Boycott France

I see campaigns like the one linked above with sorrow. I am of the opinion that Saddam Hussein must be replaced soon and better today than tomorrow, with a war if necessary (it seems necessary to me and I see that as a German we would have a special responsibility to fight dictatorship, that my country right now does not recognize - because of the other responsibility to be pacifistic after Germany unlashed the worst war so far).
BUT a country must be allowed to disagree if they have a different opinion. The US will have slaves, not friends if all the world just would say "OK, do it, you are right."
BTW. the page linked says

The reality is that France has been in bed with the genocidal Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for decades. As the New York Post reports:
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that is right - and so was the US, Russia Germany and a lot of countries of the western hemisphere - because Hussein fought Ayatollah Khomeni - still remember him being the bad boy not so long ago?
Again. I personally agree with the course of the US - but the way some allies (even Britain - Blair is politically dead because of Rumsfeld`s words from Tuesday) are treated is not OK. Do you always see everything the same way your friends do? - are they enemies just because their opinions on some topics are different from yours?
Some things are childish - so would be a boycott of France - or Germany - or of all the other nations in the UN that reject war as the next thing to do (yes I know, because of climatic reasons there is not much time left to fight this war). The Bush administration has not a very good reputation in Europe as it seems that the "see America first" is now a "see America only" (rejection of the Kyoto protocol that would help the environmental health of the whole world, rejection of the international court in the Netherlands - as a country that in 1946 fought for international justice in the Nuremburg tribunal etc.) Don't you think people could see this as an arrogant behaviour? Make (and keep) friends, do not try to produce slaves.

Sorry long post, but this is my opinion as a pro-American German.

Andreas
 
I was pissed at France one day and decided I wasn't buying anything French anymore. But I searched the house from one end to the other and never did find ONE thing that said Made in France. Kind of hard to boycott somebody when you don't buy any of their stuff anyway! (Well, I do have one French rifle [MAS 49/56] but it is fifty years old!)

Andreas, I understand what you are saying and I agree that there should always be room for honest disagreement. But notice how much less complaining there is in the US about Germany, Russia or China? (And China is the closest thing we have to a real threat in the larger geopolitical sense.) People seem willing to believe that those countries really do have a disagreement with our policies. But France seems to be more interested in "containing America" than anything else. If she can use the UN to do it, then she will. France saw the creation of the EU as a "counterweight" to the Americans. She dreamed of dominating the EU and therefore being an equal with the US. But it has infuriated her to no end that some of the former Soviet countries in Eastern Europe have sided with the US. (Not to mention the UK and Spain.)

I don't have a problem with the UN in general or the French in general. But it seems like both groups have reacted to the fact that the US is now the world's only superpower with suspicion and determined opposition. No matter what the US wants to do internationally, countries in the UN are going to stand up and try to stop us. It feels like we are Gulliver and they are the Liliputians. But they not only want to tie us down to the sand where they can keep on eye on us, they want us to agree with them and pay for the ropes and stakes!

International policy should always be driven by national self interest. If the US decides it is in our self interest to use our military somewhere, that is our decision. And the US Constitution doesn't say one word about seeking UN approval first!
 
Tulsamal,
I see the problem - and see it is a thing of both sides. The French have alway done their own thing - and see themselves as the "grand nation". Together with Britain and Germany they are a leading power in the EU and if you look at the economic, the military or the interior European politics I think they do it well. I disagree with some of their foreign policy steps, but this is my personal opinion. They have the right to do so as has the US. Politics is a game of gaining power - and it is often a dirty game, the US is no exception, it is the same game all over the world. But as the French have the right to try to contain the US, the US have the right to be upset.
I just did not like the link posted because it works with selected pieces of history that form a pattern which does not show the truth - and is probably producing hatred which is not good at all. I just do not like that kind of polemic actions.
However I see that the US being the last superpower has taken responsibility to act global. These actions will benefit the economy or the military power of the US - but they also help to solve problems of other nations (do not know which interests the US would have had in Albania... there is no oil - they intervened nevertheless). Great thing.

