Why the French behave as they do

Having rescued France in two world wars, Americans are puzzled. Why are they organizing the Security Council against us? Why are they sabotaging the president's plan to bring democracy to Iraq, as we restored democracy to France? Why are they doing this?

What the French are up to, however, is not unreasonable, if one can see the world from the perspective of Paris.

To understand what France is about, and perhaps deal with our French problem with more maturity than dumping champagne in the gutter, let us go back five centuries.

In 1500, there was born in Ghent a future king who would come to dominate the world as we do today. At six, the death of his father Philip of Hapsburg gave Charles the crown of the Netherlands. At 16, the death of his grandfather Ferdinand made him Charles I of Spain and of all its dependencies in Italy and America. At 19, the death of his grandfather Maximilian brought Charles all the hereditary lands of the Hapsburgs and the expectation of being elected Holy Roman Emperor.

In 1519, that title had been in the Hapsburg family four generations. Yet it remained an elective office. And two young and ambitious rulers challenged Charles for that title: Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France. Francis was by far the more formidable.

He set about bribing the electors. But Charles had access to the Medicis and the Fugger bank of Jacob the Rich, the strongest in Europe. Charles bought up more electors and was chosen Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

France was surrounded. Charles ruled almost all of what is today's Spain, Holland, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Hungary and Italy, except for the Papal States. What did Francis, seething with resentment, do? Exactly what balance of power politics dictated. He began making alliances with the nations not under Charles' control, and went to war.

In 1525, Charles' armies crushed the French Army at Pavia and captured the French king. "Nothing is left to me," Francis I wrote to his mother, "except honor and life."

By agreeing to humiliating peace terms, Francis won his freedom and returned to France. There, he began preparing at once for a new war, winning the support of the pope and the Italian states that were coming to resent the dominance of the hegemonic Charles.

Defeated again, Francis made alliances with Scotland, Sweden and Denmark, with rebellious princes in Germany, even with the infidel Turks, an unprecedented act for a Christian king. Francis fought Charles until his death in 1547. Point of this history: For Francis I, read Jacques Chirac; for Charles V, read George W. Bush.

French was once the language of every court in Europe. I speak German only to my horses, said Frederick the Great. But now, because the Americans speak English, English is the language of diplomacy, of the Internet and the Global Economy.

Once, French culture was predominant. Today, it is not even competitive. It is American television and cinema Europeans watch, American books, magazines and newspapers they read. The Cannes Film Festival cannot compete with the Academy Awards.

Jealous they have been displaced, resentful of having had to be twice rescued by the Americans, France is following the dictates of balance-of-power politics, trying to form up and head up a coalition of the resentful, who equally oppose America's military, economic and cultural hegemony.

When Americans began braying about being the "last superpower" and the "indispensable nation," and tossing our weight around all over the world, it was predictable that this would happen.

Now, the French are trying to assume the leadership of the anti-Americans, and there are hundreds of millions worldwide who would relish seeing the haughty Americans taken down. And with the Red Army back in Russia, France no longer needs us to defend her, nor does she need NATO as a constant reminder of her past dependency.

We brought this on ourselves. Had we packed up and come home after the Cold War, and dissolved NATO and other outdated alliances, America would today be the most courted country on earth.

Instead of our bribing nations to fight their wars, they would be begging us to defend them. Instead of our spending national treasure on bases all over the world, other nations would be buying our arms to defend themselves. Instead of yelling "Yankee, go home," they would be pleading, "Yankee, come back."

The sole consolation of our mismanaged diplomacy is that it is the harmless French who have taken up the anti-American banner, not a more formidable strategic rival like the Russians or Chinese.

Patrick J. Buchanan was twice a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and the Reform Party’s candidate in 2000. He is also a founder and editor of the new magazine, The American Conservative. Now a commentator and columnist, he served three presidents in the White House, was a founding panelist of three national television shows, and is the author of seven books. See what else Pat Buchanan is doing these days.

What Pat Buchanan wrote is no different from what others have written, he just writes it more brilliantly.

The problem with Bush is not that he has chosen to take on Iraq, a good mission, but that he has chosen to take on Iraq following the advice and strategy of the neo-cons who I think are as anti-American now as they were when they were first plain old university Marxists. Anti-American? Neo-cons, at first glance may seem 100% patriotic but they are not.

Patriots are men who are by definition nationalist or just men of action concerned with their own nation's well being. Neo-cons are just like the multi-literalist socialists (Clinton and Blair's so called Third Way Leftism) with one exception. While the Third Way Socialists seek to use the UN as the world unifier the Neo-Cons seek to make the USA the world unifier and that is a just as dangerous and wrong.

Again, Iraq is a good mission to approve of as a patriot but linking it to some sort of mission to remake the Middle East is a Neo-Con cum Marxist creed that if not destined to fail in the short term would cost America dearly in the long run.

