France's Game: French opposition to the U.S. is not about Iraq but about who runs the world

Time Magazine ^ | Monday, Mar. 24, 2003 | CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

[Kay Soze]

Yeah but France will now never get paid the tens of Billions its owed by the Iraq that WAS headed by the FORMER dictator Saddam!!

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

And as Bush has pointed out yesterday only US and private (i.e. those that stood with us) will reconstruct Iraq!

[RummyChick]

i love this photo and wish someone would do a little alteration to it

so representative of what we face

[sam]

"President Bush should call for France to be eliminated from the Security Council and replaced by India."

And India announced today that they will not allow overflights or refuelling of aircraft from any country participating in the war!

[Stultis]

bump

[Jorge]

I still believe France's opposition was to avoid being found to be the biggest supplier of banned materials to Iraq. I really look forward to the US exposing their duplicity.

I tend to agree. But to be exposed by a nation whose power and affluence they resent and envy is twice as humiliating for the French.

[jigsaw]

Well then, maybe we can replace France with Fiji.
Heck, I'd replace France with the mafia. I'd trust them more.

[CommandoFrank]

President Bush should call for France to be eliminated from the Security Council and replaced by India.

President Bush should call for France to be eliminated.(Period. End of sentence!)

[RecentConvert]

Too much importance is being given to non-entity France.

[Romulus]

Interesting, perceptive article. But here's the problem: just as Americans are pariots and put their own country's interests first, shouldn't Frenchmen be patriots and put their own interests first? Shouldn't we all have a preference and allegiance to the respective countries and cultures that bore and nourish us?

Speaking as an American, I don't want to rule the world. In fact, I emphatically do not want to rule the world. And I can certainly understand why the world does not want to be ruled by America, and why some see a strategic need to block the USA from overplaying its strength. I'm not saying the Frogs are fine fellows; just that it's a funny old world and sometimes people need to be told "no" for their own good.

Absolute power is a scary thing, especially when it's vested in a government one has never voted for and especially when it has contemptuously dispensed with the quaint concept of "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind."