don't see them as leading a coalition of anti-american forces. It seems like Germany is backing off and trying to mend fences. In Britain the war is increasingly popular. Eastern Europe is pissed that France tried to co-opt them, and the Arab countries are too putrid for France to want to have an above board alliance with. WHo does that leave to join this coalition?

And anyway, nobody likes to back the loser. The underdog is great, especially if he wins, but when he loses people stop caring.

In general.

Anyway, all plans for a EU military of any signifcant size is a joke. Tax rates are sky high, social spending is as well. Their economies are in the crapper. There is no money to pay for a military that could compete with the US, and I don't think there would be the will to use it even if they had it.

They can't even build that Rapid Reacion Force, for Christ's sake. The changes they would need to make to be a genuine competitor to the US would require some sort of major revolution, not just in the governments, but the basic philosophy (socialism) that is the foundation of the rest.

Some of it may be pique at not getting their asses kissed.

Maybe the following happened:
Chirac actually thinks that Saddam must go. However, he figures that by initially opposing the war, he can get the US to beg for permission. This begging will enhance France's prestige and help Chirac politically. However, two things go wrong:
1. The anti-war stance proves to more popular than Chirac expects, and
2. The US doesn't beg for permission, but instead treats Security Council permission as irrelevant to what they actually do.

So for France to eventually support an invasion costs Chirac politically more than he expects. Moreover the US is saying we do not need your help. So Chirac thinks to himself "If the US does not need my help, why should I pay politically to give it to them?"

Even if this is not really what happened, I think that the US threat to ignore the UN if the security council did not do what it wanted was a significant factor in Chirac's decision to never approve the use of force against Iraq.

Note that France's actions at the end of the diplomatic dance were not the best ones to attempt to prevent an invasion of Iraq. If just before the Azores summit, France had said that it was willing to sign onto a 1 more resolution plan, she could have delayed the invasion by at least a month. During that time political support for the attack in the US would likely have decreased, and maybe Iraq could be persuaded to covertly destroy enough of its WMD that the inspectors would not have found enough to justify an invasion. This might not have worked, but I think that it would have had a better chance than what France actually did.
-Tom Spencer
N.B. I am not a professional historian, nor do I have a blog.

In my humble opinion the end game isn't who wins the war, but how the peace is managed. I think France assumed the US would need to come back to the UN to handle the peace keeping and rebuilding efforts. Once things are back in the UN, France can tie up the process in knots and then blame any problems on the US's original "unilateral" decision to go to war.

France (and Bush) are going to be judge on what things look like in 18 months not 18 days from now.

In the UN, each state had a right to exist if that's what it's government wanted to do. It recalls the right of the individual. These are products of civilization, they're not the natural order of strong over weak. The French naturally wanted to preserve this system of egalitarianism, because they're relatively weak. The US wanted to have a system that reflects power because the US is strong. All governing systems have these tensions.

Why did the French do it? Why did the US do it? Maybe it wasn't built to last. It's certainly been hurting for a while. But it was probably a self-destructive move for us, a move that will shift the center of progress from the weak individual back to the powerful collective. There's a Bush Doctrine for the homeland too you know.

I think Mike Brennan really has something there--recognizing that Chirac seems not only to have hoped to gain power as the head of the EU, but also to develop a sphere of French influence in Arab countries. And, I would add, in some still undemocratized countries in Africa, where he found several votes to back him in the U.N.--not to mention Robert Mugabe's recent visit to France. Chirac clearly has no compunctions about dealing with dictators, and among the pariah nations and rogue states of the world, he may just hope to assemble an alliance to counter the power of the U.S.

It was a genuine intellectual disagreement. Anyway isn't that more interesting to talk about?

Sure is dumb to say that France is with 90% of the world. If they were, they wouldn't be in trouble. But I think that they thought the same thing as the poster who wrote such a silly declaration. After all, the NY Times and the London papers agreed, so "da french guy" thought he was preaching to the choir. Everybody knows "Bush is an idiot" and "the world is now run by the U.N."

France bought that silly argument and now the real world is letting them know that what Amitava tried to palm off as 90% of the world - isn't. Am most people alredy knew. Now the rest are finding out. Well, at least those that are willing to get real.

Also, you can't "misunderestimate" the impact of the rest of the world hearing fabulous stories of Clinton's intellect, and now "Bush is Hitler" propaganda. People across the world actually believe our network anchors and NYT. They reported it wrong about which emporer - er, president wears clothes.

What does France get if they go along with the United States on Iraq?? Honestly, they wouldn't have gotten a damn thing and we all know it. In other words they didn't have anything to really lose.

What they gained was the ability to isolate Britain with regards to European power politics. They've made a serious effort to build stronger relations with Germany over the last few months that they believe are going to develop into something quite concrete in the longer term.

Old school politics. When you are in trouble domestically, focus the voters on foreign affairs. France's economy is in the crapper, and has little prospect of getting better. Quite the reverse, actually. Unfortunately for JC, the misdirection won't last for ever. Even more unfortunately, for him and France, the economic repurcussions of this will make things worse, and hasten their advent.

I read recently that American bookings to France were down 18% in 2002. I'd expect that figure to increase this year. I'm sure they will face many other, less noticable losses. As a personal example, my wife and I had planned on buying a T-Fal set to replace our current pots and pans. We will be buying a different brand now.

PS We talk about the problems with Social Security here, and the huge unfunded liabilities it has accumulated. The situation in Europe is far, far worse. Their economies are in worse shape than ours, they already tax their populations far more than we do, their benefits are more generous, and their population demographics are far worse with regard to aging of the population (and hence the worse their retiree/worker ratio will be). It's a ticking time bomb waiting to explode in the next 10-20 years that is frankly scary to consider.

The only way I can see for them to possibly escape the looming train wreck is to dramatically increase economic freedoms, cut taxes, and lower government expenses. Unfortunately, I just don't see the political environment to do much more of this (a number of European countries did indeed cut taxes over the last few years, but I'm afraid it is too little too late).

Lots of good ideas, a few silly ones. One thing you learn in sales is that people make decisions on the emotional level and then look for justifications. Even the most intelligent people can fall victim to rationalization.

If we assume Chirac is only concerned with himself and his own career, and doesn't care about what's good for France, then it's an easy question. He did it all because he was rewarded by the French people with sky high approval ratings.

That raises a new question. Why do the French so vigourously support policies that are so obviously bad for France? Do they hate America more than they love France?

Not to discount any of the reasons offered here, but there is a deeper historical backdrop to the conflict that puts the US/UK/Australia on one side and France/Germany/Russia on the other.

In some ways the conflict goes back to the Magna Carta.

Beginning in the Middle Ages, growing during the Reformation, and coming to the fruition during the Age of Revolution, the Anglophone political tradition has been a distinct one from the Continentalist one.

