Let's take this one from the top. Since Saddam is gone, the sanctions are unnecessary. U.S. President Bush and Tony Blair have, reasonably, moved to end them. They had a human cost, that cost was considered necessary to avoid a worse outcome, the problem is gone now. So, let's do the humane thing quickly. Hard to argue if you have a single humanitarian bone in your body. Or so you'd think.
In fact, France, Russia and the EU bureaucrats would rather have Iraqi civilians continue to suffer under the sanctions. France and Russia want to use this as a blackmail tool to collect on the monies they gave to Hussein... so he could continue torturing and killing the same Iraqi people hurt by sanctions. The EU?
"This issue could prove very divisive right now," one EU diplomat observed. "If you lift sanctions you lift the control of the United Nations in what is going on in Iraq."
European morality on display. Again.
You'd think recent events in Iraq would send a message. Fortunately, these people are slow learners. If they drag their feet, the USA and Britain can just declare their refusal to abide by the sanctions any more and invite others to join them. If Bush or Congress really want to play hardball after that, all they have to do is redirect their U.N. dues payments to direct use in Iraq, and continue until the amount spent equals what the U.N. is holding in escrow. Don't think it could happen? USA pulled out of UNESCO entirely in the 1980s, and there were several years where The House simply failed to appropriate dues payments. There's a Republican majority in Congress and the Senate now, and the U.N. isn't exaxctly popular within this group. Japan, the U.N.'s second biggest financial supporter, even set a precedent of sorts when it recently cut its dues by 33%.
Are these bozos taking lessons from North Korea in the "Blazing Saddles Defense", or what? The whole thing is shaping up to be one more huge body-blow to U.N. credibility and means.
Thank goodness. I'm hoping the Axis of Weasels and the EU push for all they're worth at the U.N. and EU, thus handing the Good Guys an iron-clad destruction of the U.N.'s pretense to morality on this side of the pond, a golden opportunity to starve that corrupt organization of funds, and an extremely divisive Old Europe/New Europe issue within the EU.
To Jacques, Vladimir and the faceless EU clones: Thanks! Just when we were steeling ourselves for the necessary intellectual trench warfare, you do us the courtesy of flying in from the sidelines to make our case for us. I appreciate it more than you'll ever know.
UPDATE: Ouch! Liberal Commentator Michael Totten writes, concerning this issue: "There is nothing liberal or left about Chirac. He is well to the right of Henry Kissinger."
Chirac may be to the right of Kissinger, but he is another example of the American Left getting bed with whomever can move their agenda forward. There was nothing "left" about Hitler either, but after he signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939 the American Left, under the direction of CPUSA, did everything to encourage American nuetrality. Only when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union two years later was it ok for the Left to hate him again.
The U.N. may be in it's death throes, no one can agree on anything, everyone is looking to "get even" for hurts, real or perceived. Getting anything done in conjunction with the U.N. would be like having to get your ex wife to approve everything you want to do after your divorce.
The UN and EU just know something we do not, these wogs are not capable of having a democratic form of government, they are happy as a pig in shit just the way they are, they love being miserable, they love being dominated by Tyrants.
all they want is to die for allah (when the right time comes and not sooner) but until then it's easier to blame anyone and everyone for all their failings.
I hate to say it but this was a waste of time.
5 years from now we will be back to the same old Mullah and ayatolla in charge routine.
the only solution is the final solution and America won't use that.
Chirac to the right of Kissinger? Of course. At least Kissinger was a liberal (in the philosophical sense of the word). Chirac is a straightforward nationalist. He is, after all, a Gaullist. And he won his election by beating Le Pen (a neo-Fascist). So no surprises here. Morality for Chirac is whatever strengthens the "glory" of France. No surprise also that Villepin's greatest hero is Napoleon (who's not even French, btw) and is fond of quoting: "Victory or defeat, but glory either way."
Ah, Chirac! Camus, Voltaire, de Tocquevillie, Hugo, and so many others are rolling in their graves.
>....these wogs are not capable of having a
>democratic form of government, they are happy
>as a pig in shit just the way they are, they
>love being miserable, they love being dominated
>by Tyrants.
That does seem to sum of the Left/Far Right agreement on Iraq.
And they both are just as bigoted and racist.
Liberty and Democracy is for everyone. It is a matter of building the civic institutions in the society for the graft to take. This will take time.
Lasting democracy in Germany and Japan came at the barrel of a gun. Such will be the case with Iraq as well.
Geez Louize, Barry, have you even conversed with anyone from this area? Mullahs and Ayatollas had better watch their keesters or they will be the next Saddam. The youth in this area are free thinkers and they aren't going to settle for the same old garbage for long. The people you talk about are the old guard, they are getting older, and fewer. Nice that you keep an open mind and all though.
Does the name 'Napoleon' ring a bell with anyone?! More and more, Chirac reminds MB of that bygone era.
"There is nothing liberal or left about Chirac. He is well to the right of Henry Kissinger."
Hilarious.
Complete bollocks actually. The socialist left and mercantilist right in France are both so statist that the US understanding of the terms is completely meaningless. Neither wing supports free enterprise or a less regulated society, they just argue over who gets to make the rules. Sound familiar?
In French politics only Alain Madelin comes close to a truly differentiated position: a true liberal (i.e. not a statist nor on the left).