France Blocks U.S. on Elite Force for Afghanistan

[BlackRain]

France Blocks U.S. on Elite Force for Afghanistan

France has blocked a U.S. bid to deploy NATO's new strike force to safeguard Afghanistan's elections, stoking tension between the two allies that fell out over the Iraq war, diplomats said Tuesday.

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20040629/capt.ajm11006291235.turkey_nato_summit_ajm110.jpg

"France, and to a lesser extent others such as Spain, are suspicious about using the NATO Response Force (NRF)," said one envoy at the alliance summit in Istanbul.

"It says the force is not ready for this kind of environment and should not be used simply as a sticking plaster for troop shortages on routine operations."

France's opposition to a proposal that could help resolve NATO's problems finding troops to make the September polls safe exasperated Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who pushed the idea hard at a meeting of allied defense ministers.

A senior U.S. official said Rumsfeld had suggested that the alliance could sometimes use its Defense Planning Committee -- on which France has no seat because it is not part of NATO's integrated military structure -- to authorize an NRF deployment.

Such a decision would normally be taken in the North Atlantic Council, a decision-by-consensus body at which all 26 member nations of NATO are represented.

Chirac told a news conference that the NRF -- set up last year with a heavy French contingent but not due to become fully operational until October 2006 -- should only be used when there is a serious security crisis, not for Afghan-style missions.

"The NRF is not designed for this. It shouldn't be used just for any old matter," he said. He has added that an overt NATO presence in Afghanistan could in itself exacerbate security problems during the elections.

Source: http://www.*******.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5540527


VERSUS

NATO Response Force Ready for Duty, Rumsfeld Says
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

http://wwwi.*******.com/images/2004-06-27T092139Z_01_ZWE732588_RTRUKOP_1_PICTURE0.jpg

ISTANBUL, Turkey, June 27, 2004 -- NATO's rapid response force is up and ready for its first mission — possibly to support the upcoming Olympics in Athens or the national elections in Afghanistan, if requested, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters here today.

Speaking at the NATO Istanbul Summit, Rumsfeld said the force, proposed by the United States just a year and a half ago, will fill a vital gap within the alliance. "The reality is that NATO is a military alliance that has no real relevance unless it has the ability to fairly rapidly deploy military capabilities," the secretary said. "And NATO did not have a NATO response force that could do that."

The force consists of air, ground, naval, special operations and other specialized units from NATO nations that can be tailored to specific missions, he explained. Missions could range "from peaceful, humanitarian-type assistance all the way up to full-fledged combat," Rumsfeld said.

In either case, these forces are "on a short string, ready to go," the secretary said.

Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the NATO Response Force a major part of NATO's effort to transform itself so it's more capable of responding to current threats. Myers said the force, which he expects will develop over time, provides "forces that are useable, deployable, and can meet various missions."

Myers said the force is made up of modular pieces that make it adaptable to whatever missions it's called on to support. If, for example, the Greek government requested NATO help at the upcoming Olympic games, Myers said the rapid response force's most-needed capability could conceivably be its chemical and biological decontamination units. "You don't need a bunch of infantry battalions," he said. "So it would be tailored to the task."

Rumsfeld said he's anxious to see the new force — already on its third six- month rotation — put into use. "Now the task is to use it," he said. "There's no use having it if you don't use it."

Source: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2004/n06272004_2004062704.html[/img]


Versus

Afghan President Hamid Karzai asked NATO leaders in Istanbul Tuesday to expedite the dispatch of 3,500 more peacekeepers, the BBC reports.

NATO's original plan was to bring the number of peacekeepers up to 10,000 in time for elections in September, but Karzai asked for an acceleration.

"I would like you to please hurry ... come sooner than September," he told the 26-member military summit on the second and final day of meeting.

[gilgoul]

**** chirac
This mother ****er isn`t even a full emeber of NAto, and has comitted france on the war on terror after 9/11, even sending troops to afghanistan, so what he shows here is his petty personnal reasons to play it anti americanism.
This guy was a shame for PAris when he was it`s mayor, he is a shame for france today, I just hope that the french people will wake up someday.
:bash:

[Uncle Sam]

Chirac = rofl

[Midav]

Even when most of the world was against it, Chirac went forward with nuclear tests in the pacific. Remember those f*ck Chirac t-shirts that were most popular in Europe during the early to mid 90's?

Anyway, think I'll get me a new one made :lol:

[Jehuty]

What the **** is wrong with Chirac, we have troops in Afghanistan, what is the problem with helping them?! :bash:


I just hope that the french people will wake up someday.
:bash:

Someone missed some elections result recently ;) Approval rating for Chirac is at 35% i think, let's not even talk of the PM.
It will be long until 2007, but when the left will be at power again, France will finally be back on the right tracks and forget gaullism.


This mother f*** isn`t even a full emeber of NAto, and has comitted france on the war on terror after 9/11, even sending troops to afghanistan, so what he shows here is his petty personnal reasons to play it anti americanism.

Actually, i doubt he would have send troops without the left at power at this time. I seriously miss Jospin, someone who didn't spend his time playing diplomatic and mediatic games but truely acted.

[gilgoul]

Believe me, I`ll never forget the straighforwardness and honesty of Jospin when he qualified the hizballah as a "terrorist organisation", giving honour to the dead and injured para of the Drakar, and the ambassador louis delamare, killed by hizballah operatives.
His compromise to the commies and the green on foreign policy lost him my complete admiration, since he gave way to biased elements and didn`t react for a year to antisemitic attacks in france, leaving this to Sarkozi, wich is pretty sad considering the personnal engagement of Jospin against any form of racism, he played appeasement in the wrong time, and therefore lost the weakening but still important jewish vote, while Chirac attracted a lot of votes from Maghreb voters.

[ZeroPositive]

God Frances President is such a gimp....

[Jehuty]

Believe me, I`ll never forget the straighforwardness and honesty of Jospin when he qualified the hizballah as a "terrorist organisation", giving honour to the dead and injured para of the Drakar, and the ambassador louis delamare, killed by hizballah operatives.
His compromise to the commies and the green on foreign policy lost him my complete admiration, since he gave way to biased elements and didn`t react for a year to antisemitic attacks in france, leaving this to Sarkozi, wich is pretty sad considering the personnal engagement of Jospin against any form of racism, he played appeasement in the wrong time, and therefore lost the weakening but still important jewish vote, while Chirac attracted a lot of votes from Maghreb voters.

Sure Jospin wasn't perfect, but when you see the current assholes who play more than they govern, you can only miss him. :|
He was still a man of action, but ho the horror, he wasn't as charismatic as Chirac :cantbeli:
And now we have this joke, who will face no elections until 2007, who didn't take in account the slaps in the head the right took on the last regionals/europeans elections and who have one of the worst foreign policy the 5th republic ever saw. :(

[cut]

God Frances President is such a gimp....

the same can be said for just about every head of state there is

[AROUETLJ]

Now look here, Chirac wasn't competely off the mark. The NRF is a REACTION force, ideal for rapid deployment and short sharp engagements. What is needed in Afghanistan is a long-term force with a strong CIMIC element. (And as far as I remember NRF was to be declared fully operational in 2006 or 2007) I can't understand the scraping the NATO barrel thing. The US itself could send far more than 2500 additional troops to Afghanistan and still be comfortably secure. France is already heavily committed in the Balkans and Ivory Coast, not to mention Afghanistan. That's 2 to 3 brigades already gone, and more if you count the total numbers of troops deployed in all theatres. The rest are either training for deployment or have just come back. And the US needn't worry. Eurocorps is to take over ISAF command now, which means that French and German troop numbers (and Spanish, Italian, etc...) wil certainly increase.

