MC @ 116
I had previously written @ 105 that the US should NOT expect eternal gratitude from you Europeans, half your post @ 116 says you didn’t read what I wrote. A couple of posts back I wrote much the same thing as you wrote, here.
As for the rest, I wasn’t suggesting every governmental and corporate entity in the US was pure, only that Chirac was corrupt, as in stealing the furniture and running his government as a crony operation (not that some US administrations haven’t done the same). And, his history of seeking close relations with Saddam affected the way the US viewed his opposition to the US enforcing the post-Gulf War UN resolutions in 2002-03, this was understandable and logical. If he sincerely wanted to avoid the US going into Iraq, part of that had to be to recognize his continued opposition to the Post-Gulf War sanctions regime was a big factor in US fears about WMD. And if he wanted the US to desist, he would have to commit to changing course and working with rather than against the US ad UK. Of course, he didn’t, which made his opposition rather inexplicable and led in turn to all sorts of craziness on both sides of the Atlantic.
Maybe you’re a Gaullist? I assume so from your stances, here. Of course, it took a Socialist (Mitterand) for France to ever coopertate with the US and oppose Soviet expansionism. The Gaullists, tho called “Right,” always seem to look first for how to stick a thumb in the US’s eye, then consider whether it was in France’s interest to do so.
Eh, whatever. France used to be a great power, both militarily and to a degree morally, but the military and economic power ended at Verdun in 1916, and the moral strength was dissipated over the following 50 years. France could reclaim much of its greatness by weighing morality along with narrow self interest, and becoming again something of an exemplar of its original Revolutionary (pre-Terror) ideals. But, it chooses not to, prefering to wallow in corporatist corruption and dreams of elite gloire thru manipulating the EU. Not worthy of a great people, but it’s not my country or my choice.
Ah, well. LIfe goes on.
