Posted on 07/18/2005 6:26:39 AM PDT by OESY
Britain's era of good will with Europe lasted 48 hours - all because of the French.
In the wake of the July 7 terrorist attacks in London, Scotland Yard brought together law enforcement and intelligence officials from two dozen European countries and the United States, sharing crucial intelligence and pleading for help in tracking down the bombers.
But the continentwide kumbaya was shattered when Christophe Chaboud, France's new antiterrorism coordinator, broke the cardinal rule of the club.
He leaked.
In an interview with Le Monde that appeared on the newsstands last Monday afternoon - two days after the exceptionally open briefing - Mr. Chaboud announced to the world that he knew "the nature of the explosives" used in the London bombings.
It "appears to be military, which is very worrisome," he said, adding: "We're more used to cells making homemade explosives from chemical substances. How did they get them? Either by trafficking, for example, in the Balkans, or they had someone on the inside who enabled them to get them out of a military base."
But Mr. Chaboud did not stop with his assessments of the explosives and their origins, which, it turned out, were completely wrong. He plunged into politics, railing at the British with an I-told-you-so air that Europe was a more dangerous place because of the war in Iraq.
"The war in Iraq has revived the logic of total conflict against the west," he declared, without adding the obvious, that Britain supported the war and France did not.
The British reacted with fury, sending off communiqués to a number of its European friends that expressed deep disappointment that the bonds of trust had been broken, two European officials who received the missives said.
The sense of betrayal has been acute....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Any comment?
My Dad, a veteran of Normandy, once told me that when I went to France (I was in the Navy) to keep my head on a swivel, because a Frenchman will smile in your face while he stabs you in the back.
BTW, he also said that the people he had contact with in Germany then were the nicest people you would want to meet.
Great word. Got an exact definition?
ROFL. In other words, he made the mistake of telling the truth, which is that we're in a new World War being waged against us by the Islamists, with the covert help of the military and intelligence apparatuses of the Middle Eastern governments.
Our own governments of course want us to swallow the pile of garbage we're being fed, that everything is OK and it's just a little handful of cranks out to get us and that the war really isn't that big a deal. Just go shopping and don't worry about when we're going to be nuked.
— General George S. Patton
Mr. Chaboud -- another Joe Wilson.
This is only the cardinal rule du jour because of the Plame affair presently on the headlines, and the attempt to score an anti-Bush point while at it. During the Clinton administration, leaks somehow weren't so bad.
Great. You should post it at urbandictionary.
The arrogance of the French, long the nation's most outstanding trait, makes its mark again.
Is that a picture of the head frog and the entire frog army?
The article states that France is to blame because :
- Chaboud made unconstructive public declarations.
- Interior Minister Sarkozy made a veiled critic about the British.
- President Chirac made stupid jokes.
Of these three, only issue #1 sounds serious, and justly so. So, if Chaboud committed a blunder, as it seems he did, then let him pay the price for it and go on with the real task, which is defeating Islamist terrorism at home and abroad.
As for Sarkozy, this article apparently finds him guilty of having expressed a veiled criticism of the British. Wow. Well, I guess it must have something to do with the British government's refusal to extradit certain Islamists connected to terrorist bombings that occurred in France a few years ago. The suspected funder of the attacks had been leading a free life in the UK, protected by UK police as all the other Islamist hate-mongers of Finbury Mosque.
This is off CaptainsQuarter blog today about this story:
French Lies Sink British Ties
The French continue to isolate themselves in the war on terror. First they allegedly concocted the forged documents that came to the CIA and caused a row over the State of the Union speech. Now they have gone out of their way to lie about sensitive information in the middle of the London bombing case simply to score a couple of political points, enraging the British and threatening to end cooperation between the two countries on intelligence:
In an interview with Le Monde that appeared on the newsstands last Monday afternoon - two days after the exceptionally open briefing - [French antiterrorism coordinator Christophe] Chaboud announced to the world that he knew "the nature of the explosives" used in the London bombings.
It "appears to be military, which is very worrisome," he said, adding: "We're more used to cells making homemade explosives from chemical substances. How did they get them? Either by trafficking, for example, in the Balkans, or they had someone on the inside who enabled them to get them out of a military base."
But Mr. Chaboud did not stop with his assessments of the explosives and their origins, which, it turned out, were completely wrong. He plunged into politics, railing at the British with an I-told-you-so air that Europe was a more dangerous place because of the war in Iraq.
For the past several years, the French have played an increasingly antagonistic role in security issues for the West. Although they joined the original coalition to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1990-91, they argued for normalization with Saddam almost since the last echoes of the guns faded from that war. When the US decided to stop issuing empty UN Security Council resolutions and demand compliance from Saddam in 2002, France originally told the US and Britain that it would support the effort, only to turn around and actively campaign to have other UNSC countries oppose any such enforcement.
After the invasion, we discovered mountains of evidence that France had taken bribes and undermined the sanctions regime, along with Russia, China, and Germany, making the effort to keep Saddam propped up much more understandable. However, it doesn't explain everything, as this latest development clearly shows. The French have apparently decided that their ludicrous quest to create a new French hyperpower out of sheer Gallic obstinacy has proceeded to new lows. In its way, it resembles the Joseph Wilson scandal; a government official in intelligence has lied about his information in order to make an anti-war argument based on fallacy.
The British feel that Chaboud leaked false information on purpose. The French might dispute that characterization, but the fact that Chaboud leaked anything and then followed it up with an insult to the British makes a counterargument rather difficult to believe. One would expect the man in charge of anti-terrorist efforts in a significant nation to know the meaning of sensitive information. The British, meanwhile, have made it clear that they will limit the information shared with France in the future, which will likely set off a tit-for-tat reaction across the EU.
If nothing else, this proves that we cannot rely on the French for assistance in the war on terror. They have no concept of the seriousness of the conflict or its nature, and now it looks like the French have lost what little honor they have left. The Chirac government, on the verge of being chased out of office by a highly discontented electorate, has settled for a survival strategy of damaging its putative allies for a brief moment of self-centered exploitation of Brit-hatred. Western governments should start protecting their interests by isolating France as quickly as possible, diplomatically, economically, and militarily. Perhaps that might provide a lesson for the current French regime about their empty fantasies of diplomatic domination.
Thanks for the details. I hope we can all join the effort to defeat terrorism now and not let past "indiscretions" (understatement) inhibit the process.
I must have missed the memo telling me (and Americans) that "everything is ok."
~~snip~~
If nothing else, this proves that we cannot rely on the French for assistance in the war on terror.
Ping post 15 and this thread.
I'm 100% Sicilian. We smile in your face as we stab you* in the front. It's way cooler! ;-)
* Only deserving people, of course!
President Jacques Chirac of France rides in a Bastille Day parade in Paris...............
So many frogs -- so little time!
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