I'm not making a political statement here. I'm just counting beans.

[fantassin]

Once again Chirac is right before the others.

The NRF is not to be used as the US's will when no other unit is available. The catalogue of actions it is supposed to undertake within NATO is known and being janitors to the USA is no on the list yet.

But wait, France will only be part of NRF 1 and 2; after those first two rotations, the usual suspects will take over and GBW and Rumy's bullying should do the trick.

It is yet another attempt at using the whole of NATO as a surrogate force for the profit of US foreign policy.

Really glad good ol' Jacques is once again speaking out.

[budanski]

NATO still has a purpose, but not as a political organization. As a military alliance, it still has relevance and thank god France no longer holds a seat in.

Having said that, I do believe that our massive military presence in old Europe is no longer a priority. We need to begin looking HARD as shifting forces to meet the challenges we face in this new Century.

So ya, I guess Chirac is ahead of the curve here... :roll:

[Parzival]

****ing Bush!!!
Go Chirac!! woot

[Mark Sman]

Is a stable afghanistan in Europe's best interest or not?

I guess "reaction forces" are only appropriate for use in places like Bosnia. Oh well, maybe next time it will be "innappropriate" for the US to use the 82nd when troops are needed somewhere. 2006? Christ we are talking about 3,500 guys.

I don't care what force they come from, and neither do the poeple that could be injured or killed trying to vote.

"I would like you to please hurry ... come sooner than September," - Karzai

That is a request for help. Ignore or it or respond. Decide. But don't blame the US for Chirac's action or inaction.

[Tane Angle]

Regarding the NRF, perhaps it would be in the best interest of the NATO nations to deploy at least elements of it to Afghanistan, so that we can see how well the system actually works. We need to make sure that such diverse units from so many nations can actually work together in the hoped for system before we bet the farm on it. We've had joint operations before, but this is a somewhat newer level.

Have a good one, and just some thoughts...

[usa320]

Thats okay, next time the balkans go to **** we can just tell france to fix it.

[Uncle Chô]

Thats okay, next time the balkans go to **** we can just tell france to fix it.
Thanks God, Chirac is not France like Usa320 is not America... :roll:

[fantassin]

France was in the Balkans as early as 1992, that is no less than three years before the USA.

It has lost over 80 KIA and 650 WIA there while the USA were looking from the side, finally to support, as always (see Turkey and the EU), the Moslems.

The USA are the greatest Moslem lovers in the world when it serves its purposes, ie the disruption of a unified Europe.

It took 9/11 to change it. Or as it ?

[Zarathustra]

f*** Bush!!!
Go Chirac!! woot

Have to desagree with you here, I'm french but I prefer Bush... :)
I hate chirac more than you can imagine... :fork:

[He219]

Regarding the NRF, perhaps it would be in the best interest of the NATO nations to deploy at least elements of it to Afghanistan, so that we can see how well the system actually works. We need to make sure that such diverse units from so many nations can actually work together in the hoped for system before we bet the farm on it. We've had joint operations before, but this is a somewhat newer level.

Well put, Tane!

NATO likely to create Afghan crisis reaction force (http://www.brunei-online.com/bb/fri/jun25w27.htm)

June 25, 2004

BERLIN (dpa) - NATO leaders are likely to approve creation of a Afghanistan crisis reaction force and will expand regional rebuilding teams in the country, senior German officials said Thursday.
The moves, due at NATO's June 28-29 summit in Istanbul, are part of gearing up security for Afghan elections due this autumn.

"We will have to deploy a series of mobile NATO companies to intervene where there are difficulties," said an official speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The official declined to say how big such NATO reaction forces would be and admitted that given difficulties in winning fresh forces the troops would be drawn from soldiers already stationed in the country.

"It's no secret - I don't want to hide the fact that the force generation process has been very difficult in Afghanistan," said the official.

Germany has reached its limit of 2,250 troops for the NATO-led Afghan security force (ISAF) as mandated by parliament and cannot send any more, the official stressed.

There are presently about 6,500 ISAF troops in Afghanistan and about 20,000 US-led forces fighting Taliban remnants and al-Qaeda insurgents mainly in the southern parts of the country.

In another move, the NATO summit will likely approve creation of at least two more Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), the officials said


http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200403/r18305_45162.jpg

Afghan President Hamid Karzai ]The Afghan people need that security today, not tomorrow![/color]
"Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged them to immediately send promised extra peacekeepers to help his war-battered country hold its first elections since the fall of the Taliban.

Voter registration began in December 2003 to prepare for the ballot due to be held two-and-a-half years after the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime was ousted by US forces in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

But the polls have already been delayed once - they were initially scheduled for June - and have been threatened by remnants of the Taliban regime and insurgents targeting notably election officials in recent weeks."

Karzai appeals for immediate NATO assistance (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200406/s1143227.htm)


the NATO Response Force should only be used when there is a serious security crisis, not for Afghan missions
hmm, define 'serious security crisis'?
:roll:

[fantassin]

[quote Have to desagree with you here, I'm french but I prefer Bush[/quote]


There can't be many of you there....and they all seem to be related to Israel (gilgoul, you....).

Most French people from France don't agree with GWB; it you rely on him for the survival of your nation, I understand the blind support.

[Tane Angle]

Thanks bud, you too. It'd be a shame if this NRF is sent into a critical situation if it hasn't been tested and it turns out that it doesn't work? Everyone would just say "oops?" Better to test it, and to get some experience in a combat theatre, but where the threat isn't necessarily as critical as the contingencies the NRF is designed to handle.

[usa320]

France is really becomming a roadblock to progress in the middle east...

Really...what do they have to lose? Are they even offically a member of NATO?

[Mark Sman]

If the US had gone to the Balkans beforehand we would have been accused of interfering and destabilising a unified Europe.

And when we did go, it was with NATO and the First Armored Division.

[fantassin]

France has left the integrated command structure of NATO in the early 60s but it's among the top four financial contributors of the organization.

I won't grace the rest of that post with an answer.

[ibstolidude]

If the US had gone to the Balkans beforehand we would have been accused of interfering and destabilising a unified Europe.

And when we did go, it was with NATO and the First Armored Division.
no, the 26,000 plus US soldiers sent across the Sava were only a token force; as it was just another US use of NATO to futher it's objectives.

;)

[Uncle Chô]

Have to desagree with you here, I'm french but I prefer Bush... :) I hate chirac more than you can imagine... :fork:
:oops: Damned...

I am confused.

I am French, I am not a leftist, I am not a right wing extremist, I don't like Chirac, I don't like Bush neither and I am not a Jew...

Could someone help me? ;)

[fantassin]

Yes, it was within the normal time frame; a 3-year wait for WW1, a 2-year wait for WW2 and another 3-year wait for Bosnia.

[He219]

fantassin, did I just understand you as insinuating that French people who agree with Bush:


they all seem to be related to Israel

French people from France don't agree :bash:

Zarathustra did say that he is French.

There is no room for racial slander in this forum; be warned!

[fantassin]

Do like me, PM Gilgoul and he'll tell you he is a French who emigrated to Israel; how do you call that then ?

[afrographX]

to stay on the level of this discussion

**** bush, go chirac

[Zarathustra]

Most French people from France don't agree with GWB; it you rely on him for the survival of your nation, I understand the blind support.


