Mark Steyn: It's not really about Saddam

National Post (Canada) ^ | 02/14/03 | Mark Steyn

[Snerfling]

Yes, you can count on MS to finally get it right. Iraq and the WOT is all a distraction from the real game, which is what the post-WOT world is going to look like. The French/EU are going to end up being on the wrong side of history. It's pretty clear now that they are no longer an ally, An adversary, no, but a rival, yes.

[pgyanke]

Please add me to your Steyn list as well. Thanks in advance.

[baseballmom]

Thanks for the ping.

Steyn's article makes perfect sense to me. He's been on to Chrirac for a while. Now he neatly ties together the scheming of Schroeder, Verhofstadt and Chirac. Brilliant analysis.

I too, hope that Blair can hang on. He may be a social liberal, but at least he's not afraid to face a real danger head on, and damn the consequences. (Unlike that despicable coward, the impeached X42). That's my definition of a leader.

[Wright is right!]

"Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. It's not France being different "just to be different". It's France being "different" to wreck the Atlantic alliance, sever European ties to America, and remake the Continent in its image. It's the one explanation that fits the evidence best."

Which is the missing link in my failure to understand the EU - and how the French could EVER agree to the dissolution of their beloved French Franc currency in favor of the Euro. I NEVER could understand the French ceding their Franc nor the Germans their Deutschmark.

But after reading Steyn, it NOW all makes sense. The French, after years of impotency, founded the EU and the Euro-as-Viagra to attempt to once again be a factor on the world stage.

Michael

[Tallguy]

The rift is easily explained. Iraq is a SOCIALIST country, led by the Arab Baathist Socialist Party. This socialism was imported from Michel Aflaq and France, who assisted Saddam in using his Leninst tactics to achieve power.

I don't think France & Germany care a bit about the form the Iraqi goverment. As Steyn says in his article: this isn't about Iraq or Saddam.

[xm177e2]

It sounds like Chirac's best move right now would be to get in touch with Labor party dissidents and try to take down Blair from underneath.

[xm177e2]

Ba'athists are not really socialists. If anything, they are more like Hitler's "National Socialism," and France and Germany have no love for that.

[Tallguy]

Ba'athists are not really socialists. If anything, they are more like Hitler's "National Socialism," and France and Germany have no love for that.

France & Germany HAVE BEEN more in tune with the international Socialist movement, but France has always had a National Socialist movement just below the surface (think Le Pen). The Germans lack such an internal struggle because of their post-WW2 laws that prevent the political organization of the rightwing variety. BUT now that Frenchman & Germans are beginning to think of themselves as EUROPEANS first, they can resume being National Socialist.

Changing the national affiliation apparently makes it OK.

[Zack Nguyen]

To flip the finger at Turkey is to risk doing grave damage not just to NATO but to one of the few functioning Islamic states.

I'd like to flip the finger to France and Germany. On the floor of the UN. During primetime.

BTW, I am not sure that Turkey can be classified as an "Islamic state" ala Iran or Saudi Arabia. Others can speak to this, but I do not think that the religion of Islam is mated to the state in Turkey as it is in those other places.

[colorado tanker]

Steyn is brilliant. I really hope Chirac and the British lefties don't get Blair, although in the long run it could help the Tories by splitting Labour and taking it left again.

[CyberCowboy777]

Bump to the top!

Thanks for the ping

[baggadonuts]

The Complete Military History of France

Gallic Wars - Lost. In a war whose ending foreshadows the next 2000 years of French history, France is conquered by of all things, an Italian.

Hundred Years War - Mostly lost, saved at last by female
schizophrenic who inadvertently creates The First Rule of French Warfare; "France's armies are victorious only when not led by a Frenchman."

Italian Wars - Lost. France becomes the first and only country to ever lose two wars when fighting Italians.

Wars of Religion - France goes 0-5-4 against the Huguenots

Thirty Years War - France is technically not a participant, but manages to get invaded anyway. Claims a tie on the basis that eventually the other participants started ignoring her.