International policy should always be driven by national self interest. If the US decides it is in our self interest to use our military somewhere, that is our decision. And the US Constitution doesn't say one word about seeking UN approval first!
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This is of course realistic macchiavellism - I am an idealist (still) and disagree. The US have the power to do anything. There is not a nation that could stop them. But the US Constitution is not the world order and the lines I quoted would also cover unjustified actions. I do not want to compare the US to Hitler but you could even justify Hitler's wars with these words - if it was in German self interest to attack the rest of Europe and they had the power - there was not a word in the former German Constitution that would prohibit waging war for example against Poland. I think this must not be the basis of politic/military actions. BUT the US has played the role of a "globocop" and I think it made world a better place by doing this - it was done by means of power - right, but behind were and are high morals and idealism. (However I really did not like Gerorge W. Bush say that God is on the side of the US - reminded me of Prussian/pre 1945 military belt buckles "Gott mit uns" - the god of the bible is no kind of national deity - this was a thing I really call arrogance. Not even George W. Bush knows the will of god.)
- And do not forget the UN werde founded because US-President Wilson wanted to have such a thing. The Nuremberg tribunal was held because the US wanted it that way - it fitted their interests. Now that it does not fit their interests they neither respect the UN nor international courts...
A lot to think about - still think the US is right in bringing down Saddam - but the diplomacy is not very elegant (not to say clumsy) in this very sensitive area and it may destroy a lot of good bonds. The western world should stay together and communicate in civilized ways.
Andreas (king of long posts...sorry)
 
And while we are at it, we should make them take back that Statue of Liberty.

It's never done anything but attract boatloads of foreigners anyway.
 
And while we are at it, we should make them take back that Statue of Liberty.
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Do not do that, you could use the metal to cast cannons... Uuups :D forgot it was French steel (under boycott?)
 
Andreas,

The other thing that neither of us has mentioned is that the current "world alignment" is this way because of the way WWII ended. We ended up structuring the world in a bipolar way through the Cold War. The UN itself reflects this. That's why France is on the Security Council in the first place. The US and UK were trying to up the numbers of Western countries to outweigh the Soviet Union. The Cold War has been over for more than ten years but the world hasn't changed much structurally. It is quite possible that the institutions that we currently have in place aren't appropriate to the new reality. Now maybe that means we need to restructure the UN somehow or maybe it even means it takes on a smaller role and works mainly in peacekeeping and crisis relief ways. Or maybe it means the UN goes away entirely. Or the US withdraws and the UN moves to Norway. And what will NATO end up looking like? Should the US withdraw all ground forces from Germany? (Probably.) I really don't know. But I think The New World Order that Bush 41 was always talking about is trying to come to life.

But the US Constitution is not the world order and the lines I quoted would also cover unjustified actions.
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I don't want to see the US become an Imperial state either. I don't think it is agreement with our national character and ideals. We never sought an empire. We acquired one after the Spanish American War and we got rid of all the pieces as fast as we could. We have always colonized with our ideas rather than our soldiers.

(Leno had a funny quote on this the other night. Something like: "Now everyone is calling us the bully of the world. Are we really a bully? Everyone calls us names, teases us, insults us, and then we have to give them our lunch money. Does that sound like a bully to you?")

But that said, I still don't think the US should worry about getting UN approval every time she wants to use her troops. The Iraq case is kind of special since the UN has been so involved from the beginning and does have 17 resolutions on file that Saddam has refused to comply with. But if the North Koreans shot down one of our spy planes in international waters or the Chinese started to encroach on Taiwan, I don't want the President wasting a bunch of time trying to get the UN Security Council to go along with us. I think running a national defense policy based on a committee is a ludicrous idea. Especially if the committee is composed of a whole bunch of people who don't live in the country which is actually threatened or who owns the actual military which will take the action.

Why should the US military ask the French for their permission to put their US lives on the line? If we were trying to commit French forces it would be different. But those are US soldiers with weapons bought and paid for by US taxpayers. We didn't build those aircraft carriers to execute the wishes of the French President. If he wants Nimitz class nuclear carriers he should go build his own! We don't need (or want) French forces.

