Le Pen and the French High
Jay,
I believe that the LePen phenomenon is analogous to George Wallace during the last American High period. It is probably portending an awakening in progress in France. See my other posts for the reasons why I believe that France is 180 degrees out of phase with the Anglo American seculeum.
Cheers, Chris
Le Pen and the French High
Jay,
I believe that the LePen phenomenon is analogous to George Wallace during the last American High period. It is probably portending an awakening in progress in France. See my other posts for the reasons why I believe that France is 180 degrees out of phase with the Anglo American seculeum.
Cheers, Chris
(From The Last Ditch)
Hold those "freedom fries" ; we're on a low-Wilsonian-hysteria diet. Instead, here's a feast from the best of the French:
• The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude by ?tienne de la Bo?tie, posted at The Memory Hole.
• An intellectual biography of Frederic Bastiat by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, at The Ludwig von Mises Institute.
• "Fr?d?ric Bastiat: Two Hundred Years On," by Joseph R. Stromberg, also at the Mises Institute.
• Works by Bastiat in translation at the Library of Economics and Liberty.
The New Yrok Times is reporting, today:
"One day after Britain floated a new compromise proposal before the Security Council, the White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, "France rejected the British proposal even before the Iraqis did." That sentiment was echoed in London. "I find it extraordinary that without even proper consideration, the French government has decided they will reject these proposals," Foreign Minister Jack Straw said."
Thus the headline to the Times story: U.S. Raises Prospect of Abandoning Effort for U.N. Vote
I roll my eyes only in astonishment as to why Bush ever went to that wacked out bunch in the first place. My hunch is that the reasons center on smoking out France (and to a lesser degree, Germany), and their rather rotten connections to the "evil doers." That the whole U.N. thing has become such a farce, I must admit, makes Bush look somewhat silly and diminished for having bit on a gambit that was doomed from the start.
But I suspect that the adage "Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan," might have played a large role in determining Bush's choice: With a solid, quick and decisive victory in Iraq (or so the generals tell us), behind him, it will be the French who will ultimately play the orphan.
And not the victor, U.S. President George W. Bush. :wink:
March 13, 2003
The French Connection
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
WASHINGTON
France, China and Syria all have a common reason for keeping American and British troops out of Iraq: the three nations may not want the world to discover that their nationals have been illicitly supplying Saddam Hussein with materials used in building long-range surface-to-surface missiles.
We're not talking about short-range Al Samoud 2 missiles, which Saddam is ostentatiously destroying to help his protectors avert an invasion, nor his old mobile Scuds. The delivery system for mass destruction warheads requires a much more sophisticated propulsion system and fuels.
If you were running the Iraqi ballistic missiles project, where in the world would you go to buy the chemical that is among the best binders for solid propellant?
Answer: to 116 DaWu Road in Zibo, a city in the Shandong Province of China, where a company named Qilu Chemicals is a leading producer of a transparent liquid rubber named hydroxy terminated polybutadiene, familiarly known in the advanced-rocket trade as HTPB.
But you wouldn't want the word "chemicals" to appear anywhere on the purchase because that might alert inspectors enforcing sanctions, so you employ a couple of cutouts. One is an import-export company with which Qilu Chemicals often does business.
To be twice removed from the source, you would turn to CIS Paris, a Parisian broker that is active in dealings of many kinds with Baghdad. Its director is familiar with the order but denies being the agent.
A shipment of 20 tons of HTPB, whose sale to Iraq is forbidden by U.N. resolutions and the oil-for-food agreement, left China in August 2002 in a 40-foot container. It arrived in the Syrian port of Tartus (fortified by the Knights Templar in 1183, and the Mediterranean terminus for an Iraqi oil pipeline today) and was received there by a trading company that was an intermediary for the Iraqi missile industry, the end user. The HTPB was then trucked across Syria to Iraq.
Syria has no sophisticated missile-building program. What rocket weaponry it has comes off the shelf (and usually on credit) from Russia, so it therefore has no use for HTPB. But cash-starved Syria is the conduit for missile supplies to cash-flush Saddam, as this shipment demonstrates. We will have to wait until after the war to find out how much other weaponry, for what huge fees, Saddam has stored in currently un-inspectable Syrian warehouses.
The French connection ? brokering the deal among the Chinese producer, the Syrian land transporter and the Iraqi buyer ? is no great secret to the world's arms merchants. French intelligence has long been aware of it. The requirement for a French export license as well as U.N. sanctions approval may have been averted by disguising it as a direct offshore sale from China to Syria.
I'm also told that a contract was signed last April in Paris for five tons of 99 percent unsymmetric dimethylhydrazine, another advanced missile fuel, which is produced by France's Soci?t? Nationale des Poudre et Explosifs. In addition, Iraqi attempts to buy an oxidizer for solid propellant missiles, ammonium perchlorate, were successful, at least on paper. Both chemicals, like HTPB, require explicit approval by the U.N. Sanctions Committee before they can be sold to Iraq.
Perhaps a few intrepid members of the Chirac Adoration Society, formerly known as the French media, will ask France's lax export-control authorities about these shipments. U.N. inspectors looking at Iraq's El Sirat trading company might try to follow its affiliate, the Gudia Bureau, to dealings in Paris.
Is this account what journalists call a "keeper," one held back for publication at a critical moment, made more newsworthy by the Security Council debate? No; I've been poking around for only about a week, starting with data originating from an Arab source, not from the C.I.A. (Anti-Kurdish analysts at Langley have it in for me for embarrassing them for 18 months on Al Qaeda's ties to Saddam, especially in the terrorist Ansar enclave in Iraqi Kurdistan.)