In the Anglophone world (more or less, this is a vast oversimplification), the individual is primary. The individual is the sovereign rights-bearer, who gives (a limited number of) his rights to the state.

In the Continentalist political tradition, the state or other corporate institutions (guilds, free cities, peasant assemblies) grant rights to the individual.

More?

The Anglophone legal system of the Common Law is inherently flexible, the jurist is given freedom and the system is more likely to make accomodations in individual cases.

Continental jurisprudence is rooted in Roman Law, where law is more rigid and more codified; accomodation of individual freedoms and peculiarities of cases is less likely to occur.

In the Early Modern Period, Britain and its colonies were hotbeds of individualistic, dissenting Protestant faiths (Calvinism and its Puritan offshoot, then Baptism, Methodism, Quakerism). The Continent is home to Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism (more authoritarian variant of Protestantism). Religiously, Anglophone peoples have been more accustomed to privilege the individual than on the Continent, where hierarchy and order are emphasized.

In England fee-simple land tenure was more prominent; in colonial America that's all there was (except in NY, long story). On the Continent, land ownership was in a variety of feudal/seigneurial forms - less individualism there.

Britain is an island - less fear of invasion - no standing army - less of martial tradition - less subordination of individualism. The exact opposite existed on the Continent - the martial tradition increasing as you go eastward into Russia.

The British Empire was always less centralized than the Spanish and French Empires, at least in the period, 16th cen. - 19th cen. Britain's liberated colonial possessions - US, Australia, to a lesser extent Canada, all build federal systems with less centralization than most Continental countries. (Germany is federal, an exception.) Note, too, how India (Anglophone!) has taken to democracy.

This centuries-old political legacy has conditioned how the various nations have responded to the challenges of emerging global economy.

The Anglophone countries, the US in particular, have emphasized freer markets, less government, less mediating corporate institutions (like labor unions); the Continentalist countries want governments, unions, NGOS, UN, etc. to provide checks on free markets in general and Anglophone power in particular. (Again, India, Hong Kong, Singapore - all former Anglophone countries, all entreprenurial hotbeds.)

The Anglophone world and the Continental world have two very distinct visions of what human rights are, where they come from, where government gets its power, and how this power should be wielded.

Note that George W. Bush represents the extreme of the Anglophone traditions - he is a Dissenting Protestant (Methodist), from the states' right=state sovereignty=local control wing of the American political party that also celebrates free markets and eschews corporatist solutions to most problems. Bush's political theory is classical Anglophone provincialism: emphasizing individualism, private property, local rule, and distrust of metropolitan authority.

The French look at Bush and see everything they have been fighting against since the Hundred Years' War, Louis XIV, and Napoleon.

This divide is deep and will not go away.

Tim, i think its as simple as you say

I think people underestimate just how much the rest of the world hates the US. That is what the French have gained. By sticking a knife in the US's back, they've gained respect, if not love, from much of the world. This may or may not translate into money, power, and influence for France in the long term.

I mean, look at polls of what people in countries think. Really, only those in the US are in favor of the war. In the UK & Australia, it's in favor now, since the war started, but before it was slightly against it. The countries that have supported the US have pretty much all done it against the wishes of their people.

Go read the story about how the US kid's hockey team was treated in Canada. Very very vile stuff. In Canada! Yes, it was in Montreal, but some of the Canadians were from other places (the other team for instance).

Chirac is now a hero in France, a hero in the Arab world, A hero in much of Europe, a hero in Russia, a hero in Canada, most of Latin America, and Asia. The only place they don't seem to like him is in the Ivory Coast and Israel.

And what exactly has France lost? Nothing! Oooh, some Americans have boycotted French goods. But Europeans of all sorts have boycotted US goods in far greater numbers. And those countries that now see France as an idol will no doubt make up any difference.

They might, might! lose some oil contracts when the war is over. But we don't know that. And I would bet they still get a piece of the action, because of how the State Dept leans.

There's no need to analyse the French very much.
No one loves the french. Everybody knows about the French interest in opposing the US.

But they did the right thing anyway.

I'm not a pacifist and not a europink, but this war is wrong, and the US is wrong.

It's not the french who ruined the UN - it's the US. They didn't get what they wanted and so decided to go it alone.

I usually love the US and Americans because of their way of living and their love of life, but this war has taken its toll. We see people like Instapundit unmasked as simply ill informed and misled morons - uncritically accepting the US war propaganda as the truth. The US leadership does not care what the rest of the world thinks. The US is creating terrorism and resentment all over the world - and we're really asking for it this time. It is just a matter of time before we are fucked - in Europe too.

Everybody would love to see Saddam go - even the French. No one has said otherwise.
But the US has decided to opt out of the international society by not ratifying a number of treaties - from a war criminal court, over a Kyoto environmental agreement to UN led sanctions against Iraq. Don't expect the rest of the world to follow the leadership of the US under such circumstances.

You brought it upon your self. And I think that the American people is seriously misguided if they think that it will not affect the US economy, and that the world will forget soon.

Anyway, doing a quick search on Yahoo news for 'Iraq Poll'

http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news?p=poll+war&hc=0&hs=1

turns up:

70% of Canadians approve of government keeping them out of war

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030322/wl_canada_afp/iraq_war_canada_poll_1

86% of Indians are against war

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030329/wl_sthasia_afp/iraq_war_india_poll_030329130846

90% of Spaniards are against it

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030329/ap_wo_en_po/eu_gen_spain_iraq_polls_1

65% of the Japanese

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030331/ap_wo_en_ge/as_gen_asia_iraq_5

45% of Russians want Iraq to win (5% pull for the US, rest don't care)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030326/ap_wo_en_ge/eu_gen_russia_us_poll_1

Most Thai military officers are against war

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030325/ap_wo_en_ge/as_gen_thailand_iraq_5

80% of Mexicans oppose war

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030328/ap_wo_en_ge/la_gen_mexico_war_myths_1

94% of Turks

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030329/ap_on_re_mi_ea/turkey_war_woes_2

86% of South Koreans

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030402/wl_nm/iraq_korea_dc_2

(Though a majority want to send troops as a bribe to get US help to deal with North Korea. At least they are honest about it)

80% of Germans (and there's a fairly strong boycot of US goods)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030328/ap_on_re_mi_ea/war_germany_us_boycott_1

Slovenians are against it (no number, but says overwhelmingly)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030323/ap_on_re_eu/slovenia_eu_nato_12

98% of Chileans

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030327/wl_nm/chile_bomb_dc_1

82% of Nicaraguans

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030330/ap_wo_en_ge/la_gen_nicaragua_iraq_1

Anyway, I could go on, but I think it's pretty obvious from those polls that most people in other countries are pretty strongly against the war. Maybe not 90%, but 80-85% would not be out of line.

However, I don't blame the 'neocons', since I am one. I think we have to do this. If we did anything 90% of the world would be against it, because they hate us. Screw them. But I think it explains the motivations of France pretty well. And why they will gain a lot from it in the long run.

