Posted on 05/15/2007 6:31:22 AM PDT by drzz
Bernard Kouchner, the man behind Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders), a one-time U.N. administrator and ex-health minister, is highly skilled in the art of global management. He has played a crucial role in international humanitarian efforts for more than 30 years, supervising people and projects in many of the world's war-ravaged areas from El Salvador to Rwanda. Frustrated with the charity's strict code of neutrality and reliance on the permission of the host government to give assistance, he and like-minded medics set up Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) three years later. And in 1999 MSF -- an organization that believes in the right to intervene with medical aid in any conflict or disaster -- received the Nobel peace price for its humanitarian work. "To be alone as a pioneer...like we were, was difficult. My strategy was not only to help the people, or transform the world, but to do both," Kouchner explains. The first United Nations administrator in postwar Kosovo also puts his success down to teamwork. "All my activities were collective activities -- like setting up MSF and Doctors of the World. I am not able to act alone...I have my style listening to the people," he says. Contrary to popular French opinion, the 64-year-old strongly approved of regime change in Iraq, after witnessing the plight of the Kurds for decades. "In my country it's not easy at all. If you are a pioneer you are a target and if you are the winner you are more targeted than before," he says. Kouchner has already accepted Sarkozy's proposition of being Foreign Minister. A rumor spread by AFP about anti-US Hubert Védrine was in fact not true. Good news for the USA and the free world. Kouchner wrote a book condemning Saddam Hussein and supported every overthrow of tyrannic regimes.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Le Figaro explains that a lot of De Villepin’s ministers will be out of the government. Good News !
Chirac’s era is over.
This sounds like very good news. Kouchner did some very admirable work with MSF, and it’s good to know that he’s pro-Iraq. Frankly, I’m very surprised at this appointment.
I wonder how controversial this will be in France.
}:-)4
Some of Sarkozy’s supporters are angry about the appointment, but Sarkozy doesn’t care at all.
He’s making a revolution of the entire French right-wing. Kouchner can be seen as an anti-De Gaulle, anti-realist, pro-”right of intervention”.
He approved the Kosovo and Bosnian wars against tyrannic regimes and wrote a book against Saddam Hussein. He visited Iraq in 2003, before the war, and wrote in his book that the difference between the hopes of the Iraqis and the hatred of the Frenchies against the war was high.
Kouchner was seen as a pro-American, pro-freedom activist.
Very good news ! Sarkozy is definitely changing France. France could be a strong allie for the cause of freedom.
Sending 20,000 French troops to Iraq would show they are serious in their support of the U.S.
HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES
Kouchner: Iraqi voices remain unheard:
People are the silent players amid all the talk
By Alvin Powell
Gazette Staff
Calling himself a traitor to France’s peaceful position on Iraq, yet not on board for America’s looming war, Doctors Without Borders founder Bernard Kouchner said it is the Iraqi people - machine-gunned, gassed, and murdered by the hundreds of thousands - who are forgotten in the debate.
To view an on-demand video Webcast of this event, visit http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/iraq/webcast.html.
Kouchner, a visiting professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and a fellow at the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, squarely straddled the line between war and peace Friday (March 14) during a speech before several hundred in a packed Snyder Auditorium.
“Nobody is taking into account the Iraqi people. They are the only ones who can say yes or no to the war,” said Kouchner, who has also served as France’s minister of health and as the United Nation’s administrator of post-intervention Kosovo. “I am not supporting Mr. Bush, I am not supporting [French President Jacques] Chirac. I will support to the end of my days the victims, and they are the Iraqi people.”
Kouchner, in a talk called “Iraq: The International Dilemma,” made a convincing case for the ouster of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. He described Hussein’s brutality toward his own people in anecdotes culled from Doctors Without Borders’ years of working in the Middle Eastern nation.
Kouchner described victims of the 1988 Iraqi gas attacks on Kurdish villages, the piles of bodies left after Iraqi troops machine-gunned a crowd from helicopters, and described the continuing stream of refugees from razed villages in Hussein-controlled Iraq into the independently run Kurdish zone in the north.
“Still they’re suffering and they have not been taken into account,” Kouchner said of the chemical attack victims from Halabja in northern Iraq.
Despite the ongoing brutality, however, Kouchner said he also knows the brutality that war brings and said he does not support an American war on Iraq. He criticized both sides in the ongoing international debate, saying there is a small window of time in which to avoid war, but only if international powers begin to work together.
Kouchner said it is still possible to force Hussein from power, given the ever-tightening noose of American military force. That could be used to expand the no-fly zones in Iraq’s north and south, coupled with increased aid to the Iraqi people and unified international pressure.