I was in the US Army. I would have gone into combat on the orders of the US President. I would have been very unhappy if I thought those orders were being cleared with the French President before they were issued.
 
Ben Arown-Awile said:

And while we are at it, we should make them take back that Statue of Liberty. It's never done anything but attract boatloads of foreigners anyway.
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Normally I keep my mouth shut about policital stuff, but I must say that your comment is unworthy of this Forum. "Those foreigners" include such people as Yangdu Martino and my parents, and probably your own anscestors no more than a few generations past. :mad:

As an American myself, born and raised here, I say that the attitude expressed above is un-American.
 
tulsamal,
you are surely right if you consider the war on Iraq a defensive war. A military response must be flexible and fast, no question. I see the upcoming third Gulf-War as a kind of mixture between a defensive and a preemtive strike, because Saddam is right now and was during the past years not able to start a war. He has been watched closely enough - and right now he has the UN inspectors in his country (no, they cannot find everything, but for Saddam Hussein they make starting a war almost impossible) - so this is not a defensive situation if the US attacks, maybe it is not even a preemptive strike. It is a defensive strike when you can proof that Hussein was involved in attacking the US 9.11.2001 - the proof is not there yet and considering Hussein a laizist and Bin Laden a religious fundamentalist it seems unlikely. Saddam is a cruel dictator - OK, you will have a lot to do during the next few hundred years if you want to extermine dictatorship (maybe even dictatorship is the appropriate form of reign for soms societies and a democratisation would westernize and change the society - but you can not educate the whole world...). The only basis is that Iraq failed to meet UN-resolutions during the past 12 years - UN-resolutions - UN-punishment one should think. But it is US-punishment (and as I see it preemtive action, because the surveillance of Saddam can not go on for the rest of his lifetime - and maybe sometimes he will be back in Kuwait or other states.)
What is my nightmare is that a war without UN-resolution will be seen as American imperialism and trigger islamic revolutions in countries that help the US right now - Saudi Arabia would be the smaller problem then - Pakistan has the atomic bomb and if an islamic revolution happens there it will be so dangerous that the US will truly will have to make a preemptive (maybe nuclear) strike. I hate this thought.:(
 
BTW in the news I just saw some madmen ruining French cars with big hammers and spilling expensive French wine. That is purely idiotic and the sort of reaction I meant when I said I was in sorrow because of the hatred that may be caused by a boycott. Some people are seaching for an "enemy" they can get hold of. Things like that can get out of control and some dumb guy may use his hammer not on a Peugeot or Renault but on a French man or woman - and may even think that he does his country a favor. The fury of a few dumbs can spark the fury of more dumbs (there are some, even in America) and things get pretty dangerous close to a witch-hunt... (wondering if this is the right word? - if not excuse my English)

Andreas
 
Andreas,

You are wanding off topic! We started out talking about France, the UN, and whether the US should be limited in military actions by the UN and other bodies. Whether we should or should not intervene in Iraq right now is another issue entirely. I will answer your last point:

Pakistan has the atomic bomb and if an islamic revolution happens there it will be so dangerous...
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My view is that not acting on Iraq is worse for Pakistan. If we hadn't gone into Afghanistan, for instance, that government and the terrorists would have continued to cross the border into Pakistan. They would have continued to openly preach anti-American and anti-Western speeches. They would have grown larger and more powerful not less. The situation there isn't finished but it is better than before we arrived.

In Iraq we are going to throw out a murderous dictator and then help the Iraqi people to rebuild. They will be able to pay for a lot of the materials since we will be able to lift sanctions and they will be able to sell oil. The US will keep troops there for a long time to make sure the bad guys don't come back and to make sure that border countries like Syria don't decide to invade. Saudi, Syria, Jordan, and Iran don't want true democracies and free markets on their borders. But, if we do it right, I think the rebuilding of Iraq into a tolerant, pro-Western, free market state will turn out to be the rock thrown into a stagnant pool. The ripples will be felt in all those autocratic countries and eventually those ideas will win out. They always have once the people on the other side of the wall get to actually hear them and compare them with what they actually have.