There was also a poll of which countries have favorable opinions of the US. Poland was the best, at 50%. All others were lower.

I think the French think they will be getting exactly what they wanted - a Europe which is a counterweight to the US - so what is there to understand?

Unless something happens, France-Germany will now try to construct a common foreign policy (outside of the EU) and military (outside of NATO). Other European countries will be given the choice of agreeing to their terms, or being left out in the cold. Given popular opinion (as opposed to current government position), it should be expected that Spain and Italy will eventually join. Only the U.K. (and maybe some Scandinavian countries, Bulgaria, Romania?) may stay out.

And if Russia joins up, well then the resulting alliance will be a superpower which is - gasp - even stronger militarily, not to mention economically, than the US.

So before Americans become so cocky and arrogant, maybe they should ask why they are in danger of losing the gains of the Cold War - by losing Europe to Russia.

Now I think this bipolar world would be a disaster - both for Europe and the U.S. But it's only going to be avoided if both sides understand that they share responsibility in the trainwreck, rather than constantly seeing the fault in the other side.

Maybe things will magically right themselves in the near future. Let's hope so. If not, then the neocons will not have brought America greater security, but a new balance-of-power against it. And de Villepin and Chirac will find out that kicking out the Americans brings not greater strength to France, but ruin.

I agree with a previous poster that the French underestimated our resolve. Additionally, I think they underestimated Tony Blaire's resolve. More importantly, I think the French, the Russians, etc. flat out underestimate our military might and finesse. They underestimate our economy's ability to take this war in stride, even in "bad" times.

The French, the Russians, the Germans... They look back at (for example) the USSR's failure in Afganistan, compare it to our success, and see a small multiple in capabilty, resolve, etc. when in fact it is an order of magnitude difference. They look at our success in dislodging Iraq from Kuwait and expect a small multiple in capability, resolve, etc. when in fact, 12 years increased our capability over an adversary like Iraq 100 fold. And they expect that we would win but that it would be long and drawn out, another quagmire. Now that it is clear that we are having our way very quickly, the German and French political leadership is mustering the courage to show some amount of (back-handed) support.

In short, they didn't want to support a loser, didn't think there would be a winner, and are now going to have to deal with just how impotent and marginalized they are. Aw heck, I'll even go out on a limb and say that Western Civilization is collectively so comfortable, it doubts itself and its relative merit to the assorted backwardness of the world. The Anglo-axis is the last remaining source of self-confidence and leadership in Western Civ.

-Brad

Interesting to see the range of opinions.

Gunnar, I think your analysis of the UN is a bit skewed. You say, "It's not the french who ruined the UN - it's the US. They didn't get what they wanted and so decided to go it alone."

Yes, the US wanted something done about Iraq. The UN has done nothing but administer the food-for-oil program for 12 years. As far as the UN bureaucrats are concerned, keeping it going for another 12 (or 24, or 48...) years was fine.

Meanwhile, we've seen the original sanctions against Iraq slowly weakened without Saddam Hussein ever giving up the WMDs he agreed to surrender after the Kuwait invasion.

The US convinced the Security Council (including France) that the UN needed to get tough on Iraq. They unanimously passed Resolution 1441, which was specifically designed to avoid getting into another long-drawn-out inspection hide-and-seek regime. Months go by, and the inspectors are playing hide-and-seek again. The US says Iraq has failed to cooperate, and we need to follow up on the serious consequences threatened in 1441. And France says they will veto any resolution with any deadlines, or that explicitly threaten to use force.

So, yes, in a sense, the UN didn't do what the US wanted it to. But the UN also didn't (or couldn't) follow up on its own threat against Iraq. That's certainly France's fault, not the US's.

Really, the UN has failed at a lot of things. Almost all of Africa is run by corrupt dictators; okay, maybe the UN can't do anything about that. There've been serious genocides in countries from the Balkans to Cambodia to Rwanda; okay, maybe that's not something the UN can handle. At least we can point with pride to how the UN ended the Cold War, right? Umm, well, no.

At some point, you have to ask what the point of the UN is. If its main accomplishment is to allow ambassadors from despotic thugocracies to spout platitudes, maybe the US can find a better use for the billions we pay to run it.

I take the various polls showing people "opposed to the war in Iraq" with a grain of salt. (Thanks for the links, tho, Jeremy.)

I think opposition to war is the default position of most thinking people. To support the war, people have to be convinced that it is necessary. I suppose if Bush had a really wizard State Department, they'd have convinced the Japanese and Indian and Argentinian population to support the war. But he doesn't, they haven't, and I don't expect them to bother.

My impression is that the greatest support for the war is in countries which are actually supplying troops for it; these countries, of course, are the ones where the government has most needed to convince people.

It would certainly have been in our interest to convince the French population to support attacking Iraq. Still, it's probably impossible to convince a foreign population of something when their own government is arguing the opposite.

It might be interesting to do one of those pop-quiz polls on the whole Iraqi situation and see how many (eg) Peruvians know the name of Iraq's capital, and what percentage of Indonesians can name the three types of WMD the UN was looking for. (Easy questions, of course, but they may show who's been paying attention, or even if there's been any information for them to pay attention to.) And we might separate out the Muslim respondents for additional analysis.

I like the Saddam paid Chirac theory.

It is simple. It conforms to the known facts.

Add in that it is wildly popular in France and you have a winner.

As long as Chirac is popular he will not be investigated as much.

As long as he is popular there will be no impeachment move (or whatever is the French equivalent).

If he can get re-elected he stays out of jail for another term.

Self interest. It has nothing to do with France.

I think people often project their own beliefs onto others, and assume they follow a similar decision making path. Iraqi leaders spew propoganda on tv and expect us to believe it because they would believe such things. Chirac holds the UN in such esteem that despite US statements to go to war with or without the UN, he really believed we respected the UN so much we would not defy international opinion.

I think the French not only underestimated our resolve, they misunderstood our culture.

Apparently, a lot of the French (and Germans) thought of this as just another routine disagreement, something that would not cause any long lasting hostility. We'll just get over it, and it will be back to business as usual.

Boy, have they got a shock in store. . .

DELENDUM ESSE SAUDI ARABIA!

Unacceptable Theory #3: It was all about Kyoto. A president who would not only let a dictator like Saddaam stay in power, but damage his own country's geopolitical interests, because of a treaty that was already dead in the water, should be impeached.

And while I am open to the idea that France was trying to damage our power in rder to advance her own, I do not buy that she has succeeded. France is not going to go off and start its own military policy with Germany because neither country wants to spend the 5-10% of GDP it would take them to catch up to the US. Since they haven't any military power, their main geopolitical power derives from the institutions they seem to have just blown up, and from the trade agreements they are busily scuttling at Doha.

