re: nambucca/us and australia will eventually lose
NON IS A DIRTY WORD
Max Teichmann
(Max Teichmann was senior lecturer in politics at Monash University for 25 years).
12-03-2003
Last week, the French Ambassador to Australia wrote a piece in the Herald Sun explaining. "Why we say non to war".
I think it is true to say that no matter what the inspectors found or said, what Saddam Hussein said or did, or the Americans and British proposed,France would say non. It has other fish to fry. France, Russia, Germany and China appear to have a de facto alliance with Saddam, one that has been running for quite some time.
They seem prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to keep him in place, including paralysing the UN, straining NATO to breaking point and putting the European community into disarray. France, Germany and Russia have had a very lucrative relationship with the tyrant and hope to have a far more profitable one in the future.
If the Anglo-Americans give up, and are then virtually forced out of the area, Saddam would be left with his boot on the necks of the Iraqis, the Kurds and the Shii'a and his bayonet at the throats of his neighbours.
All with the blessing of our demonstrators, and the Alliance of the Unwilling.
France has had a lot of practice saying "non", and "give peace a chance" - as we remember during the rise and expansion of Hitler. Only when Adolf gave peace no chance by invading Poland did France join the party, but six weeks of uncomfortably close contact with the Wehrmacht duly produced the call "give surrender a chance".
Britain and her dominions were left to face the dictator alone, as are the Anglo-Americans and a few friends now.
History is repeating itself - even to the UN being split, and denied the use of the force needed to deal with international delinquents; as was the League of Nations. Are we to learn nothing from our expeiriences?
But the French ambassador raised one genuine concern "The unpredictable consequences" for the region if Saddam were attacked and removed. But the Middle East has been unstable ever since the Ottomam Empire collapsed in 1918, the only stability being imposed by Britian, then America.The principal current destabiliser is Iraq.
Were US and British influence to disappear would peace break out? And the removal of these two states is Saddam's principal aim.
It may be that France has the fantasy of becoming the new power broker by becoming the friend of militant Islam. Like being Adolf's little helper. Riding a tiger.
France has special problems, which few talk about, and which are quietly convulsing French politics. It has five million Algerians who haven't assimilated. No one offered, so no one accepted. Migrants, many seething with discontent, many locked away in huge ghettos in French cities. Perhaps understandably they aren't great friends of the west. Enclaves are full of arms and angry young men who don't work: such as Palestinians.
Many places run themselves, or are run by criminals. Given the muddle and compromise at the top, the security problem is grave, and France would not dare help take on Saddam. She has lost her freedom of action, as have some other Europeans, so Chirac is covering with typical bluster and fine phrases. About peace for example.
Remembering France's seven-year butchery, torture and incarceration policy in Algeria, activities in Indo-China, attacks on Egypt, propping up African dictators her preference for Hutus against Tutsis, her tacit support for Muslim army mutineers in the Ivory Coast show peace is not in France's heart.
And with Russia crushing the Chechens, China it's Muslim subjects in Western China, Tibetans, plus periodic threats to fix Taiwan - if necessary by war - is this really the "Give Peace a Chance" coalition in the United Nations?
