AMERICA'S REAL FRIENDS

One useful side effect of the diplomatic battling over a probable U.S.-led war to depose Saddam Hussein has been the revelation to the United States of just who its real friends are - and which of its alliances continue to have meaning in the post-9/11 world.

Chirac and Schroeder are risking NATO, the UN, and their countries relations with the US for generations. Good politics? I think not. And the cost of their own defense is going to go through the roof when they haven’t got an alliance to work within. Their pacifism will be of little value when they have to raise bigger armies. Their economies will suffer greatly as they are left out of a post war Iraq when the freed people of that country realize who collaborated with Saddam in his final days.

Chirac and Schroeder have done all the can to make the world safe for Saddam. They’ve busted the sanctions. They’ve allowed their big businesses to sell “dual use equipment” that could be used to create WMD. They’ve attempted to form coalitions of the duplicitous to thwart real sanctions. How can they love this human rights abuser or hate us so much that they gamble all that has been built by 55 years of US efforts at a peaceful Europe?

Their economies will suffer greatly as they are left out of a post war Iraq when the freed people of that country realize who collaborated with Saddam in his final days.

One of the first things a new Iraqi government should do is to repudiate all foreign debts incurred in building Saddam's military. The second thing they should do is order Boeing airplanes instead of Airbus when the "no fly zones" are lifted in Iraq.

Its time to realize that France and Germany are doing this on purpose, it is not just a simple matter of mistakes snowballing on one another, this is a designed game plan by them to thwart the US and increase their power. I'm afraid that they do know what they're doing and will not come to their senses as everyone expects.

France is opposing this war because it is worried about its substantial muslim minority. France has about 5M muslims out of a population of 56M, and there is a lot of tension there over ethnic divides. France doesn't lose much with Saddam still in power, and my guess is that they fear riots in their own country if they do support the US.

Actually, I think France's plan was to lure Germany out onto a limb, then encourage Germany to saw said limb off the tree. In this way, Germany --- Fatherland of the anemic economy, 1 in 9 citizens out of work, and a pi**ed-off United States thinking of relocating military bases to Poland --- can no longer afford to aspire to EU dominance. France will then be the big dog in the EU by acclaim.

I think you've fingered the real pressure point of the Chirac-Schroeder maneuvers against an American strike on Saddam. They have a lot to lose by aligning themselves against us, yes -- but they stand to lose even more if we go in and unearth the proof of their complicity with the Butcher of Baghdad.

The French have demonstrated their willingness to build nuclear reactors for anyone who can afford them. The Germans have extensive experience with gas weapons. If Chirac and Schroeder, or persons close to them, would be exposed to war-crimes prosecutions for facilitating Saddam Hussein's acquisition of WMDs, it would explain virtually everything about their intransigence -- including why they're willng to make fools of themselves in public, by denying all the evidence and constantly changing their reasons for opposing Saddam's military removal.

So these two has-been powers have tried to marshal the envy of their people -- their resentment of the United States, for daring to take their places on the world stage -- to thwart the strike. But they've overplayed their hand and "misunderestimated" the Bush Administration, whose leader is more concerned with being right than being liked by supercilious European oligarchs who preside over moribund nations without spines.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
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