The critical decision France made was that it preferred to assist in the spread of weapons of mass destruction with the likely deaths of many, many innocents; to assisting the United States in trying to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction into the hands of terrorists and illegitimate states.

There is no moral justification for the French position. That is why France has become an enemy of the United States. However, as was pointed out, morality matters little to the French government.

From the stand point of power politics the decision appears to no sense. France is one of the world's major countries, it gains only insecurity from assisting in the massive increase in destructive power of the illegitimate states and terrorists.

The only thing that might make sense is that the French think there is no hope of containing the spread of weapons of mass destruction. And that they only want to divert their initial usage to employment against the United States.

So my working hypothesis is that the French wanted to see weapons of mass destruction used against the United States, with the hope that this would empower the EU and further French leadership.

Jeremy is right.

Strange though it may seem, the French are constantly looking to have a global leadership role. For example, they have had a long-running fantasy about their special relationship with Africa because a few little bits of it speak French. Did no-one notice when Chirac destroyed the (admittedly not very effective) British Commonwealth sanctions against Robert Mugabe by insisting on inviting him to Paris for a completely meaningless "summit"? All part of the French vanity that they are a superpower too. It is clear that Chirac has a similar fantasy about the Arab world: that France can have a sort of virtual empire as opinion leader of Arab nations. And of course as someone else pointed out he is scared of his large, angry and excluded Arab minority (btw does anyone know how many North African members of the French Parliament there are? None. Yes, none.)

This is nothing new, by the way. de Gaulle was exactly the same. He opposed British entry to the Common Market (as the EU was then) basically because he thought the British were a sort of Trojan Horse for US ways of doing things, and would interfere with his vision of a Europe dominated by France as a counterweight to the pesky Americans.

In a word: baksheeh.

Old fashioned corruption is common in the Common Market. Rich Arabs have been buying influence for decades.

Transferring millions of Euros or Dollars into a secret bank account is simple and effective.

Chirac sold himself to Saddam.

this was probably stated, possibly many times, in previous posts--I couldn't get thru them all. Right now I understand France's actions in light of 2 centuries of European fear of American power and anti-American feeling. There was a nice article about this in the New Yorker recently. For example, some of the French (and maybe even British) wanted the South to win the Civil War so that the US would split apart and therefore be weaker.

I must say, I find the "France leading the anti-American coalition" line of argument quite fascinating.

The idea that Asia is aligned w/ France (don't recall which person put that up) profoundly misunderstands Asia's views of the United States, Europe (especially former European colonial masters), and the UN.

Certainly, American dismissal of the UN did not go over well in Asian capitals. But then, Asian capitals have rarely accorded that much concern to the UN, either. The most important security guarantor in that part of the world, after all, is the United States, in terms of keeping states from each other's throats. The idea that the UN was going to save Cambodia, South Vietnam, or even South Korea (today) is not a very serious one. Asian states fearing China do not expect the UN to stop their incursions into the South China Sea---they expect/hope the US Seventh Fleet to do so.

Not even China, UNSC P-5 that it is, sided w/ France. Chinese diplomats made it clear that, while they were ecstatic that France would offer opposition to the US, there was nary a chance that China would offer a veto of the US on its own. Chinese trade w/ the US was/is simply too important to warrant that. [China, it should be noted, has used its veto power ONCE, and that was regarding the renewal of UN peacekeepers in Macedonia. And, no, that was NOT a shot at the US!]

What we see, instead, is opportunism on the part of many states to register their disapproval of the US's actions, w/o much cost, by tagging along w/ France. If there was genuine fear, as someone else noted, there'd be much more active defense efforts, and for that matter diplomatic efforts, aimed at constraining the US.

For Asia, at least, expecting anything more than that is either wishful (nightmarish?) thinking, or a lack of understanding of how that part of the world actually works....

What were they thinking? A military analogy is pertinent here: they were fighting the last war not the current one.

Jacques Chirac acted on his belief, based on his experience with the last two US Presidents, that the US would be cowed by overwhelmingly negative international opinion. He miscalculated who he was dealing with. He believed that we would never act without the approval of the UN. And he was horrifically and gloriously wrong!

Jeremy and Jimbob are onto something. France is building a network of clients and allies, with itself as the head. Check out things like this:

http://www.theperspective.org/survie_taylor.html

It bears keeping in mind that Libya and Liberia are French clients, and they're courting Zimbabwe.

I suspect that the collapse of the UN is a bit of a disappointment to them, but the UN isn't really critical for them in the long run. Same goes for NATO.

Now the way the EU situation has been developing seems to truly be a major blow to the French. Blair has always seemed to want to take the thing over from the inside, play along with the French and then beat them at their own game, and now with the newfound willingness of Scandanavian and Eastern European nations to speak out, he may have the support he needs to do just that.

I agree with the analysis that says France was playing its usual "counterbalance" role - and planned on joining in at the last minute - this was thwarted by popular political support.

The will of the French people, so be it. This was forgiveable. What is not as forgiveable has been how aggressive they have been in opposition (De Villepan's African adventure tour) and how complacent they have been in fostering anti-americanism and anti-sematism (observe the imagery, slogans, desecrations, and pockets of anti-semitic violence at certain protests). This will continue to tenor future US/French dealings.

Given that I think that circumstances drove them to it, I suspect there is little to be gained. The possibility exists that this could lead to the development of France playing a central role in a counter-balance pole (French "leadership"; German industry; Russian muscle and Arab/Islamofascist skirmishers) - I think this is fantasy, and there are too many divergant interests to keep such a coalition together - no matter how much they may hate the US/Anglo world. Even if they could - they are missing key ingridients such as sufficient technology and innovation.

In the end, I think the gain nothing, and lose trust. Vive le . . .

"I think he fears the consequences of opposing the Arabs when France has millions of unassimilated Arabs in its midst. " The average Frenchman hates and loathes their Muslim population, but can't figure out how to get rid of them. Keeping them pacified is the easiest way to keeping them out of the good schools, the good neighborhoods, etc.

PLus, who know what France has sold to Saddam?

Side note - I am definitely interested in the theme of continetal egalitarian/statist traditions vs. anglosphere liberty/individualistic traditions. In particular I am curious about how Islamic Sharia law based traditions would be compared and contrasted.

I am a lightweight when it comes to understanding these traditions, however, in a brief introduction, it was suggested that Sharia (islamic) law favors the good of the community over the good of the individual. Thus, sharia can spell out cruel punishments on an individual in the interest of protecting the community. This seems not entirely dissimilar to egalitarian traditions that are focused on equalizing outcomes for the whole community vs equalizing opportunities for all individuals. This would suggest that sharia law is not very compatible with individual rights based traditions of the "anglosphere", and comprises an element in the clash of cultures. To the extent that this has some similarities with some statist traditions prevalent in the welfare state of continental europe, it would show some consistency with some commentary that suggests that the anti-war Europe has started to sound like the Arab street.

