Les Muslimerables Get Caught With Their Hands In The Cookie Jar

 

In a damning ruling, the Paris Criminal Tribunal denounced that the French Government, led by President Jacques Chirac, had given approval to the 1995 coup in the tiny African Comoros Islands. The coup was reportedly led by Bob Denard, the best-known French mercenary, now 77 years of age.

It is invariably laughable when Governments are discovered to be behind the very coups which are deemed criminal in the eyes of the law. The so called fortune hunters are half the time working for the Governments, with the instructions that should they be caught, they will deny their involvement.

The court refused a prosecution demand to jail the plotters and instead handed out suspended sentences after hearing them claim that they were acting with the backing of M Chirac’s Government.

Although France has long been accused of secret operations to maintain its influence in Africa, the ruling constituted an unprecedented, public condemnation of these practices. It was particularly embarrassing for M Chirac, who has sought to portray himself as one of the Third World’s greatest advocates in the West.

The French have long been keeping their fingers in the cookie jar in Africa, whilst pretending to the outside world that they are against any aggressive actions, all the while giving us a hard time over our involvement in Iraq. As usual having their own agendas running in the background is what matters to a Government still operating under the veil of the notoriously Machiavellian Court of Louis XIV, and its intrigues and conspiracies.

Always finding something to grumble about, Monsieur Le President is especially sore because he had believed that his opposition to the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 would give France a heroic image in the Muslim community. That illusion has now been officially shattered and the Chirac Administration, already passing through a deepening political crisis, appears to be clueless about how to cope with what I have called been calling a "ticking time bomb" for some time now.

It is now clear that a good portion of France's Muslims not only refuse to assimilate into what the French believe to be "the superior French culture" but firmly believe that Islam offers the highest forms of life. France is channeling a deer caught in headlights, and President Chirac will not be the man to get the wounded animal off the road. Coming to a gun fight yielding a knife is not becoming of a head of state, and being half comatosed whilst making speeches is hardly confidence building for the confused French, who may actually be looking for a leader at this time, and not someone who is afraid of his own shadow.

The ruthless and calculating French Government will always pursue what is in its best interest, irrespective of any considerations of what may be best for the common good. The 2003 veto is but one example of their willingness to cripple the UN and by betraying us, protect their oil for food billions.

The inimitable Ed Morrissey:

Chirac used just that pose to protect Saddam Hussein from an American invasion in the early months of 2003, attempting to shield France from the revelations of the Oil-For-Food scam as well as protect its corporate interests in Iraq. The French made quite a show about their disavowal of violence in the service of regime change, skipping over the sixteen unenforced UN Security Council resolutions that Saddam defiantly ignored. Now we find out that the French have no problems with military intervention for regime change, and only differ in the level of honesty involved.

France and Chirac owe an explanation of this episode. They won't give one, but they owe it nonetheless.

The talented Francis W. Porretto makes the winning connection:

It's worth remembering that France's desire to retain its Southeast Asian colonial possessions was the reason America became involved in Vietnam. We wanted France in NATO; as a price, the French demanded American military and logistical assistance at re-subjugating Vietnam. We complied. This led directly to the disaster at Dien Bien Phu.

To France, colonies equal status among the nations. That's quite a commentary on France.

And Fausta, the darling of the Blogosphere has more.

Comments

[Kenny Pierce]

Americans mores require us to allow persons whose honest convictions require them to abandon one religion because they believe themselves called to pursue another, to convert in peace.

Afghan mores call for such persons to be executed if they do not agree to remain a prisoner in the religion they believe God has called them out of.

Do you perhaps, Ghost, have an opinion on whether one of those mores is objectively, rather than merely ethnocentrically, superior to the other?

[Kenny Pierce]

General Sir Charles Napier on the question of whether British mores were superior to native Indian mores such as suttee:

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

I prefer Sir Charles's approach to multiculturalism, myself.

[Kenny Pierce]

Ghost,

>
the ethnocentric belief that the mores of the colonizer are superior to those of the colonized.
>

The a priori conviction that any belief that the mores of the colonizer are superior to those of the colonized is "ethnocentric" rather than, quite simply, justified, is itself a thoroughly culturocentric assumption of the modern Left. It is, in fact, perfectly conceivable that the mores of the colonizer are superior to those of the colonized. For all the faults of the conquistadores -- and their faults were legion -- a culture that does not engage in the religious practice of cutting the still-beating hearts out of human sacrificial victims with stone knives, is in that respect at least superior to a culture that does engage in such a practice.

[brian]

Funny how Ghost had to go back over a hudred years to explain the "modern Republican Party". Much more recently , the Democrats supported the opression of African Americans through Jim Crow laws, written and passed by Democrat legislatures, and segregation, created and preserved by Democrats, and opposed by Republicans. Abraham Lincoln, the first republican President freed them all, and the Democrats fought it tooth and nail for the next 100 years. So much for his one sided political analysis, as transparent and immaterial as his name.

[brian]

It's always all about the modern republican tyranny with ghost. I say again that the "conquests" are all following the American line aren't they? EU, Phillipines, Panama, ect. The U.S. Navy is the preserver of an important concept in today's global economy, freedom of the seas. Not domination of the seas, but freedom of the seas. Big difference. That's what makes it impossible to call America an empire because we do not remain to enforce what Dr. Tom Barnett calls "maximum rule sets", we install " minimum rule sets". Maximium rule sets are those of tyrannical government where every aspect of civilian life is dictated from the central power. Minimum rule sets are a much more limited list of things to not do, such as a few things that impede on the liberty of others. Fundamental difference of approach that American Empire people can't address because it torpedoes their assertions, to continue the nautical theme.

[Fausta]

Interesting how GD seems so knowledgeable on the quality of the "modern Republican Party continues to provide us with some of the finest minds of the 19th Century" while ignoring some very ugly truths on French African intervention in the late 20th to early 21th Century.

Two instances:
France's role in the Rwandan genocide
French troops in Ivory Coast, where the Ivorians were holding street demonstrations asking for the USA to intervene

France continues to intervene in Madagascar http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2062844.stm and as we have seen, Comoros.
Additionally, France's disastrous policies in Algeria http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3974237.stm, Cameroon, and Senegal continue to have repercussions to this day.

[Ghost Dansing]

I would be surprised if anybody is surprised by all of this.

Colonialism is the extension of a nation's sovereignty over territory beyond its borders by the establishment of either settler colonies or administrative dependencies in which indigenous populations are directly ruled or displaced.

Colonizers generally dominate the resources, labor, and markets of the colonial territory and may also impose socio-cultural, religious and linguistic structures on the conquered population; this has led critics of colonialism to call it cultural imperialism.

Though colonialism is often used interchangeably with imperialism, the latter is broader as it covers control exercised informally (via influence) as well as formally. The term colonialism also refers to a set of beliefs used to legitimize or promote this system, especially the ethnocentric belief that the mores of the colonizer are superior to those of the colonized.

Colonial imperialism has historically meant the actual occupation and rule of a territory or colony by a foreign nation. Political imperialism means the use of either diplomacy or military force to influence the internal affairs of a weaker nation. Economic imperialism means controlling key aspects of a less powerful nation’s economy. Social-cultural imperialism includes the impact one culture has on another, especially if that impact is uninvited.

In the 1880’s and 1890’s many powerful advocates of imperialism appeared. The most literate imperialist was Captain A. T. Mahan of the United States Navy. In his book The Influence of Sea Power Upon History and in many other articles and books, Mahan argued that British power had always depended upon the naval superiority which enabled her not only to act decisively in war, but to build the sinews of economic and military strength by controlling colonies, naval stations, and even world commerce. As the proper inheritor of this British power, Mahan continued, the United States must act quickly to build a large navy and emulate earlier British imperial policies. It was therefore imperative that the United States control the Caribbean and construct a canal through the Central American isthmus. Mahan also expanded the current doctrine of Social Darwinism. The white Anglo-Saxons, he declared, had proved their exceptional power to survive in the evolutionary race and should face up to the challenge of the future, the principal feature of which would be an epic struggle between Eastern and Western civilizations.

A powerful group of young Republicans supported Mahan’s arguments for a great navy and an imperialist foreign policy. Among the most prominent of these were Senators Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, Albert Beveridge of Indiana, and William McKinley of Ohio. Theodore Roosevelt, who became Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897, and John Hay, who became Ambassador to London in 1897 and Secretary of State in 1898, were other prominent Republican imperialists. Their ranks were strengthened by the support of a number of Democrats outside Congress and several influential editors, clergymen, and businessmen. One of the most voluble spokesmen of American imperialism was Josiah Strong, a minister who crusaded for reform in the cities but who also believed firmly in the superiority and “Manifest Destiny” of the American branch of the Anglo-Saxon people. In a widely read book, Our Country, he proclaimed that the “peculiarly aggressive traits” developed by Americans were calculated to spread reform, social justice, and “spiritual Christianity” across the face of the earth.

Amen. The modern Republican Party continues to provide us with some of the finest minds of the 19th Century.

But we want to talk about the French:

From its beginnings in the early 1600s through the great expansion of the late 19th century, the French overseas empire was formed more by the agencies and stimulation of the state, church, and armed forces than by the initiation of the business community.

Merchants, financiers, and manufacturers did engage in and profit from French imperial ventures, but generally they had to be prodded into participation by monarchical or republican officials. In this the French colonial empire differed from its chief rival, the British Empire.

In 1763, at the end of the Seven Years' War, the French lost Canada and India to the British, and in 1803, Napoleon I sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States. By 1815 only the West Indian sugar islands and some scattered African and Asian posts remained French.

