French President Jacques Chirac said today: “As far as we’re concerned, war always means failure.”
James Taranto in the WSJ’s blog responds: “CNN doesn’t say what language he was speaking when he said this, but if it was French and not German, the statement refutes itself.”
Yes, we’re dangerously close to Godwin’s Law here, but the idea that there is nothing worse than war is so utterly inimical to Western values of freedom and democracy (values that have continually required defending at the point of the gun) that Europeans should be embarrased not to at least be open to the idea that force is sometimes utterly necessary and proper.
As Bill Saffire says in tomorrow’s NYT, “Pyrrhic victories [such as appeasing Iraq] are part of the backdrop to the existential crisis that the Security Council is bringing on itself. The Iraq issue is not war vs. peace. It is collective security vs. every nation for itself.”
France should recall how they fared the last time they walked away from their collective security committments (by shamefully selling out Czechoslovokia at Munich).
Ben in Paris | 04-Feb-03 at 10:36 am | Permalink
Same old ridiculus francophobic anglospheric complacency.
You seem to have spent some time at the LSE, yet haven’t learnt much about how Britain and the US consistently prevented France from acting throughout the 20’s AND the 30’s. How come do you still hear about the Nazi canard of Versaille as a harsh treaty in the anglophone litterature, if not because the Anglo-Americans considered Germany, not France, as their real future financial and strategic partner after 1919? (see JM Keynes incredible Preface to the German edition of the General Theory in 1936… or how far the grand-father of curent U.S. president Bush was involved in Nazi-controlled joint-stock companies in the Silesian Steal Industry up to late 1942)?
In 1936, Britain prevented France from intervening when Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland. In 1938, Munich was the high point in Chamberlain’s parliamentary carreer but very controversial in Paris for Daladier.
Back to Chirac’s comments. Indeed the war in 1939 meant the failure of a system of alliance secured in 1919, that the United State’s Senate had been the first to attempt to destroy and that France, alone and persistantly slandered in the Anglophone Press, had desperately tried to save for two decades. The overall cost of the war was 60 milion human lives, and France eventually owed its freedom not the meager 300000 Americans who died –fighting on two fronts– (that’s a smaller sacrifice, per capita, than the 100 000 French soldiers who died in combat in May-June 1940, not to mention the overall 600000 French citizens who died in the war)…but to the 27 Milion Russians whose sacrifice, on one front, bled dry the Nazi War machine and enabled the American 1944 summer trip to Normandy.
I guess hadn’t the American intervened, Chirac would be speaking French, and spending a lot of time in Moscow (which is not too bad)
Alexander | 08-Feb-03 at 9:51 pm | Permalink
This is a comment to Ben of Paris’s comment. Measuring a country’s role in a war by the number of its countrymen dead strikes me as particularly myopic, like Communism’s obsession with factory output, rather than output sold. Any factory can turn out thousands of bad tractors than nobody really wants. And the Soviet Union’s sacrifice of 27 million of its men (and women) seems less heroic when you consider that it had ’sacrificed’ (mass self genocide, really) 20 million of its own men, women and children during collectivization of the peasants and the purges to rid itself of enemies of the people. As for Moscow not being so bad, you’re right…now. (I should know, I lived in Siberia for 4 years where people really understand just how cruel and capricious Moscow can be.) Oh, next time you’re in Moscow, don’t forget to bring a gas mask to the theater.
j.swift | 27-Mar-03 at 2:14 am | Permalink
The Victim Case:
His roots are american, son of a former ambassador, and his principal residence was in London, England.
He worked from time to time as an investment consultant on behalf of clients.
In November 2001, Victim was contacted by a broker, Ahmed Attar, to purchase a series of bank bonds issued by the’
Credit Agricole’ in Paris, France.
Attar presented himself as the owner of the bonds and wanted to sell them; he left Victim with a list of the bonds and one
original FF.10,000 bond.
Victim decided, above all, to verify the authenticity of the bonds and contacted his bank. His bank was unable to provide
authentication but gave him the contact details of the issuing bank, Credit Agricole in Paris.
Victim faxed the bank while he was in France and again when he returned to England, asking for
verification of the bonds and their serial numbers. (These correspondences to the Credit Agricole were evidenced on one of
the floppy disk seized by the police at the time of his arrest and submitted for judicial expertise).
A week or so later, Victim received a phone call at this home in London from a Mr. Muller from the Credit Agricole in Paris,
inviting him to a meeting at the bank in connection with the verification of the bonds.
Victim left his home for the Paris meeting on December 14th, 2001 unaware that he would never return there.
After waitng some 3-hours at the bank in Paris, he was finally received by Mr. Muller and showed him the FF.10.000 bond
and accompanying documents for verification, which Muller said he would later write to confirm.
On returning to the bank lobby, Victim was confronted by the police and summarily arrested.
He was held in isolation by the police without legal aid, rushed through a ‘kangaroo magistrate court’ and sent to a high
security prison where he was incarcerated in practical isolation for 6-months, not understanding why!
Later, he learnt that the police thought he belonged to an international ring organized to defraud banks.
This postulate was obviously false as demonstrated by his seized floppy disks and full statement given upon arrest - all of
which the police chose to ignore. Victim was simply the ’scapegoat’ of the bank and Mr. Attar. He had received
discriminatory treatment apparently because of his origin and colour of his skin
(being an afro-american).
Attar also manipulated a Mrs.Christine Revillod in Switzerland, whom he also used as an innocent, unsuspecting
intermediary to approach her bank. This lady was never questioned by french judiciary.
Attar manipulated a 3rd intermediary, in Luxembourg, who was also never accused by the ‘Credit Agricole’.
Both intermediaries mentioned above were white caucasians.
Why would Victim wait 3 hours in the Credit Agricole in Paris for his appointment to verify the bonds if he already knew they
were false or belonged to an international network ? This does not make sense!!
To recap, Victim spent 6-months incarcerated in the worse conditions one can imagine, totally isolated without personal
visits.Furthermore, he was unable to fully understand and speak the french language!
Finally, Victim was liberated on bail of $150,000 in June 2002, a sum one finds scandalous for someone accused without
proof nor charged with any crime.
Now after 14-months, Victim is still awaiting clearance of his name and the retun of his bail monies.
The judge handling the case is using ‘delay tactics’ and now giving not very credible reasons for not judging the matter
(”awaiting the translation of documents…which takes time, etc. etc.”)
To add insult to injury, Victim hired a famous lawyer to represent him, recommended by one of the priso
staff,and this lawyer did nothing to show the innocence of his client; after 6-months the defense file was still empty! yet this
lawyer demanded $15,000 in legal fees, abusing the desperate situation, the demoralizing incarceration, and the weakness
and helplessness of his client.
While unable to handle his own affairs during his incarceration under the above conditions, Victim lost his home and
belongings in London.
Now, Victim has a new lawyer, who is unfortunately limited to passing on messages of from the judge of ‘continued delays’
.
This is a case of serious french injustice on the part of the police, the supporting judicial machinery and most importantly the
bank, Credit Agricole, which has seized upon this unfortunate black man as a ’scapegoat’ to hide whatever financial
misconduct that may have been going on at the bank.
The case warrants serious and careful investigation.