I would be interested to learn if sharia law has more liberty based traditions in different sects and interpretations.

How about checking out what a French analyst thinks?

From a purely national standpoint, Jacques Chirac has calculated that the damage done to French-U.S. relations by the events of the past two months is such that France would not be thanked in the U.S., should it choose now to abandon its opposition. Indeed, France would only be seen as difficult but cowardly, fulfilling the expectations of a number of American diplomats who are convinced that, in the end, France always caves in to pressure. While, on the other hand, there would be much for France to lose among the opponents of U.S. policies.

From a March 17 op-ed in the Toronto Globe and Mail by Guillaume Parmentier, director of the French Centre on the United States in Paris, author of Reconcilable Differences: U.S.-French Relations in the New Era.

"Side note - I am definitely interested in the theme of continetal egalitarian/statist traditions vs. anglosphere liberty/individualistic traditions. In particular I am curious about how Islamic Sharia law based traditions would be compared and contrasted. "

There are four schools of thought in Islamic jurisprudence - Hanbali, Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafei. The Saudi use Hanbali, the most conservative school.

Quick googling:
"The Hanbali school of interpretation rejects, except in rare situations, jurisprudence by analogy. It attempts to confine all legal interpretation to evident textual meaning. In the absence of evident Quranic guidance on particular issues, the school refrains from ruling on the issue."

http://www.csiw.org/Islam03.htm

(Must...resist...dig at..Scalia..)

There were many advances in jurisprudence up to mid-late medieval times, then (when the theological view that the Koran was eternal, not created in time) progress ground to a halt.

The article linked to below puts the time of stagnation starting around the 1200s, but I thought it was closer to the 1400s, and linked to the economic decline (because of the switch by the Europeans to sea trade routes rather than overland trade routes).

http://www.mideasti.org/library/islam/schools.htm

HTH you make a start. I remember one introductory book that was very good - I think it was "Introduction to Islam" by Frederick Denny.

Just on the surface, France has outright betrayed us unforgivably. But when you dig even deeper into other areas, many having nothing to do with the war, France’s actions are close to covert actions of war against the United States. Their attempt at hijacking the EU, destroying NATO, the UN, and their most recent “military alignment” for “European defense” with Germany and Bulgaria, snubbing the UK (Europe’s largest military power) because of their association with the US……well, it smacks of …..well, gee, I can’t even fathom what they are thinking…..on the surface it appears to be “suicide”. There is no possible way they could stand militarily against the UK with the US along side. It’s almost as if THEY know something WE don’t know……Russia??....naw, even that wouldn’t tip the scales……China??........no, I don’t think they are ready yet. What could they be thinking?? We know now that France had a hand in Turkey’s decision NOT to support us. Turkey PLAYED us, waiting all the way until the MOMENT the war started to even grudgingly ALLOW overflights. They were trying to cover their asses.

Now the “intel” is that France “encouraged” Turkey to move troops across the border to “ensure the safety of Iraqi refugees and to prevent Kurdish military action”. The “intel” eludes that France “paid” Turkey……but France (and Germany) are literally “on the ropes” economically…….WHAT did the French promise in “payment”???? The intel goes on to say it was less of a “payment” and more of a “threat”….ie. Turkey has been waiting to join the EU (with the US supporting it all the way)……supposedly France threatened to veto Turkey’s induction into the EU……but wait, France’s whole attitude about the war and the US has almost killed the EU……or at least France’s “grab for power” (along with Germany)…… the EU members and potential members are not happy with France and Germany’s blatant quest for EU domination. So in the end……WHAT THE HELL IS FRANCE THINKING?? What is left out of the equation??? Chirak’s buddy-buddy association with Sadaam has always been curious, as his relationship with despot “friends” on the Ivory Coast. Is Chirak conspiring with Muslim fanatics and dictators?? Is he hoping to stir up the hornets’ nest even more?? Has France totally given over to the Muslim rhetoric??? We know for a “fact” (quotes from their own prime minister) that one of the reasons France was against invasion of Iraq (or any Arab nation) was fear of Muslim terrorists around the world and of the 5 million Muslims living in France. Not concern for their “opinion” or political vote, but FEAR of what they would DO……… (pause for dramatic effect) ……….. that is a rather chilling proclamation…….. that a nation would allow a minority group within their country dictate policy based on the potential violence and terror that they threaten.

Unfortunately France is not alone in this type of reaction. Nations willing to subjugate themselves and their citizens because of fear……..being against the war not because they feel it is wrong, but because they don’t want to make the terrorists MAD!!??!! Evidently, the US tendency to gain resolve and strength against insane threats of destruction is derided as “American Cowboy” syndrome by many in the world……as if that in of itself is some kind of insult. They just don’t “get” it.

So, is France doing this solely out of “fear” of Muslim terrorism??? No, not entirely. France, as a nation, is literally on the skids. Culturally, economically, militarily – in every shape and way – they are dong very poorly. The biggest boon to their economy to come along in decades is the money from the Arab countries and particularily Iraq. Openly, they have helped the Iraqis build two nuclear reactors, and contracted for municipal works projects and construction of Sadaam’s palaces (along with the Netherlands and others) as well as lucrative trade and export agreements in the future. Surreptiously, WE KNOW that French companies have been dealing in military munitions and spare parts with Iraq. What we don’t know, or are unsure of, is what other “deals” may be in the works with Iraq and other Arab/Muslim countries.

So, why is France doing all of this??? My theory is that France is at it’s wits end as a former world power and is fighting for survival. It is no longer satisfied with living under the protective shadow of American power (economic or otherwise). They have long since left the path of a capitalistic democracy and continue their headlong rush toward a socialistic elite regime. As such, the US is undoubtedly their enemy, not only politically and idealistically, but as a world economic and technological power. France was cultivating Arab-Muslim favor for economic gains, and also because they personally feared their terroristic tendencies…..but an even BIGGER PLUS is that although the Muslims hate the West in general, they TRULY HATE the United States in particular. Any friction that France can direct our way through the Middle East is GOOD for THEM and BAD for US…….the more hatred that France can help to stir up against the US via “world opinion”, the better for them and their nation. France is pissed as hell that the US has “horned in” on what was one of their slim hopes of bettering their financial and world position through their association with “rogue” Arab factions. Anything they can do to hurt us in our war efforts is fair game. The reporting of the war in Iraq by the French is appalling shocking. French TV newscasts blatantly present the US and UK as war mongerers and “criminal nations” and the Iraqis and Sadaam as a poor nation being unfairly and systematically wiped out by the coalition…..AND…….get this……THE ZIONIISTS!!!! Yes, the anti-semantic propaganda machine has been working overtime in France (actually Europe in general) for the past decade. The French are increasingly anti-Jew (even though they have one of the largest Jewish populations in Europe -- more Jews in fact than Muslims).