Try to think of the possible great things that could come out of the war rather than only the negative ones. We ended up with a more stable world after WWII than before it. And that's because the West insisted that Japan and Germany change their very society and cultural ideas. It worked. We can do it again.
 
You are wanding off topic! We started out talking about France, the UN, and whether the US should be limited in military actions by the UN and other bodies. Whether we should or should not intervene in Iraq right now is another issue entirely.
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... right I`m off topic, just wanted to show that there are some consequences of a possible war that would justify objecting this war... Noone will be able to limit the US in military actions - that means that the responsibilty for using the enormous military power is very high - no limits than the ones the US sets itself. It worked very well so far.

Try to think of the possible great things that could come out of the war rather than only the negative ones. We ended up with a more stable world after WWII than before it. And that's because the West insisted that Japan and Germany change their very society and cultural ideas. It worked. We can do it again.
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I hope very much that you are right, the European Recovery Programme and the CARE-parcels showed not only the Germans that the US was a friend of the people but an enemy for the nazi-government. I am sceptical if it would work in Iraq. In the Arab thinking the US is linked too close to Israel - and you will not suceed in turning an arab population to be Israel friendly. Many lives in Bagdad will be lost (imagine two days with 400 cruise missiles and tons of bombs each - if there is no safe place for Saddam Hussein in Bagdad, there is no safe place for anyone else and I am sceptical with those "nintendo-war" laser guided bombs to work as clean as a surgeon) - OK, Germans had large losses too, remember Dresden and learnt to be friends of the allies nevertheless. Americans and Germans after the war at least had some cultural aspects in common (call it occidental culture), the looked the same, lots of German "Fräuleins" married G.I.s (I have an aunt in Michigan that came to the US that way), the Germans and the US had a common enemy after the war (Soviet Union) - all these are things I do not see in the Arab world, history does not repeat, there will have to be found some new ways if you want to reach the very idealistic vision of a stable arabian democratic model under US influence. I hope and pray that I am too pessimistic.

Andreas
(this thread is a good one I think, I learn a lot and like to discuss with you, maybe I will log in later this evening again but must go offline now - sorry tulsamal)
 
Originally posted by ruel

Normally I keep my mouth shut about policital stuff, but I must say that your comment is unworthy of this Forum. "Those foreigners" include such people as Yangdu Martino and my parents, and probably your own anscestors no more than a few generations past. :mad:

As an American myself, born and raised here, I say that the attitude expressed above is un-American.
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Ruel - I think B A-A's comment was meant to be sarcastic, directed towards the silly idea of a 'boycott France' movement. That was my take anyway.

--B.
 
Many lives in Bagdad will be lost (imagine two days with 400 cruise missiles and tons of bombs each - if there is no safe place for Saddam Hussein in Bagdad, there is no safe place for anyone else
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Good post but I have to address this. I think the media has strayed a long way when it comes to the way the war will be fought in Iraq. The UN actually came out and said that 100,000 civilians could be killed. This is crazy! The US isn't going to just cluster bomb the cities or something! I wouldn't want to stand right next to a missle launcher but our strikes are going to be very precise. I think the basic idea is going to be like the "island hopping" strategy we used against the Japanse in WWII. We will go in and take positions in the desert. We will be around the major cities but outside of the range of any of their weapons. We will cut all the cities off from each other. The basic idea is that Saddam has trained his army to follow his orders and no others. What will happen when they can't get through to their commanders? I expect most of the regular Iraqi army to surrender with light casualties in the first few days. We aren't going to massively attack them either unless they are moving to attack. We will hit a few precise targets to let them know we can. Maybe a Daisy Cutter or a MOAB to scare them to death. White flags will come out.

That leaves the Republican Guard. How many will fight once they realize there is no hope of winning? Once they realize their boss is gone? I'm really hoping one of them pulls out a Browning Hi Power and puts a 9mm in Saddam's head.

Saddam and his high generals will go deeply underground. We know where the entrances are to his bunkers. We will capture just that small area. I would like to see us divert the river or break some water mains right into his air intakes. How long do you think those guys will stay underground once it starts to fill up with water, all their communications are dead, and the air is going? Maybe they will sadly all drown before they can get out. That would be too bad.