I'm just fed up wit this anti-america propaganda in the french media and in the population (brainwashed by "TV chirak"), that's make more ennemy to us (USA for example) simply because of the medias... :fork:
I hate them, really but the situation is bad for a guy as me in this contry... :(

Yes i'm french,
Je parle très bien le Français si c'est une preuve pour vous!

[Mark Sman]

Yes, it was within the normal time frame; a 3-year wait for WW1, a 2-year wait for WW2 and another 3-year wait for Bosnia.

Which seems to bear a relationship with the mission success times. Oh well, as for the delay, you'll have to ask the Democratic presidents of the US at those times what the hold up was.

[fantassin]

I understand exactly what you are saying since I am currently subjected to a constant anti-French bombardment from my US colleagues who watch nothing but Fox News.

Among the recent "gems" of that oh so well informed channel were complaints that France had not sent anybody to Bosnia during the war there (French troops have been there non-stop for 12 years now) and "where were the French in Timor?"; actually, they were in the sky, on the seas and on the ground with elements from three services....

[Mark Sman]

You know, some of your US colleagues might just get their news from places besides FOX. Just a thought.

As I said before. Afghanistan has requested help. Act or ignore it. Decide.

[fantassin]

No sorry, to them, CNN is Communist News Network, Fox is gospel and that cripple of Krauthammer is God.

You should have seen there face when I told them the US OSS had saved Ho Chi Min from a tropical disease in 1945, killing some French soldiers in the process of covering his escape only to spend billions of $ latter to try and stop his armies.

They would not believe me until they saw a history channel program that mentioned it....they were gutted and I was wetting myself laughing.

[He219]

to stay on the level of this discussion

f*** bush, go chirac
Isn't that quite the intellectual rhetort!

[Mark Sman]

Shouldn't have been any suprise. We were trying to put Ho in power and turn him from Communism, which he learned in Paris.

But the French insisted on maintaining their colony in French Indochina. The rest is history.

[BlackRain]

What I don't understand is that the anti-Iraqi war crowd said the real war on terror was in Afghanistan.

The anti-war crowd said that Al-queda was in Afghanistan and not Iraq.

Now, when it comes to providing security for the first democratic vote in this country, it is seen as not worthy of troops?

This is a pissing contest where Chirac refuses to agree with any foreign policy that President Bush proposes.

Could the USA do it alone again.

Yes.

But, isn't is a "global war on terror"?

Does anyone know how many French troops are on the ground in Afghanistan involved in the war on terror anyway?


"France would add 300 more troops to its forces working in the framework of International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan (ISAF) in Afghanistan," General Henri Bentegeat told journalists here.

At present, around 600 French troops within or outside the jurisdiction of ISAF are stationing here to help stabilize the post-war country.

Early last month, Belgium also announced its readiness to increase its strength in ISAF to 600 troops.



http://wwwi.*******.com/images/nato_afghan_map.gif

[SpazzMunky]

I supppose he could oppose their deployment because this unit was designed to be a quick reactioion force and it seems like they would do long term occpation work. However, thats kind of shaky reasoning.
What I guessed from the article is that they would be withdrawn after the elections. If that's the case, I see no problem with using them.

[Mark Sman]

I'll say it again.

Afghanistan has requested help.

Act or ignore it. Decide.

And you don't get to blame your decision on anyone else.

[fantassin]

Of course, that's why the USA were paying for about 95% of the cost of the French war in Indochina as early as 1951.

To help re-establishing a French colony.

Of course.

And that's what the Vietnamese army organized by France (the future ARVN) was fighting for alongside the French.

To help re-establishing foreigners in their country. Of course.

Open a book, that helps.

[Mark Sman]

Ummm, I have opened a book on this subject. More than one.

I'd advise you to do the same.

The US opposed the reestablisment of the French Indochinese colony, and did not fund French Operations there. Actually the OSS trained the Vietminh during WWII with the idea that the Vietnamese would have self rule afterwards.

So yes, why don't you read a book before you insult me.

[ibstolidude]

Among the recent "gems" of that oh so well informed channel were complaints that France had not sent anybody to Bosnia during the war there (French troops have been there non-stop for 12 years now) and "where were the French in Timor?"; actually, they were in the sky, on the seas and on the ground with elements from three services.... - if you have friends that asked those questions then you need new friends..

the french were certainly in BiH; thus General Bernard Janvier was able to negotiate for the release of the unfortunate French & UN "hostages" and leave the then labeled safe haven, Srbrenica, to it's own demise.

Commandant Herve Gourmelon was also a great help to the Hagues efforts in the balkans.

I openly admit the failings and success of my countiry; however do not believe for a moment the constant propoganda that I, as an American, do not know, understand, or are aware of the history and culture of other coutries. Perhaps you should spend your efforts correcting yourself rather than others.

The US was not heavily involved in the BiH efforts as they were UN operations that did not, in those early years, seek NATO nor US combat involvement, being as that the Balkans are Europe. Being as astute a scholar as you are; you then ARE aware that the US was involved supporting both logistic and C2 intelligence efforts. Why did it take years for the US to get involved in BiH? Because noone wanted to admit the failure of UNPROFOR, least of all the commanding French. Certainly some of the worlds best trained and some of the best soldiers were involved, however the strategic and tactical opbjectives failed to be reached. As Chris Patton stated, "the dreadful humiliation Europe suffered in the Balkans in the early nineties also made us realise that Europe had to finally get its act together"; which lead to the successes of the EU in the Northern Macedonia and the structuring of the ESDP - ERRF.
Compared to the Kosovo crisis (if it can be called that), in which neither the UN nor Europe (as a whole) was willing to commit ground forces to Kosovo without US forces and NATO involvement due to the results of the BiH UNPROFOR; hence the early US involvement.

[budanski]

Among the recent "gems" of that oh so well informed channel were complaints that France had not sent anybody to Bosnia during the war there (French troops have been there non-stop for 12 years now) and "where were the French in Timor?"; actually, they were in the sky, on the seas and on the ground with elements from three services....
Or were they there to lay the groundwork (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/206625.stm) for their allies (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1703487.stm)? ;)

With the absence of a serious conventional Russian threat to the rest of Europe, and the apparent pacification of Germany, NATO's only real remaining purpose is the keep the Americans in Europe. A traditionally American dominated organization (especially in French eyes), it gives us strong connections and dialogue with the Europeans and is especially responsible for the new American relationships with Eastern and Central Europe, places where the United States has never been involved before. For that reason, Chirac's trying to sabotage NATO and make it useless. In addition, he is eliminating the main military obstacle to European Union Security and Defense cooperation, in an organization where France is much stronger.

[fantassin]

US Support to the French Indochina war-MAAG

The involvement of the United States in the affairs of Vietnam began with grants of money and military equipment, grew with the dispatch of military advisers and maintenance personnel, and mushroomed with the commitment of ships, planes, tanks, and 550,000 troops. Dragging out into the longest conflict in U.S. history, the conflict in Vietnam remained an issue through four presidential elections—and it divided the country more sharply than any controversy since slavery.

Assess the evolution of a complex organization

With candid and insightful correspondence, incoming and outgoing messages, reports, general orders and other military issuances, journals, planning and program files, and policies and procedures—all included in Part 1: Adjutant General Division—Security Classified Files—scholars can gain a thorough understanding of the political and economic forces that shaped the original Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG), Indochina, and its successor, the Military Assistance and Advisory Group, Vietnam (MAAGV).