This detail about the France-China-Syria-Iraq propellant collaboration makes for dull reading, but reveals some of the motivation behind the campaign of those nations to suppress the truth. The truth, however, will out.
Posted for discussion purposes only
Whatever you say about French foreign policy (which I do think is based firmly on French interests and is no pacifist in any sense of the term). The French people and French culture have given so much to world and contributed greatly to Civilization.Originally Posted by Justin '77
Americans have always been more Francophile than the English ever were; The English have always hated the French and dismissed their culture.
It is understandable for a people with a proud and noble history and once ruled over a signifact portion of the globe to have trouble adjusting to being a third rank power. I guess the French had a harder time adjusting than the British for example.
By the way the French did not lose in Algeria; they had the Arab guerrilla fighters smashed when France withdrew from Algeria. De Gaulle withdrew French from Algeria, Because in a post-colonial French context, Algeria would be a actual part of France politically like Tahiti or New Caledonia are, with Algeria?s fast growing population and France?s slow growing once, the Arabs would become a majority of the population of France in a generation or two and it could spell the end of the French Republic. De Gaulle saw that coming and wisely withdrew the French from Algeria.
France says it is target of untruths
Political dirty tricks going international?
France says it is target of untruths
Political dirty tricks going international?
France says it is target of untruths
Political dirty tricks going international?
France says it is target of untruths
Political dirty tricks going international?
More likely the French are looking to do damage control.
More likely the French are looking to do damage control.
More likely the French are looking to do damage control.
More likely the French are looking to do damage control.
Sounds like it to me. The question is, will they succeed in 'controlling the damage', or will it continue to lead to a long-term rift between France (or the European Union) and the United States? Perhaps even a new Cold War for the next High? Stay tuned, sports fans. :wink:More likely the French are looking to do damage control.
Sounds like it to me. The question is, will they succeed in 'controlling the damage', or will it continue to lead to a long-term rift between France (or the European Union) and the United States? Perhaps even a new Cold War for the next High? Stay tuned, sports fans. :wink:More likely the French are looking to do damage control.
Sounds like it to me. The question is, will they succeed in 'controlling the damage', or will it continue to lead to a long-term rift between France (or the European Union) and the United States? Perhaps even a new Cold War for the next High? Stay tuned, sports fans. :wink:More likely the French are looking to do damage control.
Sounds like it to me. The question is, will they succeed in 'controlling the damage', or will it continue to lead to a long-term rift between France (or the European Union) and the United States? Perhaps even a new Cold War for the next High? Stay tuned, sports fans. :wink:More likely the French are looking to do damage control.
The French government believes it is the victim of an ?organized campaign of disinformation? from within the Bush administration, designed to discredit it with allegations of complicity with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein.
We will know sooner enough that the French government and in particular the President Jacques Charic were good buddies with Saddam Hussein's regime.
The French government believes it is the victim of an ?organized campaign of disinformation? from within the Bush administration, designed to discredit it with allegations of complicity with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein.
We will know sooner enough that the French government and in particular the President Jacques Charic were good buddies with Saddam Hussein's regime.
The French government believes it is the victim of an ?organized campaign of disinformation? from within the Bush administration, designed to discredit it with allegations of complicity with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein.
We will know sooner enough that the French government and in particular the President Jacques Charic were good buddies with Saddam Hussein's regime.
The French government believes it is the victim of an ?organized campaign of disinformation? from within the Bush administration, designed to discredit it with allegations of complicity with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein.
We will know sooner enough that the French government and in particular the President Jacques Charic were good buddies with Saddam Hussein's regime.
That's old news, Tristan. Back in the 70s, when Chirac was an up and coming pol, he was known in the rather acid-tongued French press as 'Jacques Iraq', due to his close friendship with Saddam Hussein even then.The French government believes it is the victim of an ?organized campaign of disinformation? from within the Bush administration, designed to discredit it with allegations of complicity with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein.
We will know sooner enough that the French government and in particular the President Jacques Chirac were good buddies with Saddam Hussein's regime.
That's old news, Tristan. Back in the 70s, when Chirac was an up and coming pol, he was known in the rather acid-tongued French press as 'Jacques Iraq', due to his close friendship with Saddam Hussein even then.The French government believes it is the victim of an ?organized campaign of disinformation? from within the Bush administration, designed to discredit it with allegations of complicity with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein.
We will know sooner enough that the French government and in particular the President Jacques Chirac were good buddies with Saddam Hussein's regime.
That's old news, Tristan. Back in the 70s, when Chirac was an up and coming pol, he was known in the rather acid-tongued French press as 'Jacques Iraq', due to his close friendship with Saddam Hussein even then.The French government believes it is the victim of an ?organized campaign of disinformation? from within the Bush administration, designed to discredit it with allegations of complicity with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein.
We will know sooner enough that the French government and in particular the President Jacques Chirac were good buddies with Saddam Hussein's regime.
That's old news, Tristan. Back in the 70s, when Chirac was an up and coming pol, he was known in the rather acid-tongued French press as 'Jacques Iraq', due to his close friendship with Saddam Hussein even then.The French government believes it is the victim of an ?organized campaign of disinformation? from within the Bush administration, designed to discredit it with allegations of complicity with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein.
We will know sooner enough that the French government and in particular the President Jacques Chirac were good buddies with Saddam Hussein's regime.
