Thanks.
Chirac and De Villepin I do not get. What in the world are they thinking and believing? Will they ever realize that the Muslims will cut their throats? What in the world do they think is going to happen to France with the Muslims breeding like rabbits? Don't they care about France and Western civilization?
Chirac is amazingly corrupt (the French call him "Supervoleur"--Superthief; and both he and de Villepin are completely obsessed with themselves, and France's former status as a world power. (DeVillepin, who is fixated on Napoleon, has said that Waterloo was in some sense a French victory, because it displayed "la gloire de la France." Makes no sense to me.)
Chirac has long had a stated vision of Europe as a "counter-weight" to the United States, with France leading Europe. He also believes that France, with its long colonial involvement in N. Africa, should be the bridge between Europe and the Islamic world. He has always followed an Arab friendly policy, and is, or at least was, close friends with Saddam Hussein. (He even learned Arabic so they could communicate without an interpreter).
Last week, I posted a e-mail that had appeared on The Corner at National Review. It was written by a French businessman who lives in Tunisia, and has for many years.
He said that Chirac's opposition to the Iraqi war was a fatal mistake. Instead of improving France's position in the Arab world, the Arabs took this as a sign of French weakness. He said it was astonishing how quickly the Tunisians began to show scorn for France after that.