Established on September 17, 1950, MAAG, Indochina, was a response to Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s announcement that the situation in Southeast Asia warranted economic and military aid for France and for the Associated States of Indochina. MAAG, Indochina, was formed in pursuance of the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of October 6, 1949, which provided for U.S. military assistance to foreign countries without reimbursement. Its duties were further defined by the Pentalateral Mutual Defense Assistance Pact, a series of military aid agreements signed in Saigon on December 23, 1950, by the United States, France, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.



Originally, MAAG, Indochina, was responsible for the administration of Military Assistance Program funds provided to the French high command and to all the Associated States. But with the end of the French Indochina War and the subsequent independence of the former colonies, as well as a lessening of French influence and involvement in the area, separate military assistance and advisory detachments were created for each country. On November 1, 1955, MAAG, Indochina, was redesignated MAAG, Vietnam.

[Mark Sman]

Thus completely ignoring the fact that we were trying to get the French to turn Vietnam over to self rule in 1948. Look up Bao Dai and the early history of US involvement with Ho Ci Minh.

The above info is from after the fact that the French would not turn Vientam over to self rule.

Like you said. Read a book.

Hell, Ho Chi Minh proposed Vietnamese independence in association with the French Union. French intansigience to the idea caused Ho to go full out for communist support and lead to Chinese involvement.

[fantassin]

Did I ever say I confuse Fox News with Americans in general?

[BlackRain]

Former French prime minister reveals loophole in NATO
By LUCY KOMISAR

DEAUVILLE, France--Former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard has revealed for the first time a secret clause in the 1947 treaty that created NATO which permitted the British government to take a military response outside the NATO umbrella.

He said the French learned of the clause only 15 years later. He said this was the reason for the French decision in 1966 to withdraw from the military command of NATO and to establish its own nuclear force.

Rocard spoke April 1 in Deauville at Forum-21, the inaugural meeting of an annual conference on international affairs organized by two Americans, lawyer Paul Weinstein and journalist Abby Quinn Hirsch, and attend by 250 people from the worlds of business, science, culture and foreign policy, ranging from Louise Arbour, former judge of the international Rwanda-Yugoslavia genocide trials, to former astronaut Rusty Schweickart. Most were Americans and French.

Rocard said the decision to build French nuclear arms and the years of irritations between France and its Allies had roots in the origins of NATO when Washington would not accord France the same deal it had made with the British. He explained, "After 15 years, we learned of a secret clause that would permit Britain on a phone call from the prime minister to the US president to say, 'The vital interests of Britain are threatened. You don't consider it this way. I shall shoot'."

He said, "There was no problem for Americans to give the British military secrets needed to carry out this independent military action. France thought it should have the same possibility." But, he said, "France was infested with a terrifically important Communist party [that was] Stalinist."

He said the U.S. attempt to forbid France from getting these secrets succeeded in creating France as a nuclear power. He explained, "De Gaulle, through the lack of a secret clause, was pushed to make a decision to be able to shoot with no military control of NATO. The strategy was the same. We can't reply exclusively and automatically on an American response."

Rocard said, "When DeGaulle took the decision to withdraw all French troops from the peacetime military command of the Allies, it was a fantastic shout. In the rest of Europe, it was considered treason." He said that during those years of parliamentary debate in Europe, the doctrine was "Let's cultivate the American friendship and denounce the French dissidents." He noted, "Our British friends spent 40 years denouncing this undisciplined threat." Rocard said this hurt the confidence and the solidarity of alliance, which was the real protection of Europe.

The Americans later had second thoughts about what they had done. Rocard said, "Henry Kissinger told me one day, six months after I ceased to be prime minister, 'I think we Americans made a great mistake. De Gaulle was right. No American president would shoot nuclear weapons to defend anything else but the population of his own territory. The fact you had to get out of it was understandable.' "

Kissinger told him that if the Americans had understood that situation, they would have developed structures inside NATO that diminished the misunderstanding and would have organized a more confident alliance.

The results continue to this day, Rocard said. "When the cold war was finished, after the Soviet empire imploded, we asked for a reorganization in NATO," he said. "President Chirac said we want the southern command of NATO for a European admiral. It would be an Italian. The Italian government was furious at being compromised."

He said the reason harked back to the old sense that Americans would not want to get involved automatically in European conflicts. He said, "That was neither silly nor illegitimate nor unexplainable."

The mistake, he said, was that "the admiral who commands the southern sector of NATO commands the Sixth Fleet in the nuclear chain of command. So it was an enormous mistake to do that. It created a terrible mess. All the other governments including the British, the Portuguese, the Italians, said 'You can't do anything with those French; they don't understand the need for our good relations with America.' France was accused of wanting to get rid of the American guarantee."

France did not return to participation in NATO's military wing until 1995, when it agreed to join peace-keeping operations in Bosnia. It is still the only NATO member that does not belong to the Nuclear Planning Group.

Rocard declared, "In the last half century, France created a situation where national security is a thing you can't talk about with other Europeans. The condition for creating a foreign policy in Europe is to get over those misunderstandings."

[Uncle Chô]

This is a pissing contest where Chirac refuses to agree with any foreign policy that President Bush proposes.
I am sadly inclined to think so :|

About the French / US in Indochina : COULD WE STOP THAT KIND OF ARGUMENTS ABOUT WHO DID WHAT 65 YEARS AGO??

:cantbeli: Why don't you oppose back to the Cretaceous?
This has been done on this forum HUNDREDS of times already :bash:

If you want to talk about the past, why both of you don't go to a library and make your mind?

[fantassin]

It was Bao Dai and he was nothing but a puppet.

Like I said, baske in your ignorance.

[ibstolidude]

With the absence of a serious conventional Russian threat to the rest of Europe, and the apparent pacification of Germany, NATO's only real remaining purpose is the keep the Americans in Europe. A traditionally American dominated organization (especially in French eyes), it gives us strong connections and dialogue with the Europeans and is especially responsible for the new American relationships with Eastern and Central Europe, places where the United States has never been involved before. For that reason, Chirac's trying to sabotage NATO and make it useless. In addition, he is eliminating the main military obstacle to European Union Security and Defense cooperation, in an organization where France is much stronger.
there is a great deal of truth to this - not that what France is wrong in doing so; after all, each country looks out for their best interest

It is the same reason that the French seek the ERRF to be seperate from NATO and the ESDP to not be co-located with the NATO HQ - and unlike EuroCorp; they do not seek the organization to be an ARRC. France has long sought less logisitc and C2 support for the ESDP initiative, especially if the support is from the Brit/US dominated NATO. Although the major roles of the emerging ERRF are in part a reflection of the NATO mandate, the EU could seek to deploy its forces should NATO decide not to act. Critics worry that the ERRF could undermine the efforts of NATO and more so, discourage US involvement in European peacekeeping operations. Supporters of the ERRF often cite the same; less US involvement. Thus France continues to seek a seperate command, logistics and intel structure. Certainly major recent ESDP and US differences have not done much to reconcile differences

[Mark Sman]

baske in your ignorance.

OK, man whatever.

If you don't know that the US tried to get the French to relinquish French Indochina to self rule, then you the man.

Just keep reading whatever books teach you that.

Oh, and excuse the hell out of me for the typo you ignorant fool.

Hey, I can use the word ignorant too. Imagine that.

[fantassin]

Yes, they did try and they failed.

So they supported the war effort, hoping the French would fail so they could show them how to win a war.

And the French failed.

So they took up the war their way.

And they failed.

End of the story.

[budanski]

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. Us uneducated americans along with fellow refugees from that war had the impression the U.S. was there to stop the spread of communism. How were we so naive to not have thought that it was just some pissing contest against France? Didnt WW2 answer that already? :roll:

[seruriermarshal]

Really sh*t is chirac .