War of Devolution - Tied. Frenchmen take to wearing red flowerpots as chapeaux.

The Dutch War - Tied

War of the Augsburg League/King William's War/French and Indian War - Lost, but claimed as a tie. Three ties in a row induces deluded Frogophiles the world over to label the period as the height of French military power.

War of the Spanish Succession - Lost. The War also gave the French their first taste of a Marlborough, which they have loved every since.

American Revolution - In a move that will become quite familiar to future Americans, France claims a win even though the English colonists saw far more action. This is later known as "de Gaulle Syndrome", and leads to the
Second Rule of French Warfare; "France only wins when America does most of the fighting."

French Revolution - Won, primarily due the fact that the opponent was also French.

The Napoleonic Wars - Lost. Temporary victories (remember the First Rule!) due to leadership of a Corsican, who ended up being no match for a British footwear designer.

The Franco-Prussian War - Lost. Germany plays the role of drunk Frat boy to France's ugly girl home alone on a Saturday night.

World War I - Tied and on the way to losing, France is saved by the United States. Thousands of French women find out what it's like to not only sleep with a winner, but one who doesn't call her "Fraulein." Sadly, widespread use of condoms by American forces forestalls any improvement in the French bloodline.

World War II - Lost. Conquered French liberated by the United States and Britain just as they finish learning the Horst Wessel Song.

War in Indochina - Lost. French forces plead sickness, take to bed with the Dien Bien Flu

Algerian Rebellion - Lost. Loss marks the first defeat of a western army by a Non-Turkish Muslim force since the Crusades, and produces the First Rule of Muslim Warfare; "We can always beat the French." This rule is identical to the First Rules of the Italians, Russians, Germans, English, Dutch, Spanish, Vietnamese and Esquimaux.

War on Terrorism - France, keeping in mind its recent history, surrenders to Germans and Muslims just to be safe. Attempts to surrender to Vietnamese ambassador, fail after he takes refuge in a McDonald's.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

I am just as incensed by subsidized heating oil, Amtrack, and other boondoggles as I am by agricultural subsidies. I don't approve of any of them. And as for the hard-working farm families of the Klamath Basin, I feel sorry for them and wish them well. I work with hard-working farm families out here on the other side of the continent. My point is that the government induced their ancestors to settle this land by making a promise to them that it cannot fulfil. The climatic history of the interior west is capricious. Rainfall regimes for Western basins during the Holocene (last 13,000 years or so) have oscillated between "Xeric" (Mediterranean-like, with some rain during the winter) or "Ustic" (enough rainfall for small-grain or grass agriculture, but with dry spells during the growing season), on the one hand, and "Aridic" (desert) on the other. These aridic spells can last for 50 years or more, which dries up the whole watershed. It is quite possible that the current 3-year drought which has hit the interior west might last for a couple of generations. At some point, an extended drought will make watershed-irrigated agriculture in the West impossible, and many people will be displaced.

Eh?

[maica]

Wow!! I love Steyn's insights and his ability to explain them!

France can only maintain its 'image' of power by forcing a truly strong country (morally, economically and militarily) to kowtow to them. They have not even come to terms with the fact that English is the world language of commerce, rather than French.

I believe that GW Bush will not accept these terms of surrender.

[The Great Satan]

Despite the best efforts of the French and Germans, the old butcher will be gone in a few weeks.

Steyn has completely lost it.

[hattend]

Mark Steyn, I give you another BTTT

[headsonpikes]

The wogs begin at Calais.

Too, too true.

[Lando Lincoln]

Greetings Pokey ......how about putting me on the Steyn ping list? Thanks,

Lando

[Paul Ross]

Yup. Steyn, even when low-key, hits 'em out of the park.

[MeekOneGOP]

LOL ! Thanks. I remember a joke by another FReeper recently...

Q: Why do the French put trees by all of their roads?

A: So the Germans can march in the shade.