In a nutshell, I believe that France is secretly trying to encourage many more nations other than Turkey, to pressure the US. I would even go so far to say that the French are doing everything in their power to stir the rest of the pot in the Middle East…..their news coverage sure is and Chirak has certainly been on the move recently visiting with other “close friends” in and around the region…….I think Chirak’s “wet dream” is to see a coalition of Arab forces directed at the US-UK coalition…….maybe as soon as they are assured that Sadaam is gone. Whether they have the guts to do it militarily or just in the battlefield of World Opinion and the UN, I don’t know.

Andrew & Gunnar: Sorry, but...garbage. Unless Europe in the next twenty years figures out how to turn around its hydra-headed problems of poor immigration policies, slow eocnomies, crushing tax burdens, military impotence, population decline, AND a socialist tradition that just won't let go of that tax-consuming welfare state (consuming money that could otherwise be spent on halfway serious military investments), Europe will not be contending on the world stage for a long time.

On the other hand, China in fifty years will likely be a direct contender to US strength on both the military and economic fronts, becuase it has the will and resources to do so.

Some new evidence challenges that theory, Anony-mosue. It turns out that China's growth may have been more along the lines of 3.5% annually than 7%, putting the date at which their absolute GDP surpasses ours sometime in the very distant future. And their banking crisis apparently dwarfs Japan's, a concept that frankly boggles the mind.

this is a good link

I have to agree the french are not our allies

http://veryveryhappy.blogspot.com/2003_03_30_veryveryhappy_archive.html#91899775

Dave / Virginia: 15th century Christian law looked a lot like Sharia law. It's a 15th century system. The fact that it's Muslim is irrelevant.

The fact that people can choose Sharia over US-exported capitalism is evidence that in the globalist system the short end of the stick that's available to poor countries must be really really short.

Megan can refute every idea of the rational market and claim that Muslims are simply crazy to choose Sharia. Plenty of other pseudo-capitalists have done it on their way to concluding that "we must kill them because they are so dumb." But the empirical evidence is that Muslims are making the right choice between the systems offered to them.

I don't have to claim they're crazy -- I can just claim that they have imperfect information, or that they prefer the benefits of Sharia, whatever they may be, to the costs, whatever those may be. But I don't know anything about Sharia, so I don't know why I'd make such a claim.

In a political system you have to decide between the choices offered. Something has to be put into place. The idea that Muslims can simply order up the most advanced system is a "best of all possible worlds" fallacy.

That's why the Taliban took over Afghanistan from a bunch of bandits. Their government was lousy but it beat the alternative. It's not too promising when some of the same bunch were put back in charge of 98% of the country after the war was over.

The US is now in a position to offer Iraqis representative government. But all signs point to it being corrupted our way, as most of the rest of the Middle East is already. At least Saddam corrupted it for the benefit of Iraqis.

Tom & Eric M:

Thanks for your insights. Didn't mean to threadjack away from the topic at hand.

It is interesting to contemplate that the hibernation of Islamic / Sharia law and culture was timed around a change in technology. (Naval based trade as suggested by Eric M).

Makes me wonder whether Europe and France could find its social systems entering a hibernation due to the socialist welfare state.

Good discussions.

After 9/11 when France said, "We are all Americans", I thought they were simply expressing sympathy and sorrow. Now I believe that they were also saying "Now you understand; now you join the rest of us". Heaven knows the French have suffered from terrorism (Algeria). They fought but couldn't defeat it. Perhaps they convinced themselves that such problems were insurmountable; and the French found a way to live with it, to appease it. The French now find a philisophically inferior country (the US), engaged in a similar battle. How can they support us when they themselves withdrew? Perhaps it shames them. And the US will not come to heel even to the international order, but insists it fights "unilaterally" because it is "right and just". As if their fight was not.

The French seem not found a way to integrate their muslim populations (the US is lucky to have had Lincoln's war and the civil rights fight that taught us the importance of each one of us). They seem to live in unease with their muslim minorities. The French have yet to finish the war with their African Colonies. And now the US reminds them of a time they'd rather forget. So they fight us in a desparate attempt to assuage their national soul.

I dunno. Looks to me that everybody seems to be lookin' for complexity when simplicity would do.

The problem is that French actions and statements over the past two years are very puzzling to most people. It's like the question Ms. McArdel asked, "What are they doing?"

Most of the comments here try to explain it by looking at the big picture. EU politics. Islamic immigrants. Voter confidence. Elections. Influence. Economics.

The only problem is that it doesn't add up. For example, France could have tried to gain influence with the anti-American coutries in the world through their actions, but they essentially crippled or destroyed the venue they need to cash in on that influence (the EU or the UN). Not only don't they realize an advantage, they end up screwing up what they already have.

This is where the confusion sets in. They must be doing it with an eye out for something, so what is it?

I don't think this is part of any grand plan. It started out with a little anti-US rhetoric. Then the voters responded. Then Brussels gave them a thumbs up. Then things started to snowball. Now they can't back down or else they'd lose everything, but they STILL don't have any coherent strategy. They just have a tiger by the tail that they don't dare let go.

So far I'm the only one who thinks this is what happened. But it does have the advantage of explaining those darn inexplicable French actions.

James

Tom & Eric M:

Thanks for your insights. Didn't mean to threadjack away from the topic at hand."

Well, it is an interesting one. Tried reading up on Islam & the Koran 'bout eight years ago. The wife even enjoyed me reading it to her. Gives a different perspective on the Biblical stories, though, to be honest, Mohammed seems more on par with Joseph Smith than Buddha & Christ.

Red on the Druze and Al-Hakim for a laugh. Al-Hakim had, a, uhh, *innovative* way of dealing with merchants with questionable business practices. cf. http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/hakim.htm

Worth citing to friends in Wall St. when they start complaining about over-zealous SEC regulators.

"It is interesting to contemplate that the hibernation of Islamic / Sharia law and culture was timed around a change in technology. (Naval based trade as suggested by Eric M)."
"Makes me wonder whether Europe and France could find its social systems entering a hibernation due to the socialist welfare state."

IIRC, the labour productivity rate is rising higher in Continental Yuroop than in the US; but that's based off of Brad Delong's blog, not a close look at the figures. So the French & Belgians earn less than us, but work less also (though a lot of this is mass unemployment, rather than more vacation). Rigidity of labour markets is a problem, though.

It is refreshing to see at last an interesting debate on the French-USA situation, something that goes a bit farther than the usual brainless bashing on either side of the atlantic. I am myself french but i am just coming back from 4 years in California, this gives me i think an interesting angle on the situation. First let me start by saying that everything we say in this debate is deeply influenced by the cultutral environment and this environment my friends is very different on either side of the Atlantic. When you watch TV in the US it looks like a totally different world than what it looks in Europe. It is clear that we live in different realities. That, i think explains a lot of the current misunderstanding.

Now to the question of what France had to gain from its opposition to the US: there is one thing that's pretty clear which is that economically it had nothing to gain. It runs totally contrary to an argument i have seen a million times which is that France did it because it had deals with Irak, etc. This doesn't make any sense, it was very clear from the beginning of the crisis that Bush was decided to wage war against Saddam, no matter what, so if it was really about the economy the french would be on the US side, or at least they would not have tried to oppose it. There is in fact a very significant cost for France to opposing the US, we will probably see in the near future in Europe and other multinational institutions.

The real reason for me -and that's probably really hard to swallow for most americans- is that a very large majority of the world opinion is deeply against that war and France's position is just expressing this feeling. There is sort of a deep gutts feeling that this war is wrong and that its consequences are far more worrysome than the dangers it is claiming to address. It is a completely different risk assesment and a completely different analysis of the international situation today. This is of course deeply related to the different realities presented on our TV screens. Generally speaking the US is now seen in most of the world as an arrogant, hypocrite and ill advised power that will do anything to advance its interests. It has long been the case in Arab countries but it's also true now in Asia and Europe. The anti american feeling here in Europe today is unbelievable and often times not justified. It wasn't that way 4 years ago, and it didn't have to be that way, i think that the Bush administration bears a big responsability for that sorry state of affair.

In that crisis, Chirac just seized the instant and became the de-facto leader of the world opposition. This is typical Chirac style, this guy works a lot on instinct, he is a very skilled politician with a known taste for risk taking decisions. He is also a guy who -contrary to Bush and his advisers- has actually fought in a war, that was in Algeria against muslim people, he also has first-hand experience of terrorism when he was mayor of Paris and the subway was being bombed by islamists militants, he finally is one of the oldest and most experienced world leaders with considerable knowlegde of the world, its cultures and the politicians that represent them. Chirac like all politicians has a dark side to him, but i would not easily discard what he has to say when it comes to world affairs.

History will tell us which side was right. Even though i'm french, i personally hope that Chirac is wrong and that Bush (or whoever pulls the strings) is right, because if the US is wrong the price to ourselves and to our children coud be enormous.

Wow. Great debate.

I think psychoanalyzing the French as a people, or its elite, is really misleading and kind of self-serving (they are petty, and weak, and bitter, etc.)

My sense is that poor diplomacy on the part of the Bush administration as well as the French government exacerbated already existing ideological differences about what the world order should be. The Bush administration actually wants to be the policman of the world, bringing along whichever nations want to go along on each police action. Europe, on the other hand, finds no comfort in peace guaranteed or destroyed by the decisions of a single nation. I guess it's been said before. But I don't see the need to attribute the differences to moral weakeness or corruption.

The only fault you can attribute to the Bush Administration is that it has not been candid with the nation or the international community about what is at stake in Iraq. I don't mean that the Bush Administration is dishonest, but instead, that the Administration does not believe that people are capable of performing a rational assessment of the geopolitical consequences of September 11. I think the President underestimates the American people, but I think he has taken the true measure of the rest of the world.

I deployed to the Persian Gulf twice in the four years I serve in the Navy (1994-1998) aboard ships sent to enforce sanctions against Iraq. We were alone in the Gulf -- there was the odd British ship, an occasional Canadian, but never a French vessel that I recall. The U.S. also maintained the no-fly zones from bases in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and provided a significant garrison in Kuwait to shield that country from a second attack. Our presence in the region enraged Osama bin Laden and his al Quaeda, and they attacked us for interfering in the region.

Let me repeat that, because everything follows from that. Bin Laden and al Quaeda attacked us for interfering in the region. Not because we drink Coca Cola, not because we let our loose women run around without burquas, not because of Hollywood and the insufferable dribble coming out of there, not because we don't accept Allah. They had no beef with us before 1991, and they would have had no beef with us if we packed up and left after 9/11. If we had, they would have gotten on with the business of installing little Talibans in every country in the region, including Iraq.

From 1991-2001, the U.S. position in the Middle East solidified into an untenable position which could not be maintained, at least not from a national security perspective. We could have continued our containment of Iraq, while France and Russia continued to profit from food-for-oil contracts, but at what price? How many more Khobar Tower attacks, embassy bombings, USS COLE suicide strikes, and September 11ths could the United States withstand to maintain an uneasy status quo in the Middle East? We needed to move, and that meant either (1) finishing the Gulf War, or (2) withdrawing completely.

I think the Bush Administration made an accurate assessment. Had we withdrawn from the Middle East (like we did in Somalia), then (1) U.S. security guarantees to South Korea, Japan and Taiwan would be severely compromised; (2) the authority of the UN Security Council would have been severely compromised; and (3) Saddam Hussein would have invaded Kuwait, and maybe Saudi Arabia just to settle old scores, within five years. This time, though, he would have had nuclear weapons, and the United States and the world would have been loathe to stop his second attack.

The only fault of the Bush Administration is that it underestimated the cynicism and opportunism of the French and Russians in its diplomacy. The French insisted that containment was working. Of course they did; they weren't funding it, their citizens weren't dying for it, and they were making money hand-over-fist for their own economically dyspeptic social welfare system from food-for-oil contracts. Ditto the Russians.

I do wonder what would have happened if George W. Bush had simply issued an ultimatum to the UN last year -- give me a resolution within 90 days or the United States will go home, and we will propose that all sanctions be lifted on our way out the door. No more troops in Kuwait and Saudi and no more ships in the Gulf. Maybe we would be willing to match the commitment of the French and Russians at any one time in the region, but we would not exceed that. The French and the Russians could have vetoed the lifting of sanctions to preserve their oil contracts, but they would have looked very cynical doing it. I do wonder about that gambit, but...

...but President Bush is a reasonable man who did not want to unleash that many variables in to the geopolitical situation. I won't second-guess him on that. If the world had called our bluff, and then we called the world's bluff, then we would have been living in a very, very dangerous world, and our resolve would have been questioned for a century or more.

I was wondering the same thing myself. However, a conversation with my mother proved illuminating to me. Essentially, Jaques Chirac is a Royalist, and heads a government that operates in a royalist mode.

Royalist. As in French King Louis XIV.

Interested? Details at

http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org/archives/000012.html

I arrived late at the party, and haven’t been through the huge string of responses. Sorry if I am repeating thoughts already expressed. Seems likely that I am, since I think much of what I have to say is pretty obvious.

The question is the right one – why have the French taken the path they’ve taken? More specifically, why have they pursued it to such an extreme that they have done more damage than was absolutely necessary to relations with the US?

The answer to the first part of the question looks pretty simple. French domestic politics supports the French government’s stance. Chirac is old enough that his legacy probably occupies a considerable part of his political thinking. Given French public opinion and the French tradition of being a critical, cantankerous US ally, Chirac’s legacy may be well served by opposing the US on this one. I’m no authority on French electoral politics, but I’d bet Villepin has a much stronger shot at becoming PM some day than he had last year at this time or would have had if the French position had been less opposed to that of the US.