Foundations of a second French colonial empire were laid between 1830 and 1870, when Louis Philippe's forces penetrated Algeria and Napoleon III's seized Cochin China in Southeast Asia. Along with other European powers, France rode the post-1870 wave of new imperialism. By 1914, France had amassed an empire incorporating over 10,000,000 km2 (4,000,000 mi2) and 60 million people. In Southeast Asia the French pieced together the colony of Indochina by 1893, adding Laos, Cambodia (now Kampuchea), Annam, and Tonkin to Cochin China. Tunisia and Morocco became protectorates. France's vast African empire also included French Equatorial Africa, French West Africa, French Somaliland (now Djibouti), and the islands of Madagascar and the Comoros.

Political motives for this overseas penetration varied from the search for markets, raw materials, investments, and cheap labor to the drive for glory, prestige, strategic advantage, and manpower. Prominent, too, was the mission civilisatrice, the urge to implant Roman Catholicism and French culture.

Governance of the empire followed two patterns, sometimes intertwined: assimilation and association. Where there prevailed long traditions of organized political life and a common culture, the French tended to rule indirectly through existing local authorities, as in Tunisia and Morocco. In less structured societies like those of West Africa, the French imposed direct rule and attempted to assimilate the populace. More than the British, the French intermixed with the indigenous population. The British, on the other hand, were more wont to prepare some colonies for autonomy or independence.

French colonial imperialism survived World War I, but World War II led to its reorganization as the French Union, and finally to its dissolution — primarily as the result of the wars in Indochina and Algeria.

Today, the remnants of France's control in lands beyond her border consist primarily of islands in the Atlantic and Pacific, as well as the former penal colony at Guiana (now used for France's space program). Collectively, these outer fringes of French civilization and government are referred to as "DOM-TOM" — for domaines d'outre-mer and territoires d'outre-mer.

[RunningRoach]

Alexandra,

It’s a comfort to know they have such an independent and unbiased judiciary in France. I’ll chip in for rocks too. Oh, Alexandra, I believe a great big "Middle Finger Salute" is appropriate for Jacques...Everybody on 3.

Regards,
JCC

[Fausta]

The Allende Myth http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:Jb0_Y7zdrZIJ:val.dorta.com/archives/000343.html+the+allende+myth&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

http://www.interlog.com/%7Egirbe/chile.html

http://fare.livejournal.com/6675.html

[Fausta]

Love the photo! and thank you for your kind words.

Throw all the stones you can at Chirac. Here's a few to start with:
schoolbuilding payola while mayor of Paris
lunch money while mayor of Paris
Oil-For-Food
EADS/Clearstream
his own "secret service"
kickbacks for military contractors.
And that's just a start.

The reason Jacques is not actually in the gallows is because he can't be prosecuted while being President de la Republique. Unfortunately French politics is such it'll take more than one Javert to throw him in the pokey.

[brian]

Oh yes. We must not allow anyone to forget who the real enemy is right? I will throw stones at the insufferably arrogant french and their apologists all day long, without a bit of regret. The United States has freed over a billion people around the world, including the ingrates in Paris. But let's not talk about that. It might intrude on someone's holier than thou attitude. I suppose America should have kept our imperialism to ourselves in the last century.
All those American vassal states in western europe are towing the line set out by the Bushitlerburton Co. aren't they? We rule our conquests with an iron fist, and they dare not defy the might of King George!

[probligo]

Yeah!!! Reminds me of another instance in 1973. I don't know if you remember but I certainly do.

A little country called Chile. They elected a left-wing government in 1970, the President was Salvador Allende.

For some reason, one particular country got their knickers knotted about a socialist regime in South America and sent in under-cover operatives to work with dissenting army elements and to organise a coup d'etat.

It was successful, and the government was thrown out to be replaced by a military junta led by one General Augusto Pinochet.

Remember him?

Be careful when throwing stones...

[brian]

Will the vaunted "International Community" come down on France like a ton of bricks for this and other imperialist aggressions in Africa? Somehow, I think not. The U.N. is complicit in this lock, stock and barrel. American power must be constrained, that is the sole purpose of the international bodies and NGO's today.

Capitalism is the enemy, so semi-socialist France will get a pass, because the "good works" of backstabbing the USA in 2003 absolves all the hypocrasy and greediness France has shown since before WWII. They think they own Africa, and they think the Middle East is theirs to influence. It's all a zero-sum game to them. What's good for America must be a loss for France on the world stage.

I'm sick of their preening two faced attitude towards American world influence. France is no longer a first rate world power, and they should face up to it. If they won't help in this war, they should at least get out of the way.

Who's the rampaging third world imperialist now? I don't think that coup was to liberate anyone, was it? Oh well, this won't change anything. Somebody will make this George Bush's fault. I await the next comments.