I can honestly state I have no idea who irritates me more,the French or Jimmy Carter.The duplicitous nature of the French is once again on full display as efforts are being made to provide troops in southern Lebanon.The French, who are credited with getting Arab nations on board to a cease fire and negotiated vigorously with the United States are now renegging on their commitments that formed the crux of the agreement.
The French informed us that they were prepared to provide up to 3,000 troops to safeguard the Lebanon-Israeli border and have now committed to no more than 400 troops,all of them engineers.In the negotiations, the French insisted they would take the lead in the region,as long as they determined the rules of engagement.The French now justify minimal participation on the grounds that the rules of engagement are not tough enough.The fact that they created those rules has been willfully overlooked.
Jimmy Carter, in an interview with Der Spiegel, a German magazine, condemned Israel's bombing attack as disproportionate.He suggested that the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers was nothing more than a predetermined pretext to invade.He also invoked Hezbollah's talking points when he referred to ten thousand Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails.He neglected to mention the eight soldiers Hezbollah killed in the kidnapping of the two soldiers.He overlooked the fact that the ten thousand are "prisoners" having committed crimes.He has no problem with equating the murder of soldiers with the release of hardened criminals.He overlooked the fact that Hezbollah used civilians as shields,which is defined as a war crime.
The French clearly engaged in these negotiations in bad faith.Jimmy Carter,failing to find even partisan domestic support for his views now relies on an image in Europe as a statesmanlike figure to express himself.The French merely undermine at every turn and Jimmy Carter voices ill informed objections that give justification to their behavior. The greater tragedy is that such duplicity shall prove a greater harm to us all. The French, whose President Jacques Chirac embraced Yasser Arafat clearly view Israel and the United States on an equal footing with terrorists like Hasnan Nasrallah.
Hezbollah, guided by Iran through Syria seek the destruction not only of Israel,but all Jews worldwide and the United States as well.France, surely knows of this objective.Why, then behave so dishonestly? There are two possibilities.First, they see Hezbollah as a counterweight to United States interests in the region and are unwilling to believe the more extreme comments of their new diplomatic allies.Secondly, they are complicit in the greater objective.The latter would be consistent with Jacques Chirac's politics' as he embraced a hateful figure like Yasser Arafat,who for all his words to the contrary acted out his desire for destruction to the very end.
The greater danger of France's behavior and Jimmy Carter's "convictions" is that it demonstrates that terror can find willing allies in the west of seeming importance.The result, as is increasingly clear is a war of far greater calamity.When looking at such commentary and such actions one in tempted to invoke the memory of Neville Chamberlain.As we all know he piously declared "Peace in our time" as he returned from Munich after settling the Czech issue with Adolph Hitler.Truthfully, a word must be said in Mr. Chamberlain's defense.His acclaiming peace was noble and worthy of the effort, but more importantly, Neville Chamberlain, upon the Nazi invasion of Poland did not repeat his error in seeking peace at all costs.Here's hoping that Jacques Chirac and Jimmy Carter learn this lesson before we all pay a terrible price.
1 comment:
Hey, it is Lem(james). Excellent post. You definetely have a good understanding of the man that nearly single handedly destroyed the stature of the United States while he was in office and sees the French as demi-gods, to an extent. I expected nothing less from the French than what they have done....we have to remember that they are quickly becoming a muslim country and the flavor of islam in France leans to the extreme.
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