Rehabilitating The French?

out-of-band-introduction
Not sure why I have been holding off on posting this one for so long -- maybe it had turned into a sheltered child of some sort. Anyway, here is the last Soapbox left that I had submitted to the Fort Collins Coloradoan that they chose not to print. As I pointed out a few months ago when I de-anonymized We The Free, "Blogs are the letter to the editor that the editor does not want to print." So even though I was (sacre bleu!) underestimating the scale of corruption of the French and the U.N., I'm publishing it here unaltered as I submitted it -- I think it has obviously stood its nine-month test of time quite well... Enjoy!

P.S. Needless to say, one of the joys of the blog is no editors -- especially for titles! While I give the Coloradoan credit for printing my Soapbox bodies unaltered, they never would print my submitted titles. They probably would have headed this one "War Monger Hates Our Founding Fathers' Best Ally" if they had chosen to print it ;) Just one of the not-so-hidden secrets of the MSM...
/out-of-band-introduction

Rehabilitating The French?

No sooner than the Spanish had proven to Al Qaeda that European democracy was no match for terror than Osama’s targets grew and somehow the French are now in need of violent rehabilitation for their transgressions with “wine, pigs, loose morals and nudity” according to CNN.

As someone with a proven track record of psychoanalyzing the French, comments are in order.

But first – surprise! – I would like to give a big, solid B+ to Cheryl Distaso for her recent Soapbox in the Coloradoan (“Whether Bush’s or Clinton’s war, oppose it”, 3/18/04).

It’s OK -- I’ll pause now while the gentle reader climbs back onto their chair.

You see, the first thing that Cheryl did right was to actually pay attention to the counter-protesters at her organization’s recent event. This shows that she has some degree of consideration for alternate viewpoints.

And she must have had some level of respect for her critics – for how else to explain that she spent a meaningful portion of her column rebutting her critic’s charges of hypocrisy and clarifying that she protested Clinton’s wars also. I believe Cheryl is consistent.

Another mark in Cheryl’s favor is the somewhat levelheaded tone of her piece. While she did make reference to “the Bush administration is promoting violence”, her words about “Clinton’s ruthless military actions” were certainly negative.

Where Cheryl fell short was in the following two areas: putting real meat on the foundations of her position and admitting that she is likely a minority in her organization regarding consistency. Were the protest crowds locally and around the world opposing Kosovo even within an order of magnitude of those opposing Iraq II? I certainly don’t recall it – perhaps I can be proven wrong?

As for the foundations of her position, there are two likely alternatives: complete, consistent pacifism and “transnational progressivism”. If she is a complete pacifist then I grudgingly admire her consistency. It’s fascinating to contemplate a world where Lincoln didn’t fight the Civil War and Hitler was unopposed in WWII.

More likely (my best reading since she didn’t completely clarify it) she believes that wars should only be undertaken based on some form of “international law”. Most often, this seems to take the form of a “democratic” vote by the U.N.

The problem with this line of logic comes in when the “democratic vote” is cast by the ambassadors of dictators. Other than Israel, Turkey and someday the now fledgling Iraq, there are no democracies in the Middle East! How can voting rights for dictators not be an affront to the very concept of democracy?

And while the French and the rest of the Europeans may be largely democratic, they are vulnerable to bribery and corruption for their U.N. votes. You see the GAO now estimates that Saddam skimmed north of $10 billion through kickbacks under U.N. auspices in the “Oil for Food” program supposedly meant to feed starving Iraqi children. The U.N.’s Kofi Annan now admits “It is highly possible that there has been quite a lot of wrong-doing but we need to investigate and get to see who was responsible.”

Who do you suppose the new Iraqi government accuses of being a key player in taking Saddam’s corrupt “commissions” alongside Russians and Chinese? Anti-war for oil, tres bonne affaire?

So now the French need rehabilitation according to not just me and George Bush but the Islamists and shortly U.N. investigators.

Unless the French veto the U.N. investigators as well.

Alas, efficacious vetoes may be more difficult with the Islamists. “Fire sale” on Bordeaux wine anyone?

Bob Gronlund
Fort Collins
bob_wtf@comcast.net