The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Desperate times in France
It is not an easy thing to be French right now. Not only have tensions arisen between France and the combination of the US, Britain and new Eastern European democracies regarding the war and power struggles within the EU, a number of other recent developments threaten to throw the delicate balance of reason even further afield from the obstructionist French.
For example, it is becoming more and more certain that France must assume the lions share of blame for the millions of innocents who perished in the now-famous 1994 Rawanda genocide. Not that I see much possibility of the French admitting their monstrous complicity; if ever there was a government that had absolutely no shame whatever, it is the corrupt Chirac government. Not only has the French government not stepped up to admit their starring role in this human catastrophe, but we now find out that (after berating the United States up and down for not surrendering its precious and hard-won soverignity, and instead giving the International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague juristiction over American servicemen and women...), meanwhile the French leadership were incredibly exempting themselves!
And it doesn't end there: the French have wasted no time in undercutting the US position regarding the easing of the European arms embargo against China. One supposes that since Chirac now can no longer sell illegal weapons systems to his buddy Saddam, the next best thing for the French arms brokers who back him is to break a decades long embargo against the one true power that is biggest threat to world stability on the entire planet. This is simultaneously a vindictive, destabilizing, and potentially catastrophic move in the long term. But for Chirac it seems that the only criteria that matters is whether it would either humiliate or at least make things much more difficult for America, even if by doing so he moves West closer to global war. And to think of the young men who were slaughtered on the beaches of Normandy so that small men like Chirac would not have to be a part of Greater Germany; it is enough to give pause to even the most tolerant American Francophile. Indeed there are some who now argue that France has always been our enemy, almost from the very beginning.
There are problems on the domestic front as well, because the immigration dam has broken: tens of thousands of Muslims are flowing into the Republic every month, and they have begun to make their presence felt in a decidedly threatening and increasingly violent way for the locals. Some are even suggesting that France is becoming the next Lebanon. If Paris is in danger of becoming another Beirut, perhaps enough sane French patriots (if any are left) will begin to see the danger they are in, and will step up at the ballot box to stop this madness before it is too late.
Tossing Chirac out of office would certainly be an excellent start, particularly when there are new voices rising in French politics like Sabine Herold, potentially charismatic candidates who speak of optimism, freedom, free markets, individualism, and who also happen to favor a more positive and collaborative relationship with the US. But time is growing short, and there are more dark clouds on the horizon: France is projected to be a predominantly Muslim country by 2020. If the West has not successfully concluded the War on Terror by then, things could grow much worse in US-French relations, with the effect of driving them directly into the arms of our enemies. We are already seeing signs of that.
Right now, the situation is on the razor's edge. Although the French economy is completely in the tank, with no easy solutions in sight, conditions which you would think would favor new blood in the French leadership, it is also true that so long as spiteful prima donna obstructionists like Chirac continue to hold grand delusions of somehow reincarnating the days of Napoleon or Louis XIV, then Liberté, égalité, fraternité will one day soon become mere relics of a once great and egalitarian Republic.
For example, it is becoming more and more certain that France must assume the lions share of blame for the millions of innocents who perished in the now-famous 1994 Rawanda genocide. Not that I see much possibility of the French admitting their monstrous complicity; if ever there was a government that had absolutely no shame whatever, it is the corrupt Chirac government. Not only has the French government not stepped up to admit their starring role in this human catastrophe, but we now find out that (after berating the United States up and down for not surrendering its precious and hard-won soverignity, and instead giving the International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague juristiction over American servicemen and women...), meanwhile the French leadership were incredibly exempting themselves!
And it doesn't end there: the French have wasted no time in undercutting the US position regarding the easing of the European arms embargo against China. One supposes that since Chirac now can no longer sell illegal weapons systems to his buddy Saddam, the next best thing for the French arms brokers who back him is to break a decades long embargo against the one true power that is biggest threat to world stability on the entire planet. This is simultaneously a vindictive, destabilizing, and potentially catastrophic move in the long term. But for Chirac it seems that the only criteria that matters is whether it would either humiliate or at least make things much more difficult for America, even if by doing so he moves West closer to global war. And to think of the young men who were slaughtered on the beaches of Normandy so that small men like Chirac would not have to be a part of Greater Germany; it is enough to give pause to even the most tolerant American Francophile. Indeed there are some who now argue that France has always been our enemy, almost from the very beginning.
There are problems on the domestic front as well, because the immigration dam has broken: tens of thousands of Muslims are flowing into the Republic every month, and they have begun to make their presence felt in a decidedly threatening and increasingly violent way for the locals. Some are even suggesting that France is becoming the next Lebanon. If Paris is in danger of becoming another Beirut, perhaps enough sane French patriots (if any are left) will begin to see the danger they are in, and will step up at the ballot box to stop this madness before it is too late.
Tossing Chirac out of office would certainly be an excellent start, particularly when there are new voices rising in French politics like Sabine Herold, potentially charismatic candidates who speak of optimism, freedom, free markets, individualism, and who also happen to favor a more positive and collaborative relationship with the US. But time is growing short, and there are more dark clouds on the horizon: France is projected to be a predominantly Muslim country by 2020. If the West has not successfully concluded the War on Terror by then, things could grow much worse in US-French relations, with the effect of driving them directly into the arms of our enemies. We are already seeing signs of that.
Right now, the situation is on the razor's edge. Although the French economy is completely in the tank, with no easy solutions in sight, conditions which you would think would favor new blood in the French leadership, it is also true that so long as spiteful prima donna obstructionists like Chirac continue to hold grand delusions of somehow reincarnating the days of Napoleon or Louis XIV, then Liberté, égalité, fraternité will one day soon become mere relics of a once great and egalitarian Republic.