F**k chirac !

:bash: :bash: :bash:

[seruriermarshal]

f*** Bush!!!
Go Chirac!! woot

f*** Chirac!!!
Go Bush!! woot

[Roxer]

I thought the Vichy French were run out of France? My mistake. Sometimes I wish we would have stuck to defeating Japan and shouldn't have done anything to help Europe during WWII. Wonder how that would have turned out? Chances are Russia would have eventually defeated Germany. Anyway, we have the forces to deploy because we actually spend the money on them - basic guns and butter. Spend it on social programs and then complain because you may have to deploy forces you cannot afford - go figure. If you want to be a viable force and actually provide protection for your people - a Constitutional requirement of the US Government - and save the world, you have to spend the money. Gee, a whole 600 troops, wow, what a commitment.

[Kilgor]

why does it seem like a routine now, france more than anyone else has to throw a spanner in the works in these political exercises ?

I would expect americas enemies to do such things, but hey france might as well be included on that list the way things are going.

[cut]

f*** Bush!!!
Go Chirac!! woot

f*** Chirac!!!
Go Bush!! woot

**** Vacon!!!
Go Chirac!!! :P

[Kilgor]

Françoise Thom
Senior lecturer at Paris-Sorbonne
French original: "Les choix de la diplomatie française"
Institut Hayek Institute, 2003/05/06
Translated by Douglas Gillison

The choices French diplomacy made, by Françoise Thom

France has taken being the land of the consensus too far. In no area is this consensus more visible than that of foreign policy. Yet, in no area should the choices made by French officials be subjected to greater scrutiny and debate, given their implications and probable consequences for the evolution of the country and for that of Europe.

Unfortunately, this debate is entirely impossible for the French are daily under fire from a press cemented together by Gallic leftism. They instinctively feel the dangers to which they are exposed by the attitudes that the Chirac-Villepin duo has imposed on French diplomacy. They are ill at ease before the recent upheavals in international order and by France’s internal evolution but their elected officials, intimidated by the monolithic thinking percolated through programs and articles, only rarely give voice to the deaf anxieties experienced by France’s lesser castes.

Of what has been done, nothing can be repaired. But this is no reason to persist in our forward flight. The page is turning on the Iraq crisis. The moment has come to pause and take stock of our recent actions.

To evaluate a foreign policy, one must ask oneself two questions. The first is whether this policy favors the realization of the desired objectives. The second consists in asking whether those objectives correspond to the real interest of the nation.

The prime objective of French diplomacy is the unconditional containment of the United States.

Whatever the Americans do, France feels it is absolutely necessary to put a stick between their spokes. The neo-Gaulists think that France will attain a role worthy of itself in the international scene if it takes the lead in opposition to the American “hyper-power.”

Chriac’s France is European because it views Europe as a rival pillar to the United States and it easily imagines itself in an hegemonic position in this anti-American Europe.

Chirac’s France champions the UN, which general de Gaulle once called a “contraption,” because it thinks its seat on the Security Council is a privileged instrument for the containment of the United States while bestowing a certain gravity upon France in the international community, to which neither its economic successes nor its cultural importance permit it to lay claim.

And therefore the goals that Chirac’s foreign policy has set for itself are the struggle against American unilateralism, the transformation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy from a statement of intentions to an institutional reality and the elevation of France to the status of a power whose voice is heard on the global stage.

In every one of these aims, France has obtained results that are the opposite of those it had been pursuing.

French obstructionism in the United Nations, the tour of 14 capitals taken by the minister of foreign affairs in the hope of preventing the use of force against Saddam, taken together with less recent snubs, such as Libya’s election to the presidency of the Human Rights Commission, further accentuated the already ****ounced penchant of the American administration for unilateralism. More than ever, the United States are losing interest in the UN. Yet past experience shows that without American power, the UN is only a formal entity. So the French attitude has sabotaged the United Nations, while Paris claimed to be strengthening it.

Furthermore, stalwart French efforts to undermine NATO seem to have borne fruit after the Franco-German refusal of to give the alliance’s military assistance to Turkey. Yet again, French behavior succeeded only in heightening the Bush administration’s already marked tendency toward unilateralism.

Now let’s examine the fruits of Chirac’s diplomacy in Europe.

In reading an account of the numerous debates that animated the the European convention, one gets the impression that Europeans are united on one point only: the necessity to contain France’s ambitions.

Paris has harbored the delusion that it is resurrecting the Franco-German duo. One has only to read the German press to realize that on the other side of the Rhine we are much despised for having exploited a difficult moment for Germany, the isolation in which Berlin found itself following an electoral campaign that resorted to anti-Americanism. Germany is frightened by French extravagance.

“No one really knows what is pushing Chirac to oppose the United States to such a degree. This can only worry us. It is a frightening situation,” Michael Glos said recently. He is a member of parliament from the CSU. (For the German attitude, see the article by Thibaut de Champris in Le Figaro of 28 March 2003).

Germany is struggling to persuade Washington that it does not share the French vision of a Europe opposed to the United States. When the CDU returns to power, France will pay the bill for the concessions it exacted last autumn.

The rebirth of the Franco-German duo has also aroused grave doubts among the nations of central and eastern Europe who are candidate nations for European enlargement and who, since the Nice summit, had been counting on Germany to counterbalance Paris’ hegemonic tendencies: these apprehensions were aggravated yet again by the crude diatribes of the French president, leaving it to be understood that the price of admission to the EU was total submission to the French view of an anti-American Europe.

Since the Paris-Berlin axis was completed by an understanding with Moscow, we can understand why the nations of the former Communist bloc wondered if it were really worth the trouble of joining a Europe where all the slogans of the bygone Soviet era (the struggle for peace, the struggle against Zionism, against imperialism, social benefits) have returned in force.

The dust-up with London compromises the second project which is dear to French officials: the construction of a European army. Without Franco-British collaboration there can be no European army worthy of the name. There again, Paris’ anti-Atlanticist orientation has not only nipped in the bud the attempt to put European defense on its feet, but it considerably weakened Tony Blair, the most pro-European of British leaders. Nothing better serves the aims of the Europhobes on the other side of the Atlantic than the fracas of French diplomacy.

In brief, wherever it turned, France got the opposite of what it sought.

It wanted a united, anti-American Europe and succeeded in dividing the continent more seriously than it had ever been before.

It had hoped to be the leader to this Europe and found itself isolated opposite an organized coalition of European states. It relations with Britain are moribund and contentious with its Latin sisters, with the dubious support of a hesitant Germany and a Russia that is more than ever given to double-gaming.

It has earned the dangerous enmity of America without having covered its rear-guard.

Strictly from the point of the goals France claimed to be attaining, Chirac’s diplomacy is an overwhelming fiasco.

Now for the fundamental point, namely: to what degree does the attitude of French diplomacy correspond to the real interests of our country.

In its foreign policy, France has in a way put on the boots of the defunct Soviet Union:

* same obstructionist policy at the UN,
* same third-world-ist demagoguery,
* same alliance with the Arab world,
* same ambition to take the lead in a coalition of “anti-imperialist” states against Washington.

France has resurrected Primakov’s old Eurasian master plan, which consisted in creating a Paris-Berlin-Moscow-Beijing axis against the Anglo-Saxons, a goal in which Putin’s Russia no longer believes but in which it encourages Paris because Russia sees it as a way of improving its position in negotiating with Washington.