And let's not discount one thing. If Saddam ever truly becomes 100% convinced that the US is coming in and he is done, he just might get on a helicopter and leave. You can't play the game with that as your goal because word will leak and he will decide you don't actually plan to go to war. He will only do it if the alternative is death or imprisonment. Why would he have all those billions of dollars in foreign banks if he isn't preparing a rat hole?

"If you want peace, prepare for war."
 
I usually (but not always) keep my mouth shut too on these political topics, but here I must object. How is France disagreeing with the USA about Iraq cowardly? So the countries like Italy or Spain which have officially stated their agreement with the USA (for oil concessions?) but will not be sending any troops, they are brave?? France & Germany, whether you agree with them or not, are not cowardly for objecting to the USA's stance on Iraq -- rather it takes a certain amount of courage to stand up to a superpower...

And boycotts would not be a good idea, even for purely self-interested reasons: the USA boycotts France, France boycotts US products and then some nations join France's boycott in sympathy, and then some others for the USA, etc., etc.
 
Rather than gripe about who's standing in our way, I prefer to thank those who are standing beside us. God bless the Brits and the Aussies, they've disagreed with us at times, but never bailed out on us yet. :)

I'm no rocket scientist, but I suspect French reluctance to us dealing with Saddam might have to do with the amount of French "dirty laundry" we'll find in Iraq. Kind of hard to take a moral stand against someone you've been doing immoral business with. When I say French this, and French that, I mean French government/big business. That's a group of people I'm leery of even in our own country. The average Frenchman, like the average American, is probably someone I'd have no problem sitting and drinking a beer with.;)

Sarge
 
How is France disagreeing with the USA about Iraq cowardly?
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I certainly never used that term! My problem with France in this instance is that she is being dishonest about her motives. Russia I can understand. She has interests in Iraq that she would like to hold onto to. But France has gone out of their way to claim the "high moral ground." They keep acting like they are just trying to do "what is right" when it appears to me they are just trying to do what is good for France. (Which would be fine if they would be honest about it.) And the current President of France seems to think whatever is bad for the US is good for France. It is that "being in opposition just to oppose the evil superpower" that I find distasteful. If they want to stand up and say we don't want war because we have oil agreements with Saddam or because we are afraid the Americans might win too easily, I could live with that. But trying to play the saintly Frenchman who is only interested in world peace gives me a stomach ache.

I heard the French guy on the radio today saying that France would veto ANY resolution put forward in the Security Council that didn't have "peace as a primary objective." That's just wrong thinking. "Peace at any cost" is a terrible idea. Nobody likes to see our young people go off to war but everybody should recognize that sometimes a war is better than a bad peace. Saddam has ignored 17 resolutions from the Security Council. If the Council refuses to hold him to account, the US will do so. (Because it is in our long term interests.) But I hope the UN isn't surprised when the US isn't too cordial to them in the future. They really aren't taking a chance of making themselves irrelevant.
 
This is all getting pretty silly.

Various national leaders have climbed into the sandbox and are digging for cat sh*t to throw at each other. Sad thing is, they claim to speak for all their citizens.

Boycot France!.

France threatens Eastern Euopean countries that agreeing with US endangers thier joining EU.

US tells Mexico that failure to side with US could mean "unofficial" boycots of Mexican products.

US suggests to South American countries that aid is tied to UN votes. Buying votes?

Suggestions are made to "punish" Germany by moving US forces to Eastern European countries.

Turkey barters with US over payment for use of bases/airspace. Insurance for economic disruption casued by war or extortion?

How much of this is political posturing, who can tell? But it sure doesn't appear that we have diplomats working, if indeed we ever did.

Some of it reminds me the father who gets chewed out at work, comes home and beats the son, who then kicks the dog.

Hope somebody besides those we hear about is doing some thinking instead of bickering.
 
Well, I don't drink wine, so that's not a problem.
The only french made object I think I own is an Opinel knife.
If it breaks, I will replace it with something else.


--Mike L.
 
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