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Mark Steyn: Iraq may be on the edge but France has hit rock bottom abyss
The Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 08/23/03 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 08/22/2003 4:35:57 PM PDT by Pokey78

'The US and British armies have entered the gates of hell," thundered George Galloway last month. "Soon it will be 100 degrees at midnight in Baghdad, but there will be no respite from the need for full body armour."

As usual, George was a little off. The gates of hell are on the périphérique and it's 100 degrees at midnight in the pissoir on the Metro. To date, two US soldiers are believed to have succumbed to the heat in Iraq, whereas over 10,000 people have succumbed to it in France.

That would make George's brutal Iraqi summer about one five-thousandth as lethal as the brutal Gallic summer, which has killed more people than the brutal Afghan winter (now 23 months behind schedule), the brutal Iraqi summer and the searing heat of the Guantanamo torture camps combined and multiplied by a thousand.

Certainly, Iraq has its problems. Jacques Chirac, en vacances just up the road from me in North Hatley, Quebec, took time out of his three-week holiday to issue a statement on events in Baghdad, where 20 people died on Tuesday. But he didn't bother to interrupt his vacation to issue a statement on events in France, where so many people have died, the funeral homes are standing room only and they're having to store bodies in the freezers at the fruit and veg markets.

Now that his old pal and nuclear client has been removed from power, M Chirac is utterly irrelevant to the future of Iraq. But surely France still falls within his jurisdiction, doesn't it?

And where are the Red Cross and Oxfam and Human Rights Watch and all the other noisy humanitarians? If 10,000 Iraqis had died of dysentery on George W Bush's watch, you'd never hear the end of it. A few weeks back, with three fatal cases of cholera, the Humanitarian Lobby was already shrieking that we stood on the edge of a humanitarian catastrophe.

France isn't on the edge, it's in the abyss. When I motored round Iraq a couple of months ago, the hospital wards were well below capacity. Yet in France the entire health system – or that percentage of it not spending August at the beach – is stretched beyond its limits (35 hours a week, 44 weeks a year). Why aren't Médecins Sans Frontières demanding to be allowed in to take over?

There's an old, cynical formula for the weight accorded different disasters on American TV news. It runs something like: one dead American = 10 dead Israelis = 100 dead Russians = 1,000 dead Bangladeshis. But 10,000 French can die, and even the French don't seem to care – or not too much, and not with any great urgency.

Bernard Mazeyrie, managing director of France's largest undertakers, told the New York Times that several of the bereaved were in no hurry to bury their aged loved ones: "Some, he said, informed of the death of relatives, postponed funerals, not to interrupt the August 15 holiday weekend, and left the bodies in the refrigerated hall." Au bord de la mer? Ou au bord de ma mère? Hmm. Tough call.

I don't know what M Chirac heard in the dépanneurs and resto-bars of Quebec this week, but what I heard south of the border was complete amazement at how a nominally First World country could be so insouciant about an entirely avoidable Third World death toll. President Bush and the entire Washington press corps are spending a month in heat equal to the brutal Parisian summer, and he's playing golf in it all day while they stand around watching; in Phoenix tomorrow and Monday, it will be an unremarkable 105. This isn't about the weather.

In Paris this spring, a government official explained to me how Europeans had created a more civilised society than America - socialised healthcare, shorter work weeks, more holidays. We've just seen where that leads: gran'ma turned away from the hospital to die in an airless apartment because junior's sur la plage. M Chirac's somewhat tetchy suggestion that his people should rethink their attitude to the elderly was well taken. But Big Government inevitably diminishes its citizens' capacity to take responsibility, to the point where even your dead mum is just one more inconvenience the state should do something about.

Meanwhile, Maggie Pernot wrote the other day to chide me for my continued defence of the Rumsfeld Death Camps at Guantanamo. The prisoners, she complains, are "kept in tiny, chainlink outdoor cages where they were likely to be rained upon". In fact, they have sloping roofs and cool concrete floors, perfect for the climate. If they had solid walls rather than airy wire mesh, they'd be Parisian sweatboxes and everyone would be dead. By contrast, if those thousands of French pensioners had been captured by the Marines and detained by Rummy in Cuba, they'd be alive today.