The anti-American obsession means that France is less than inquisitive as to the nature of regimes to which it lends its support in the name of multipolarity. Iraq, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Sudan: in a word, France seems to get on better with the rogue states and failed states than with the United States whose civilization it shares. It claims to defend international law by leaning on states that ignore all laws.

The comparison to the Soviet Union goes further than it may seem. Indeed, French diplomacy is less inspired by a cynical Realpolitik (whence the failures mentioned above) than by an ideological view of the world. Its anti-Americanism is the projection of its internal jacobinism onto the global stage. The unhealthy French communion in anti-Americanism reveals the start of a drift towards totalitarianism in our country, which was already noticeable by the second round of the elections: Bush has replaced Le Pen in the role of enemy of the people. “Anti-Bushism” can be compared to the “anti-fascism” of the ‘30s and ‘40s: it conceals an obligatory communist-type consensus.

Like those in the USSR of Brezhnev, French leaders compensate with a ruinous foreign activism for their inability to begin crucial internal reforms, which are impossible because they would call into question the socialist dogma at the foundation of the French state. In both cases, foreign activism both accelerates and accentuates the internal crisis. We saw what became of the Soviet Union. In France, the evidence of the decay of the state has been mounting for two years and the Iraq matter acted to reveal this.

French leaders have sought to justify their position on the question of Iraq by emphasizing that France rejected the “clash of civilizations” and consequently favored the integration of French Muslims.

True, president Chirac was hailed in the Arab quarters. But the official anti-Americanism has favored the explosive mixture of a virulent Trotskyite movement, an Islamist movement, an anti-Globalization movement and a third-world-ist movement. This poisonous cocktail feeds not only the youths of the Arab neighborhoods but the high school students sent out to demonstrate for peace by their leftist teachers in the name of “activism.” In this sense, the orientations of French diplomacy only reflect the strident third-world-ization of France, starting with the third-world-ization of minds. President Chirac defies Bush but gives in before to the ghettos.

In a telling way, Dominique de Villepin told parliament that the French position was to bring about the failure of “anglo-Saxon liberalism.” Like most of their Arab interlocutors, French leaders feel the need is more urgent to stand up to the United States, even when they are right, than to start down the path of reforms which could save the state from bankruptcy.

The most serious part of all this is that anti-American passion has numbed the French to the consequences of this deliberate break with the Western camp.

Consequences which were already perceptible in the excesses of the peace demonstrations, in the fact that the French state is less and less able to guarantee the security of goods and persons, starting with that of our Jewish fellow citizens. In the media, the view of the first days of the war in Iraq, often as overtly pro-Saddam propaganda, was clearly irresponsible, to the point of alarming officials with the Ministry of the Interior: according to one of them:

“The depiction of the coalition’s shambles in Iraq is in some areas feeding a form of arrogance which the police on the ground are now witnessing... Just a spark and the anti-Americanism of the ghettos will feed uncontrollable violence” (Le Figaro 3 April, 2003).

Foreign observers wonder at the causes of French madness.

At the moment when the fragility of the French state is becoming visible to all, in the absence of any credible European defense, is it really wise to break with our American ally, to the point that it now views us as an enemy? Even Russia has understood that it has an interest in not stirring things up with America, precisely because of its own internal weaknesses. Russia remains anti-America at bottom but it is keeping a low profile, happy to see France be the lightning rod for Washington — and this strategy is paying off: the American media, for which no word is too harsh in condemning France, find every excuse for Putin.

The first explanation for the behavior of our leaders is irresponsibility — they believe that they will not have to answer to anyone.

This irresponsibility is driven so far that they seem to be surprised at the consequences of their acts: thus they were not expecting the flare-up of francophobia in the United States, convinced they could persist in their provocations of Washington without risking retaliation. The habit of impunity in internal politics ended up giving rise to a disastrous foreign policy, as was exactly the case for the late USSR.

In the case of France, one must add futility and vanity, permanent factors in our diplomacy.

Chirac’s foreign policy is due in part to the anxiety of the political class before the increasingly obvious failure of “republican integration.” Rather than face the danger, we take refuge in denial.

We declare that France does not believe in the “clash of civilizations,” as if denial were enough to erase it. For greater security, we go as far as abolishing the idea of civilization. This is why we seek to deny at all costs the fact that France shares the same civilization as the United States, by cultivating with some fanfare our overflow into extra-legal zones. Anti-Americanism plays a central role in this mechanism.

Our foreign policy thus expresses a sort of preemptive capitulation. France takes the initiative of breaking with the Western camp in the hope of avoiding a battle of wills with its wild and fanatical youth after having failed to tame it. This profound cowardice is hidden behind the exhibited panache of a little country that oppose a big one. The myth of Asterix hides a decidedly more sordid reality. Anti-Americanism makes possible this fraud and the continuance of a policy that risks making us ill beyond repair and sinking all of Europe with us.

[Operation Ivy]

America Rules

[Zarathustra]

f*** Bush!!!
Go Chirac!! woot

f*** Chirac!!!
Go Bush!! woot

f*** Vacon!!!
Go Chirac!!! :P



Ridiculous discussion... :roll:
"f*** bush / f*** chirac / f*** bush / f*** chirac / f*** bush / f*** chirac...etc

:| :| :| :| :| :| :| :|

[cut]

f*** Bush!!!
Go Chirac!! woot

f*** Chirac!!!
Go Bush!! woot

f*** Vacon!!!
Go Chirac!!! :P



Ridiculous discussion... :roll:
"f*** bush / f*** chirac / f*** bush / f*** chirac / f*** bush / f*** chirac...etc

:| :| :| :| :| :| :| :|

Read carefully :roll:

[AROUETLJ]

**** everybody on this forum. Myself included.

[Kilgor]

**** you and the horse you rode in on ! :P

[gilgoul]

France was in the Balkans as early as 1992, that is no less than three years before the USA.

It has lost over 80 KIA and 650 WIA there while the USA were looking from the side, finally to support, as always (see Turkey and the EU), the Moslems.

The USA are the greatest Moslem lovers in the world when it serves its purposes, ie the disruption of a unified Europe.

It took 9/11 to change it. Or as it ?


Yeah, and I see no problem with that, cause while we where watching yougoslavia going up in flame during those years, and it is Europe, and did a lot of symbolic gesticulation, but not a single time an action that could have made this mission {FOR****U} on any value. INstead always being the sucker of the strongest of the moment, instead calling "humanitaire" the picking up of bodies and injured on Sarajevo airport, instaed giving way in Sebrenica, or in Split and in a llot of other places.
The fact has to be admitted, only when america decided to commit to a resolution of this conflict did we see an end, before that, the UN mission gesticulated, and Europe danced in the rythm.

[gaz]

France was in the Balkans as early as 1992, that is no less than three years before the USA.

It has lost over 80 KIA and 650 WIA there while the USA were looking from the side, finally to support, as always (see Turkey and the EU), the Moslems.

Fantassin, could you please cite a source for the killed in action figure you quoted? According to the UN's website (http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/fatalities/totals.htm) France have lost 49 servicemen in UNPROFOR; were the other deaths of personnel not under UN control?

[gilgoul]

[quote Have to desagree with you here, I'm french but I prefer Bush


There can't be many of you there....and they all seem to be related to Israel (gilgoul, you....).