But even Kouchner didn’t seem hopeful that would happen. He repeated his opposition to war several times in his half-hour speech and during a subsequent question-and-answer session. Yet even as he said the Iraqi people’s voices should be considered, he also said he’s sure some would approve of their nation being bombed if it meant being rid of Hussein.
“I know some of them will accept the bombing. They have a right to say so and be delivered,” Kouchner said. “I believe that thousands and thousands of Iraqis are waiting for deliverance.”
Kouchner was also critical of peace protests, saying he supported their goals but that they were forgetting Hussein’s brutality. He counseled protesters to include anti-Hussein slogans among their banners and signs in the future.
The questions following the speech explored different facets of the Iraq debate, with one School of Public Health faculty member saying he thought Kouchner was “being used” by those who support a war in Iraq. The aim of supporters of the war, said James Robins, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics, is not to help the Iraqi people, but to redraw the Middle East’s geopolitical map.
Kouchner also handled a question about America’s thirst for Iraqi oil, saying though there may be some interest in Iraqi oil fields, he didn’t believe the problem was that simple. Oil, he said, doesn’t explain a similar American intervention in Kosovo, which has no oil. It also doesn’t take into account the deep shock to the American psyche done by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Two Iraqi expatriates also spoke, one thanking Kouchner for finally bringing the Iraqi people’s voice into the debate and the second saying Kouchner’s “No to Saddam, and no to war” stance was really no stance at all.
“You cannot have it both ways; you have to say we have to remove Saddam Hussein,” said Harvard Medical School Assistant Professor Jamil Kirdar. “There is no alternative to this war.”
Saddam should have been dealt with, Kouchner said, after the first Gulf War, but instead the withdrawal of international forces when the Iraqi people were ready to rise up amounted to supporting Hussein’s repression of dissent.
“It should have been done years and years before,” Kouchner said. “We were stupid. No, we were not stupid, we were guilty of complicity.”
The voice of the Iraqi people, though not heard so far, is beginning to be raised, he said. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been talking about human rights in Iraq, Kouchner said, and stories from Iraqis have begun reaching France.
“The French opinion is going to change. It is changing already,” Kouchner said.
Oh, I don’t think troops will be sent. Maybe in Afghanistan. But who know`?
A good surprise could happen. Sarkozy already shows that he’s not afraid of totally changing France’s diplomacy. Appointing Kouchner to FM is a serious threat for the Arab dictatorships.
With all of the anti-American statements I have heard attributed to members of Doctors Without Borders over the years this is refreshing and gives me hope for France.
“Sending 20,000 French troops to Iraq would show they are serious in their support of the U.S.”
I wouldn’t bet one cent on this.
Now I know all is truly lost, the French are coming over to our side. Surrender is only a matter of time now.
Yawn...Those jokes are getting really old. We will need as many allies when the crap really hits the fan.
So the AFP (surprise) spread the lie about a socialist anti-semite becoming foreign minister. This lead me and many others to lose hope on Sarkozy...
I am genuinely overjoyed to learn that actually Kouchner has been appointed FM.
Good news!
Neither would I. It sure would knock the hell out of the insurgents, though.
“So the AFP (surprise) spread the lie about a socialist anti-semite becoming foreign minister. This lead me and many others to lose hope on Sarkozy...”
It was not a lie, Védrine was approached as he is a very competent diplomat with a very extensive network of contacts. He too would have been a first-rate defector from the Socialist Party. But he asked for too much power, and was turned down.
He’ll still be used as a special envoy or be given some diplomatic mission, mark my words. And keep in mind in France foreign affairs belong to the presidential domain, meaning that Védrine’s competence will serve Sarkozy’s strategy.
Sending 20,000 French troops to Iraq would show they are serious in their support of the U.S.
That won’t happen - and that won’t even be asked.
First, Sarkozy shares the general skepticism about how the fight in Iraq is actually decreasing the risk of terror attacks or the power and influence of Islamist terrorist groups over the ME.
Second, he has not been elected by US citizens to support the US in Iraq, but by French citizens to take care of problems in France. That will mean supporting the US in specific areas, but Iraq is not one of them.
Third, if the White House issued a call to Sarkozy to immediately send 20,000 French soldiers in Iraq, the only effect it would have would be to either weaken Sarkozy’s position or to force him to be less cooperative with the United States if he doesn’t want to be seen as a lapdog - something his Socialist (and Villepinist) opponents have largely accused him of already.
Sarkozy WILL support the United States every time it will be 1) possible and 2) compatible with France’s best interests, which he has just sworn to defend. What more could he realistically pledge anyway ? The form and scope of this support will vary depending on specific circumstances, and there are a lot of options available for both countries to step up their security and defend their core values at home and worldwide.
Sarkozy appoints pro-American foreign minister.
Not quite sure about this....“Socialist” just doesn’t seem to be consistent with “pro-American”, “pro-Israel” and “pro-Iraq war.”
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