French international prospects have changed considerably with the deterioration in relations with the US, but may not have worsened overall. France has more allies on this issue than has the US. France led the opposition. For those countries that see their best interest served by restraining the US and imposing a price for the attack on Iraq, France looks like a coalition leader. Here is where the second part of the question comes in. Less stridency in opposing the US would have meant that China and Russia would have been more nearly in an equivalent position. If there is to be a second pole in the (non-renegade part of the) world, France can be that pole. The more distance from the US position on this one, without actually expressing any real ambiguity toward terrorism, the higher France’s profile as an alternative to the US.

French leaders might deny the premise of your question. They may see the cost of defying the US as lower than your question implies. Surely, the US will try to exact a price for French defiance. France may anticipate fighting back rather strongly with the support of all those nations which, like France, object to the Bush doctrine, object to the US shift toward the hard end of the hard-soft power spectrum that doctrine implies, object to the assertion that the US alone can judge what international threats (rather than direct threats to US interests) justify war, and object to being strong-armed by the US in an effort to support a action they do not view as in their interest. There has been a pretty clear pattern of the US not subjecting itself to the UN or other international organizations, so the loss of French clout through the demotion of the UN may not be all that great. The US told the UN going into the resolution debate that failure to pass a resolution would mean UN irrelevance. If the US can threaten UN relevance every time an important international issue goes the wrong way, having a veto on the Security Council wouldn’t mean much for long. The cost of remaining in the good graces of the US seems to be to surrender power - what good is a seat on the Security Council if you can't use it to bootstrap into near equality with the US every once in a while?

Chirac has said that the US-led attack is politically, strategically and morally wrong. One may disagree with any or all of those three judgments, but they are not hollow. Less nobly, French leaders may reckon that opposing war on a Muslim nation may spare the French some amount of terrorism. It is an open question whether attacking Iraq (and any other Muslim or renegade nation that may join the list) will raise or lower the risk of terrorism.

The world has been headed in a direction that the French could not abide. Not surprisingly, they did not abide it. It will be some time before we know whether that decision was wise. Meanwhile, it is worth asking why the US has been willing to risk the loss of regard from the rest of the world, claiming to be above rules that apply to others, shifting to a greater preference for hard power, defying the will of the vast majority of the world’s population. All France has risked is a loss of US regard.

I see the French responses being the lashing out of a country whose importance and relevance went away years ago. They have a seat on the UNSC due to history. Aside from that, they are nothing. A country that devotes time and money to fighting the evolution of their own language when there are other things to be done has lost any sense of proportion.

Full disclosure: I don't have the time of day for those people; their anti-Semitism and just about total lack of any sense of gratitude for what we did, twice, in the last century makes me feel that way.

"We cannot accept the Messianic vision of the Americans, but nor can we limit ourselves to simply opposing it," he said in an interview with the Financial Times."

But you ares living in wich world????

Chirac love to opposing the USA? where, i think he would love to avoid it, you talk about the iraq menace, or the anti war french stance????

but where you ares living???? in a another world?

First Chirac never said No to use force, but under UN rules , and inspectors rules, UN inspectors ares the real international ligitime rulers!

when he seen the USa arguments, he just compared with DGSE datas, and seen that iraq wasn't a Menace to the world!

but WHY the FRENCH didn't opposed to Afghanistan WAR, they ares so anti americans, that they send the second allied force there to fight the terrorist islamist extremist!

Well all your poor arguments about France muslims pressure, and following the anti war, or challenging the USA power, lol poor American simplists views, if the UN allowed Bush to war in iraq for internal reelection in 2004, and that without any real arguments, allowing preeptive wars and the news jungle at international level, The world would be a chaos todays, the UN rules ares safe, only the USA crossed the rubicon alonne with servants foreign govs, that limited the colapse!

Chirac defended 80% of the world opinion plus all thinkers and pope!

he defended the americans too, against themselfs,
now iraq war shown that Chirac was right, Iraq wasn't a menace to the world, thier medieval army would be defeated by the koweit army, there ares nothing in iraq exept oil, but even here the USA lost, because the iraq promess of the 80's to payback french in oil field no one was beleiving it, but today French oil compagnies ares already at work there, so thanks to Mr Bush!

he will paye , him and his country to anger and the terrorists attack who will come!

Bush made a emperial wars in iraq, not to liberate iraq, but for his own interest, Wars never bring democratie, especially into islamists countries as middle east!

"I see the French responses being the lashing out of a country whose importance and relevance went away years ago. They have a seat on the UNSC due to history. Aside from that, they are nothing. A country that devotes time and money to fighting the evolution of their own language when there are other things to be done has lost any sense of proportion."

They ares nothings, but they kicked your ass at UN laster, and you Bush said he will follow Chirac advices for middle east peace plan, yes they ares nothing more than the 3th world power after russia! beleive me, Bush will don't go anywhere before the French agreements after his poor iraq comedy! because that wouldn't be a medieval army who will trash the US troops this time, and many countries in the world ares already ready to fight the USA, don't know that after the vietnam poor USA campaign, Bush will try to fight France, germany russia and friends alonne!

"Full disclosure: I don't have the time of day for those people; their anti-Semitism and just about total lack of any sense of gratitude for what we did, twice, in the last century makes me feel that way."

gratitude for what?????? France Won the WWI and was liberated by the French in 1945, the GI just passed, and if you claim that your country came to save us, don't forget the reality, When France need help in 1792, 1914, 1939, the us friends was at buissness and just comdamend France to sacrifices! as about your poor 60000 US troops dead in normandy, the french dead is processing by
millions, just behind russians!
poor prick!

as the anti semitism, lol, France not just reconised first israel, but provided them weapons help and nuke power, poor mogoloid, France was the first defender of israel, when the USA was talking with Vichy, and codamned israel to UN with veto, you even don't know your own history, ha ha ha, France is the most semitic country in the world today many ministerq ares semitics, we had 7 porimes minister semitic and 2 presidents, how many in USA?

you seem to forget that in the 70's and 80's there was canpaign against semitics in USA, who caused alot of dead, compared with the stupidity of fews youngs muslims suburbs degradation in france while Sharon massacres or Genin laster, it's a bit Likood and semitics extrem right lies you ares talking about, the french ares quite anti semitic! that all jews living in europe prefert to live in france than others islamist extremists paradise as London or italy!

even that French gov is the first fighters of nazis arguments in the world, they just have fough to Yahoo nazis flags and USA compagnies sellers of this smelly stuffs!

try to fight first against this kind of stuffs in your country before criticing any others.

clean up your home, after you will have the right to move you lips!

http://thechannel.vnunet.com/News/1115775

Comments are Closed.