Posted on 03/10/2003 6:18:35 AM PST by conservativecorner
Assume, for a moment, that the French and the Germans aren't thwarting us out of pique, but by design, long-term design. Then look at the world again, and see if there's evidence of such a design.
Like everyone else, the French and the Germans saw that the defeat of the Soviet Empire projected the United States into the rare, almost unique position of a global hyperpower, a country so strong in every measurable element that no other nation could possibly resist its will. The "new Europe" had been designed to carve out a limited autonomy for the old continent, a balance-point between the Americans and the Soviets. But once the Soviets were gone, and the Red Army melted down, the European Union was reduced to a combination theme park and free-trade zone. Some foolish American professors and doltish politicians might say — and even believe — that henceforth "power" would be defined in economic terms, and that military power would no longer count. But cynical Europeans know better.
They dreaded the establishment of an American empire, and they sought for a way to bring it down.
If you were the French president or the German chancellor, you might well have done the same.
How could it be done? No military operation could possibly defeat the United States, and no direct economic challenge could hope to succeed. That left politics and culture. And here there was a chance to turn America's vaunted openness at home and toleration abroad against the United States. So the French and the Germans struck a deal with radical Islam and with radical Arabs: You go after the United States, and we'll do everything we can to protect you, and we will do everything we can to weaken the Americans.
The Franco-German strategy was based on using Arab and Islamic extremism and terrorism as the weapon of choice, and the United Nations as the straitjacket for blocking a decisive response from the United States.
This required considerable skill, and total cynicism, both of which were in abundant supply in Paris and Berlin. Chancellor Shroeder gained reelection by warning of American warmongering, even though, as usual, America had been attacked first. And both Shroeder and Chirac went to great lengths to support Islamic institutions in their countries, even when — as in the French case — it was in open violation of the national constitution. French law stipulates a total separation of church and state, yet the French Government openly funds Islamic "study" centers, mosques, and welfare organizations. A couple of months ago, Chirac approved the creation of an Islamic political body, a mini-parliament, that would provide Muslims living in France with official stature and enhanced political clout. And both countries have permitted the Saudis to build thousands of radical Wahhabi mosques and schools, where the hatred of the infidels is instilled in generation after generation of young Sunnis. It is perhaps no accident that Chirac went to Algeria last week and promised a cheering crowd that he would not rest until America's grand design had been defeated.
Both countries have been totally deaf to suggestions that the West take stern measures against the tyrannical terrorist sponsors in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. Instead, they do everything in their power to undermine American-sponsored trade embargoes or more limited sanctions, and it is an open secret that they have been supplying Saddam with military technology through the corrupt ports of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid's little playground in Dubai, often through Iranian middlemen.
It sounds fanciful, to be sure. But the smartest people I know have been thoroughly astonished at recent French and German behavior. This theory may help understand what's going on. I now believe that I was wrong to forecast that the French would join the war against Iraq at the last minute, having gained every possible economic advantage in the meantime. I think Chirac will oppose us before, during, and after the war, because he has cast his lot with radical Islam and with the Arab extremists. He isn't doing it just for the money — although I have no doubt that France is being richly rewarded for defending Saddam against the civilized countries of the world — but for higher stakes. He's fighting to end the feared American domination before it takes stable shape.
If this is correct, we will have to pursue the war against terror far beyond the boundaries of the Middle East, into the heart of Western Europe. And there, as in the Middle East, our greatest weapons are political: the demonstrated desire for freedom of the peoples of the countries that oppose us.
Radio Free France, anyone?
— Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. Ledeen, Resident Scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, can be reached through Benador Associates.
The French? Land of Napoleon? And the Germans? Land of Hitler? Hard to believe they'd have enough hubris to imagine they could rule the world?
Exactly. Very key point.
...and a centuries long enmity for the English.
Yep, but by then we will have SDI fully in place and we will nuke France.
The Euro's have seized on this collectivist mindset and enhanced it. I hear it in the rhetoric of the French and the actions of many Europaeans. It is found in the question multiculturalists are fond of asking:"Is an American life worth more than an Iraqi life"? with the implication that a "Yeah" answer is bigoted, racist and just so so retrograde.
In all, I agree that it is a trend and not a franco-German plot, per se.
It is typical of all the neo-socialists that only the UN has the answers and that we must defer to the UN.[Just listen to Pelosi and the Dashole!]In their[the Dems, the UN-ers, the Europeans and the silent Chinese] collectivist mind, if we as a country will buy that sick argument, we can be persuaded, cajoled, kicked into spending our wealth on give-aways to the 3rd world, to despising our strength so as to handicap our selves because after all...its just not fair[ref. the argument that we should not invade Iraq because our army is stronger than theirs!]We would be fools indeed if we allow this nonsense to continue.
Just imagine if they'd struck a few years earlier, when WJC and HRC were in the WH.
Or imagine if they'd waited a few years, when the Muslim population in both the US and EU would be even larger.
They tipped their hand too soon OTOH, while not soon enough to let WJC profit, OTOH.
Ands more and more attention is being drawn to the violent spread of Islam and the forced imposition of sharia even on nonmuslims. That the conversion-by force if necessary- of nonmuslims is a requirement of Islam, as is the imposition of a theocratic government. More and more people are growing uneasy about the spread of Islam in north America, and I think that that may be the best 'unintended consequence' of 9/11.
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