Most French people from France don't agree with GWB; it you rely on him for the survival of your nation, I understand the blind support.[/quote]

Ok, fantassin, from a one "out there", There is a thing called "francais par le sang verse", that, might you like it or not, I`m three times, by my grand father, my father and myself,the former killed after taken POW, the two other wounded in duty. so no comment about your "French people from France", it sounds all too much like the "France aux Francais" of a certain former human right abuser.
About Bush, I dislike about everything in the character, and don`t offer a blind support to a man who is a walking caricature, but Chirac on the other way is the walking caricature of the worst that comes out of France, if Bush is a Cow boy, Chirac is a dupont lajoie.
And about the survival of my Nation, it, thank providence, doesn`t rely on anyone to survive, but it enjoys a real friendship and alliance with the strongest nation in the west part of earth. Some like me would appreciate sometimes a release of the bear hug, for i`m not sure the "american dream" is realy realisable here, and I`m affraid some aspects of the Military support are having serious side effects on our local economy, and that procurement programs are in fact creating more jobs in the USA than here, but you don`t refuse the hand that comes to help you.

[budanski]

Françoise Thom
Senior lecturer at Paris-Sorbonne
French original: "Les choix de la diplomatie française"
Institut Hayek Institute, 2003/05/06
Translated by Douglas Gillison

The choices French diplomacy made, by Françoise Thom

France has taken being the land of the consensus too far. In no area is this consensus more visible than that of foreign policy. Yet, in no area should the choices made by French officials be subjected to greater scrutiny and debate, given their implications and probable consequences for the evolution of the country and for that of Europe.

Unfortunately, this debate is entirely impossible for the French are daily under fire from a press cemented together by Gallic leftism. They instinctively feel the dangers to which they are exposed by the attitudes that the Chirac-Villepin duo has imposed on French diplomacy. They are ill at ease before the recent upheavals in international order and by France’s internal evolution but their elected officials, intimidated by the monolithic thinking percolated through programs and articles, only rarely give voice to the deaf anxieties experienced by France’s lesser castes.

Of what has been done, nothing can be repaired. But this is no reason to persist in our forward flight. The page is turning on the Iraq crisis. The moment has come to pause and take stock of our recent actions.

To evaluate a foreign policy, one must ask oneself two questions. The first is whether this policy favors the realization of the desired objectives. The second consists in asking whether those objectives correspond to the real interest of the nation.

The prime objective of French diplomacy is the unconditional containment of the United States.

Whatever the Americans do, France feels it is absolutely necessary to put a stick between their spokes. The neo-Gaulists think that France will attain a role worthy of itself in the international scene if it takes the lead in opposition to the American “hyper-power.”

Chriac’s France is European because it views Europe as a rival pillar to the United States and it easily imagines itself in an hegemonic position in this anti-American Europe.

Chirac’s France champions the UN, which general de Gaulle once called a “contraption,” because it thinks its seat on the Security Council is a privileged instrument for the containment of the United States while bestowing a certain gravity upon France in the international community, to which neither its economic successes nor its cultural importance permit it to lay claim.

And therefore the goals that Chirac’s foreign policy has set for itself are the struggle against American unilateralism, the transformation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy from a statement of intentions to an institutional reality and the elevation of France to the status of a power whose voice is heard on the global stage.

In every one of these aims, France has obtained results that are the opposite of those it had been pursuing.

French obstructionism in the United Nations, the tour of 14 capitals taken by the minister of foreign affairs in the hope of preventing the use of force against Saddam, taken together with less recent snubs, such as Libya’s election to the presidency of the Human Rights Commission, further accentuated the already ****ounced penchant of the American administration for unilateralism. More than ever, the United States are losing interest in the UN. Yet past experience shows that without American power, the UN is only a formal entity. So the French attitude has sabotaged the United Nations, while Paris claimed to be strengthening it.

Furthermore, stalwart French efforts to undermine NATO seem to have borne fruit after the Franco-German refusal of to give the alliance’s military assistance to Turkey. Yet again, French behavior succeeded only in heightening the Bush administration’s already marked tendency toward unilateralism.

Now let’s examine the fruits of Chirac’s diplomacy in Europe.

In reading an account of the numerous debates that animated the the European convention, one gets the impression that Europeans are united on one point only: the necessity to contain France’s ambitions.

Paris has harbored the delusion that it is resurrecting the Franco-German duo. One has only to read the German press to realize that on the other side of the Rhine we are much despised for having exploited a difficult moment for Germany, the isolation in which Berlin found itself following an electoral campaign that resorted to anti-Americanism. Germany is frightened by French extravagance.

“No one really knows what is pushing Chirac to oppose the United States to such a degree. This can only worry us. It is a frightening situation,” Michael Glos said recently. He is a member of parliament from the CSU. (For the German attitude, see the article by Thibaut de Champris in Le Figaro of 28 March 2003).

Germany is struggling to persuade Washington that it does not share the French vision of a Europe opposed to the United States. When the CDU returns to power, France will pay the bill for the concessions it exacted last autumn.

The rebirth of the Franco-German duo has also aroused grave doubts among the nations of central and eastern Europe who are candidate nations for European enlargement and who, since the Nice summit, had been counting on Germany to counterbalance Paris’ hegemonic tendencies: these apprehensions were aggravated yet again by the crude diatribes of the French president, leaving it to be understood that the price of admission to the EU was total submission to the French view of an anti-American Europe.

Since the Paris-Berlin axis was completed by an understanding with Moscow, we can understand why the nations of the former Communist bloc wondered if it were really worth the trouble of joining a Europe where all the slogans of the bygone Soviet era (the struggle for peace, the struggle against Zionism, against imperialism, social benefits) have returned in force.

The dust-up with London compromises the second project which is dear to French officials: the construction of a European army. Without Franco-British collaboration there can be no European army worthy of the name. There again, Paris’ anti-Atlanticist orientation has not only nipped in the bud the attempt to put European defense on its feet, but it considerably weakened Tony Blair, the most pro-European of British leaders. Nothing better serves the aims of the Europhobes on the other side of the Atlantic than the fracas of French diplomacy.

In brief, wherever it turned, France got the opposite of what it sought.

It wanted a united, anti-American Europe and succeeded in dividing the continent more seriously than it had ever been before.

It had hoped to be the leader to this Europe and found itself isolated opposite an organized coalition of European states. It relations with Britain are moribund and contentious with its Latin sisters, with the dubious support of a hesitant Germany and a Russia that is more than ever given to double-gaming.

It has earned the dangerous enmity of America without having covered its rear-guard.

Strictly from the point of the goals France claimed to be attaining, Chirac’s diplomacy is an overwhelming fiasco.

Now for the fundamental point, namely: to what degree does the attitude of French diplomacy correspond to the real interests of our country.

In its foreign policy, France has in a way put on the boots of the defunct Soviet Union:

* same obstructionist policy at the UN,
* same third-world-ist demagoguery,
* same alliance with the Arab world,
* same ambition to take the lead in a coalition of “anti-imperialist” states against Washington.

France has resurrected Primakov’s old Eurasian master plan, which consisted in creating a Paris-Berlin-Moscow-Beijing axis against the Anglo-Saxons, a goal in which Putin’s Russia no longer believes but in which it encourages Paris because Russia sees it as a way of improving its position in negotiating with Washington.

The anti-American obsession means that France is less than inquisitive as to the nature of regimes to which it lends its support in the name of multipolarity. Iraq, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Sudan: in a word, France seems to get on better with the rogue states and failed states than with the United States whose civilization it shares. It claims to defend international law by leaning on states that ignore all laws.

The comparison to the Soviet Union goes further than it may seem. Indeed, French diplomacy is less inspired by a cynical Realpolitik (whence the failures mentioned above) than by an ideological view of the world. Its anti-Americanism is the projection of its internal jacobinism onto the global stage. The unhealthy French communion in anti-Americanism reveals the start of a drift towards totalitarianism in our country, which was already noticeable by the second round of the elections: Bush has replaced Le Pen in the role of enemy of the people. “Anti-Bushism” can be compared to the “anti-fascism” of the ‘30s and ‘40s: it conceals an obligatory communist-type consensus.