Lately, much has been made of history repeating itself as collective security is frustrated and finished off by French and German diplomats and other gullible boobs. The comparison is usually made to Hitler and the late 1930s policy of Appeasement and France and Germany’s policy in the last year and half of Saving General Saddam at any price – NATO, UN, and collective security. You name it. If making the world safe for Saddam requires the maligning of America and its motives, Schroeder and Chirac are up to it. That Schroeder won an election on a platform pledged to literally do nothing that might hurt the mass murderer Saddam and serial violator of UN Resolutions speaks volumes about how entrenched Schroeder and his supporters are to the same policies that failed to stop Hitler. So I agree with those who compare the 1930s Appeasement and our current dilemma of trying to convince the willfully ignorant that dictators pose dangers that require actions, not passivity. But I also think it’s worth pointing out other past examples of failed policies that are similar to today’s problem, especially since France provided so many of the wrong answers to then and is doing its best to do the same today. Besides all its crass commercialism and parochial self-interest, France may be a country intent on being permanently harmful to world peace and security.

Consider the following examples of how the League of Nations was ruined and how at times France took the lead in its destruction.

In 1928, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia, complained to the League of illegal arms shipment to Hungary. Specifically, Mussolini’s Italy had sent five rail cars of weapons to Hungary. The League of Nations dispatched inspectors to Hungary to investigate. Arriving too late to know, the investigators concluded there’d been no arms sent. The three countries were not fooled. They reasonably decided that the League was not going to protect them. France did not directly cause this failure. But the parallels to today’s bumbling inspectors in Iraq and the anxiety they are leading to in countries around Iraq are striking. What countries will feel safe if the slob countries of Europe, Belgium, France, and Germany, succeed in their policy of saving Saddam by changing the subject to the idea that America is to be feared but not Saddam. The self-delusion that lame inspectors in Iraq are adequate for peace may work for hashish-addled minds in effete Europe, an area of the world so spent it refuses to reproduce. But small Arab and oil rich countries in the Gulf may choose to buy nukes if the international community is not going to help even protect them from the monster in Baghdad.

In the continuing march of “Peace through Fantasy”, history also provides the example of the Kellogg-Briand Pact which outlawed war in 1929. The French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand and the American Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg put this charade together. Note that the bamboozled Kellogg was rewarded with a Nobel Peace Prize. Which proves that former president Carter isn’t the first American buffoon to be regaled in Europe for his gullibility on war and peace. Possibly France at the next UN conference on Iraq will invoke the Kellog-Briand Pact since the French Foreign Affairs Minister and sanctimonious twit Domenica de Villepin is so fond of telling the world how much war is a failure. Notice that he never remarks that he's obviously willing to accept peace on Saddam's terms.

And here is another example of France’s pretentious and historic leadership leading to disastrous consequences. In 1935, when the League Council attempted to deal strongly with Italy’s attack on Abyssinia (Ethiopia), the French Prime Minister Laval undermined all efforts and worked instead toward a deal that favored Mussolini. The plan Laval developed and promoted partitioned Absyssinia, the victim of Fascist militarism! This sad chapter in selfish and craven French diplomacy also contributed to making the League of Nations a joke that rewarded aggressors rather than punishing them.

Jump forward to today.

Just a few months ago France sold military equipment to Saddam. Successfully using cutouts, they have plausible denials of knowing anything about it, just like Saddam does with his terrorist connections. Also, Germany recently sold nerve agent precursors to North Korea and has historically been the leading seller of WMD to Saddam. Meanwhile the masses in these two countries have their moral mavens continue to preach and walk for peace while their big businesses sell weapons to dictators unconstrained by laws, voters, or morals.

With France playing its historically failed character of the bumbling but know-it-all leader, and Saddam’s butt boy Schroeder playing such a prominent role in undermining collective security, we can all see that the UN is about to be destroyed just as the League of Nations was. Unless France ends its public stalling and support for Saddam, we must seriously consider getting out of and closing the UN on US soil. If other nations want to rejoin it, fine. Let them open it in Lagos, Nigeria, and the member nations can pay for these garrulous grandstanders who provide nothing that secures the peace. No US tax money should go to support this dangerous den of dilettantes steadfastly supporting the likes of Saddam. We spend enough money fixing the harm these other countries create to also subsidies this folly too.

Yea like Germany and Japan eh? Iraq is not Germany and Japan, nations with a historic stable middle class and who are a homogeneous peoples. Iraq is a nation made of three segments held together by bloody force and have always been such. Now if you told me that the goal is to break Iraq in three, I would tell you that that mission might work and allow America to leave sooner rather than later.

I hadn't heard this new slur, Neocon, used so much until Iraq came up. Better late to the issue than never, eh?

Now it's some secret master plan. Give me a break. I made no refrence to some occult like master plan. It is the world view of neo-cons stated plainly. Some neo-cons even write that borders don't matter anymore.

The reason Saddam is going down is because of WMD and 9/11. Do you remember seeing pictures of all the attempts and trials in the al qeada notebooks found in the training camps. Or the video of them gassing a puppy. WE DON'T WANT TO BECOME SADDAM'S PUPPYS. Any benefits to the people of Iraq will be a bonus, but it is not the main reason.

Liek I said, I am for the Iraq mission. It is how we are going about the Iraq mission, following a neo-con game plan that bothers me, especially the role they see for America the week after we win the war.

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