Mme Pernot writes from St Julien, France. That's right: she's surrounded by an actual humanitarian scandal on all sides but she'd rather obsess about an entirely fictional one. Heat getting to you, Madame? Or just the unusual odour from the flat next door?


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: chirac; france; iraq; marksteyn; marksteynlist; steyn; steynisagenius
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1 posted on 08/22/2003 4:35:57 PM PDT by Pokey78
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To: Howlin; riley1992; Miss Marple; deport; Dane; sinkspur; steve; kattracks; JohnHuang2; ...

2 posted on 08/22/2003 4:37:02 PM PDT by Pokey78
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To: JohnHuang2
Bttt.

5.56mm

3 posted on 08/22/2003 4:40:40 PM PDT by M Kehoe
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To: Pokey78
But Big Government inevitably diminishes its citizens' capacity to take responsibility, to the point where even your dead mum is just one more inconvenience the state should do something about.

Socialism is a disease.

4 posted on 08/22/2003 4:41:05 PM PDT by 45Auto (Big holes are (almost) always better.)
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To: dirtboy
As you were saying on another thread ...
5 posted on 08/22/2003 4:41:23 PM PDT by dighton (NLC™)
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To: Pokey78
Ouch! Steyn hits it with this one. This is a disgrace to their entire nation. Perhaps we should start lecturing them on the proper care of the elderly during heat waves.
6 posted on 08/22/2003 4:41:49 PM PDT by Miss Marple
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To: Pokey78
Another Marksterpiece.
7 posted on 08/22/2003 4:43:50 PM PDT by gcruse (http://gcruse.typepad.com/)
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To: Miss Marple
Hi. Good article. Some of it reminds me of JH2's style.

5.56mm

8 posted on 08/22/2003 4:44:02 PM PDT by M Kehoe
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To: Pokey78
the Rumsfeld Death Camps

What a great line, there hasn't even been a successful suicide there yet.
9 posted on 08/22/2003 4:44:51 PM PDT by tet68
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Comment #10 Removed by Moderator

To: Pokey78
...which has killed more people than the brutal Afghan winter (now 23 months behind schedule),...

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

Thanks for the ping!

11 posted on 08/22/2003 4:47:36 PM PDT by facedown (Armed in the Heartland)
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To: Pokey78
steyn bump....
12 posted on 08/22/2003 4:50:00 PM PDT by eureka! (Rats and Presstitutes lie--they have to in order to survive.....)
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To: Pokey78
Wow, vicious! Once again, I stand in awe of Steyn's ability to put current events in perspective.
13 posted on 08/22/2003 4:51:46 PM PDT by thoughtomator (Are we conservatives, or are we Republicans?)
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To: Pokey78
Wow. This one could etch glass.
14 posted on 08/22/2003 4:54:00 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Pokey78
Heat getting to you, Madame? Or just the unusual odour from the flat next door?
15 posted on 08/22/2003 4:54:42 PM PDT by aculeus
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To: aculeus
I don't know why, but if wrote "odor" instead of "odour" it wouldn't have the same impact! WOW!
16 posted on 08/22/2003 5:03:06 PM PDT by gr8eman
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To: aculeus
I don't know why, but if he wrote "odor" instead of "odour" it wouldn't have the same impact! WOW!
17 posted on 08/22/2003 5:03:33 PM PDT by gr8eman
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To: Pokey78
Au bord de la mer? Ou au bord de ma mère? Hmm. Tough call.

This guy is brilliant in any language he chooses.

18 posted on 08/22/2003 5:04:55 PM PDT by M. Thatcher
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To: Thud
ping
19 posted on 08/22/2003 5:08:22 PM PDT by Dark Wing
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To: Pokey78
It seems to me France might have let all those pensioners die to get them off the pension rolls...Chirac is having a bit of a budget crunch this year.
20 posted on 08/22/2003 5:08:39 PM PDT by Bob J
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