Like those in the USSR of Brezhnev, French leaders compensate with a ruinous foreign activism for their inability to begin crucial internal reforms, which are impossible because they would call into question the socialist dogma at the foundation of the French state. In both cases, foreign activism both accelerates and accentuates the internal crisis. We saw what became of the Soviet Union. In France, the evidence of the decay of the state has been mounting for two years and the Iraq matter acted to reveal this.

French leaders have sought to justify their position on the question of Iraq by emphasizing that France rejected the “clash of civilizations” and consequently favored the integration of French Muslims.

True, president Chirac was hailed in the Arab quarters. But the official anti-Americanism has favored the explosive mixture of a virulent Trotskyite movement, an Islamist movement, an anti-Globalization movement and a third-world-ist movement. This poisonous cocktail feeds not only the youths of the Arab neighborhoods but the high school students sent out to demonstrate for peace by their leftist teachers in the name of “activism.” In this sense, the orientations of French diplomacy only reflect the strident third-world-ization of France, starting with the third-world-ization of minds. President Chirac defies Bush but gives in before to the ghettos.

In a telling way, Dominique de Villepin told parliament that the French position was to bring about the failure of “anglo-Saxon liberalism.” Like most of their Arab interlocutors, French leaders feel the need is more urgent to stand up to the United States, even when they are right, than to start down the path of reforms which could save the state from bankruptcy.

The most serious part of all this is that anti-American passion has numbed the French to the consequences of this deliberate break with the Western camp.

Consequences which were already perceptible in the excesses of the peace demonstrations, in the fact that the French state is less and less able to guarantee the security of goods and persons, starting with that of our Jewish fellow citizens. In the media, the view of the first days of the war in Iraq, often as overtly pro-Saddam propaganda, was clearly irresponsible, to the point of alarming officials with the Ministry of the Interior: according to one of them:

“The depiction of the coalition’s shambles in Iraq is in some areas feeding a form of arrogance which the police on the ground are now witnessing... Just a spark and the anti-Americanism of the ghettos will feed uncontrollable violence” (Le Figaro 3 April, 2003).

Foreign observers wonder at the causes of French madness.

At the moment when the fragility of the French state is becoming visible to all, in the absence of any credible European defense, is it really wise to break with our American ally, to the point that it now views us as an enemy? Even Russia has understood that it has an interest in not stirring things up with America, precisely because of its own internal weaknesses. Russia remains anti-America at bottom but it is keeping a low profile, happy to see France be the lightning rod for Washington — and this strategy is paying off: the American media, for which no word is too harsh in condemning France, find every excuse for Putin.

The first explanation for the behavior of our leaders is irresponsibility — they believe that they will not have to answer to anyone.

This irresponsibility is driven so far that they seem to be surprised at the consequences of their acts: thus they were not expecting the flare-up of francophobia in the United States, convinced they could persist in their provocations of Washington without risking retaliation. The habit of impunity in internal politics ended up giving rise to a disastrous foreign policy, as was exactly the case for the late USSR.

In the case of France, one must add futility and vanity, permanent factors in our diplomacy.

Chirac’s foreign policy is due in part to the anxiety of the political class before the increasingly obvious failure of “republican integration.” Rather than face the danger, we take refuge in denial.

We declare that France does not believe in the “clash of civilizations,” as if denial were enough to erase it. For greater security, we go as far as abolishing the idea of civilization. This is why we seek to deny at all costs the fact that France shares the same civilization as the United States, by cultivating with some fanfare our overflow into extra-legal zones. Anti-Americanism plays a central role in this mechanism.

Our foreign policy thus expresses a sort of preemptive capitulation. France takes the initiative of breaking with the Western camp in the hope of avoiding a battle of wills with its wild and fanatical youth after having failed to tame it. This profound cowardice is hidden behind the exhibited panache of a little country that oppose a big one. The myth of Asterix hides a decidedly more sordid reality. Anti-Americanism makes possible this fraud and the continuance of a policy that risks making us ill beyond repair and sinking all of Europe with us.
From the political, military, economic, and technological perspectives France has no significant power, we are far superior to them in these areas. In fact it will be a joke to draw a comparison between France and the United States when it comes to these domains. The main power of France is a bureaucratic one manifested in international organizations like the U.N and NATO. The irony that is the U.S that gave France such bureaucratic powers when we agreed to make them one of the five permanent members in the U.N, veto power, and give them a consensus power in NATO.

The major problem with the French is that they think they are a superpower that can oppose the U.S but in reality they are very far from being even close to the status of a superpower. Everyone in the world knows this basic fact, except the French.

[budanski]

edit: double post

[MEGR]

What is this NATO elite force.. Is this new?

[ibstolidude]

What is this NATO elite force.. Is this new?
It is called ECHOS; it will revolutionize the modern battle!
http://www.nato.int/kfor/chronicle/images/2002/chronicle_200219/s0219-07.jpg

http://www.echos.org/Pages/Hoofdpagina.html

[fantassin]

Yes, there were others killed as part of IFOR, SFOR, KFOR and the like.

But they also dished it out; last February, two snipers from the 126th Inf Rgt killed two albanian gunmen who were shooting at KFOR troops from the "three towers" in Northern Mitrovica.

No one except some Fox News propagandist think France is a superpower; it's a typical misconception thrown randomly to make it look stupid, a bit like "all americans are obese, stupid and uneducated".

Saying it's irrelevant is as stupid; why would the US always try to have France on its side if it was so irrelevant?

As long as I see anti-French post, it's a good sign, it means France has plenty of relevance and that the USA can't just have it its own single way all the time.

[Jehuty]

From the political, military, economic, and technological perspectives France has no significant power, we are far superior to them in these areas. In fact it will be a joke to draw a comparison between France and the United States when it comes to these domains.

Stating the obvious is always good for your pride i guess. I just wouldn't say that France is not an economical power (not a superpower of course).


The major problem with the French is that they think they are a superpower that can oppose the U.S but in reality they are very far from being even close to the status of a superpower. Everyone in the world knows this basic fact, except the French.

And the major problem of some people in the world including you is to think that all the French think that way.Most people here could care less about the place of France in the world, we have our own internal problems to deal with. Not everyone agree with gaullist fapping so please stop the stereotype of a French people who "fart above his ass", what happens between Chirac and the USA is just stupid diplomaty and it's not the main concern of the French people. Last time there were such a diplomatic clash with the US was with DeGaulle himself, ever though of that? And i'm not sure many people here would say "Hey man we can easely compete with the US, piece of cake".Sometimes when you hear foreigners it looks like you have one French people who is completely united in every possible subjects and where everyone holds the same opinion, holy crap man don't forget to give me a call when a united France will exists! It's not because on the issue of Irak there was a relative consensus in France that it means everyone is a gaullist here who think the very purpose of France is to counterbalance the power of USA :roll:

Maybe it's more convenient for you to say "the French don't realize that they are not a superpower" (i believe there is something behind this p-) ) but let me tell you that such reasonning is simplistic if not stupid (it's a stereotype at best), even if i would be the first to admit that a lot of people are very chauvinist here. (but it's more of an european problem).

[A Soldier]

We have so many "I hate Bush" flamers on here its refreshing to see I hate France and Chriac rant ........Freedom Fries and Freedom bread taste soo much better now :)