Posted on 01/24/2003 9:42:40 AM PST by FBD
"To the French lying is simply talking" -- Fran Lebowitz
January 24, 2003: The utopian fantasists in our State Dept., having persuaded Pres. Bush to place his faith in the UN are now obliged to face reality. Will they?
Colin Powell, the chief utopian, argued against deposing Saddam in 1991 in favor of the wishful fantasy that military defeat would be sufficient to defang him. It wasn't, because in Saddam's psychopathic world of brute force, survival against the United States constitutes victory and is concrete evidence of our weakness. Saddam would never allow an enemy to escape alive if he had the opportunity to kill him, for it would indicate weakness and would embolden his foes. Consequently, after the '91 war, he redoubled his efforts to acquire devastating weaponry against what he sensed was a pusillanimous foe, while we politely looked away. The danger steadily grew in the 1990's while our then President turned his attention to more pressing matters, like obtaining sexual favors from interns in the oval office.
Meanwhile, despite his disastrous advice in 1991, Colin Powell rose to ever greater power. He proved himself the quintessential diplomat whose faith lies in written agreements and who believes the way to peace is via empathic concern for our adversaries. Powell is a gifted, smooth-as-silk negotiator, who seems to have persuaded the President to treat the UN as a serious international body, rather than what it is -- a collection of mostly authoritarian and autocratic governments run by thugs with more in common with Saddam than with us. The nature of this body was again made clear by the recent overwhelming election of Libya to head the UN Human Rights commission. This placed the UN beyond parody. Yet our State Dept utopians continue to pay deference to the many countries in that august body, including some of our putative "allies," who were only too happy to see the United States suffer the blows of 9-11.
The one benefit of our seemingly endless diplomacy at the UN is the emergence of a new clarity about our "allies," France and Germany. They are working tirelessly to persuade the world that the great threat to global security emanates not from Iraq, but from the power of the United States. By appeasing Saddam through the farcical Hans Blix "inspections" (Hans Blix seems able to find his table at Rao's more easily than he can locate Baghdad), they pursue a policy that enmeshes us in endless UN process and requires us to ask permission before we can act. And while the leaders of France and Germany speak of 'peace,' what they have in mind is postponing action by the United States indefinitely. They are effectively supporting Saddam, hoping -- in the time-warmed tradition of European appeasement -- that he will turn his anthrax and Sarin against the United States rather than against his European trading partners. No doubt they will express eloquent sympathy when the U.S. counts the casualties in the next bioterror assault, courtesy of Saddam's laboratories.
And what of the endless cant about not going to war except as a last resort? Have we forgotten we are at war, a war declared on us on 9-11, that Saddam continues to wage war on his own people and on American and British pilots, and that he quite openly supports suicide terror aimed at America's one democratic ally in the Middle East?
This writer believes that it requires no Sherlock Holmes to deduce that Saddam is intimately involved with anti-American terror groups around the globe. With all this, the behavior of France and Germany can best be understood as dupicitous acts of realpolitik by countries lacking in military might, aimed at taming and weakening America's global power. And if you don't buy that rationale, then another powerful explanation has been offered by Steven den Beste who suspects that France and Germany wish to conceal the fact that for years, in violation of the UN embargo, they've been selling Saddam the building blocks for his WMD programs.
Countries change their national character about as readily as individuals. For example, William Safire documents the treachery of the French, who played Colin Powell like a violin, assuring him of support and then turning on him. Yet Powell insisted to Jim Lehrer that he had not been sandbagged by the French. Not at all; perhaps it had all been a misunderstanding that requires a bit more consultation and discussion over a fine Burgundy.
We would suggest that our diplomats be forced to read Mark Twain on the French. Long before the French added the art of appeasement to their highly developed art of cuisine he commented: "There is nothing lower than the human race -- except the French." He added: "The French are the connecting link between man & the monkey."
However, if our multicultural diplomats find Mark Twain politically incorrect and therefore not worth reading, I would then recommend the contemporary wit, Fran Lebowitz, who made the following observation: "The French probably invented the very notion of discretion. It's not that they feel that what you don't know won't hurt you, they feel that what you don't know won't hurt them. To the French lying is simply talking."
Hopefully even Colin Powell will awaken from his Dream of Reason -- the fantasy that all differences are due to misunderstandings and can be worked out through rational dialogue. If he doesn't, let's hope the President takes the policy reins out of the hands of the utopians and places them in the hands of the realists -- Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Cheney. The hour is late, the peril grows, and the temporizers are gaining strength. Peace follows victory. Hurry up please, it's time.
Stephen Rittenberg, Co-Publisher, Horsefeathers
Paris - Inspired by the commercial success of the United States Army’s "Boot Camp" video game, the General Staff of the French Army has announced plans to market "Ultimate Surrender," a video game based upon the proud military traditions of the Gauls.
In the game we follow the exploits of Lucky Pierre, an apprentice garlic salesman from Marseilles, as he joins the French Army and begins a rigorous course of combat training.
The First Level of the game is called "Survival School," and the players have to help Lucky Pierre survive 24 hours without red wine or crème brulé.
The Second Level is "Capitulation," and the goal here is to see which player can have Lucky Pierre surrender the fastest without firing a shot or getting his uniform dirty.
Level Three is "Collaboration." Here the players battle to see who can collect the largest numbers of pairs of nylon stockings and packages of chocolates by having Lucky Pierre perform sexual favors for members of the occupying forces.
Level Four is "Be Ungrateful to America for Rescuing Your Sorry French Ass Once Again." In this extremely challenging part of the game contestants vie with one another to see who can make Lucky Pierre behave in the surliest manner when the United States inevitably comes to the rescue of the defeated French.
The Final Level is "Pretending to Have Been in the Resistance." Here contestants compete in a battle of tall tales and whoppers as they try to protect Lucky Pierre from treason charges.
Marketing tests show that "Ultimate Surrender" is a big hit with French teenagers and young adults who are too young to have experienced France’s lightening surrender to the Germans in 1940 or its defeat by the Vietnamese in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu. "Zees is a great tool to inspire ze patriotism in ze youths, n’est ce pas?" said General Jean-Jacques Loseur, Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, during his weekly press conference. "Since ze end of ze Cold War we French have not had many opportunities to surrender or to show great cowardice in the face of much weaker opponents."
When questioned about comments made in the French Chamber of Deputies that "Ultimate Surrender" makes the French Army look like a bunch of gutless mama’s boys, General Loseur pulled out a white handkerchief, put his hands over his head and said, "Oh heck, I give up."
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IN THE NEWS:
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 FRENCH PM: "IT'S GREAT TO BE COLLABORATING WITH GERMANY AGAIN!" PARIS -- French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, in honor of France's agreement with Germany to undermine America's efforts in the War on Terror, took German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on a tour of sites in the French capital city that were visited by another German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, during his famous Victory Tour of 1940. --- William Grim, for Broken Newz, Copyright Broken Newz 2003 |
Demonstrators take part in a protest near the American embassy in Abidjan, January 28, 2003. Young supporters of president Laurent Gbagbo called for American support for their country and denounced France, its former colonial ruler, for brokering a recent peace initiative in the four-month civil war. The protests in the Ivory Coast capital underlined the problems facing the power-sharing deal agreed by Gabgbo to end the war that has split the world's top cocoa producer along ethnic lines. (Luc Gnago/Reuters)
I invite a better artist to improve on this.
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