Although there was a debate a little while ago in the UK about the desirability (or otherwise) of state-funded political parties it did not generate a great deal of interest and quickly subsided.
However, and by default, the argument is now over because we find that we have a state-funded political party that evolved all by itself. This new party is called the BBC and it is currently engaged in a locked-horns, blood-spattered confrontation with the government over the Iraq war:
THE BBC last night defiantly reasserted its independence and impartiality last night as it insisted that it was right to broadcast claims that Downing Street had “sexed up” a dossier on Iraq’s weapons.
The corporation’s governors issued the strongly worded statement as No 10 urged the BBC not to prolong its extraordinary row with the Government by standing by “demonstrably untrue” allegations.
[From UK Times so no link.]
This is nothing but nothing but good. I am relishing every single second of this catfight; revelling in every bit of mutual recrimination and celebrating every reciprocal allegation of skulduggery and deceit. It is all so glorious.
The government will probably win out in the short term and force the BBC into a humiliating climbdown but that is just the start of the fun. If Blair and his chums knew anything about the true use of political power they would then proceed to shut down the BBC and sell off the broadcasting rights to someone like Rupert Murdoch (or, better still, Silvio Berlusconi). But, because they are the Labour Party, they won’t do that. Instead, they will leave it at that and the BBC, like wounded beast, will seek revenge by campaigning against the government from the left.
Meanwhile, we sit on the hill and watch the tigers fight in the valley.
In the words of G.W.: Bring It On!!
David,
Your comment was funny.
Still I’d be curious to know wich of each, Bliar (along with his tacky spin cortège) or the Beeb, will be majestuously kick out by the Brits?
I can’t wait…
It’s all working out perfectly.
Saddam is out, Blair is in a mess and the BBC are increasingly in the spotlight for “all the wrong reasons”.
The UN has been slapped in the face – hard. NATO’s weakness is revealed (as Turkey, like we didn’t know). And we get to see the best single piece of television broadcast in years:
“Go Home Human Shields US Wankers”
JohnJo,
Do you need a drink or ist it you’ve taken too many sleeping pills?
Qutoing you: “The UN has been slapped in the face – hard”.
Except Bush’s red-hot cheek after the UN’s slap on his face, I don’t see what you’re talking about.
Kodiak,
The UN was told by Bush to enforce its own resolutions, or the UN would be bypassed, a coalition raised, and the resolutions enforced independently of the UN. And this is pretty much what happened. Saddam is gone, Iraqi WMDs are no longer a concern, and the UN played no part in the real action. That to me is a slap in the face for the UN.
The only hint at a slap in the face Bush got from the UN was the UN refusing to enforce its own resolutions at Bush’s request. I know which one of the two has come out of this the stronger.
The UN is a monstrous organisation. It is like a meeting of Mafia Crime Bosses, a forum in which torturers and mass murderers can stand tall and lecture the world, all at huge expense to British and above all, American, taxpayers.
Communist China (on the security council), Zimbabwe, Belorus, Myanmar (Burma), Communist Cuba, Theocratic Saudi Arabia, Theocratic Iran… the list goes on. The leaders of these regimes are simply excused from being subject any legal sanction based on moral judgement by virtue of the fact they have taken control of the collective means of coercion of a nation-state.
The notion that any organisation which allows such people to walk around without arresting them, let alone regarding them as pukka members worthy of respect, is no source of moral authority for anything. How does the approval of the likes of Communist China make something more valid than it would be without that approval? Tyrants have no rights and no moral basis for anything they do or say. It is quite literally never wrong to kill a tyrant and never right to accord their views respect or validity.
TIM
This ISN’T pretty much what happened. Bush waged his war with no UN support, final dot. Therefore it was illegal. Do the world a favour: don’t rewrite history as Soviets used to.
Saddam is gone? Are you joking? He’s still having his ways & ridiculing the US army…
BTW: where are the WMDs? Gone too? It is still a concern since your high-spirited country deliberately lied & won universal scorn.
Quoting you: “the UN played no part in the real action”.
Does it come as a surprise to you? Didn’t you know that the UN oppose the neo-Caesarist war that’s now leading to daily US troops loss?
Don’t worry about the UN’s cheeks. Please try introspection instead & look how low-rated the US now is.
******
PERRY
The only monster I know in the UN is the US. Don’t worry: I loathe Libya, Cuba & all that splendid scum of the world. I just expected a nation like the US: 1/ to pay its UN membership contributions in due time & not to indefinitely postpone the payment of some miserable million dollars like a desperate 3rd-world country distressed by an earthquake or a tsunami; 2/ to stick to its own signature & show a more adult attitude than merely acting publicly like a paranoid freak that wants cheap attention to compensate its own structural faults.
If I extrapolate your sensible argumentation to actual people, then no one on Earth would be allowed to enjoy civil rights. I’m a thief: I can’t vote. I was abusive to someone: I loose my passport. I treach: I’m sent to the chair. Listen carefully: I make no apology to crime or misconduct. I’m just trying to show you how urgently pragmatism is wanted. Even if I would accept your argumentation, the US would certainly be the first State to be banned from the UN, (after Libya, Cuba & Co of course >>> but those countries are no reference, are they?).
Perry, for heaven sake! Do you think I’m happy there are notoriously bandit or rogue States on the planet? It’s not because I would entrench myself in one-sided (because any country may be regarded as devilish by the next one) stance over who is moral & who’s not that I’m helping the world to be a better place.
When you go in the streets, you might encounter a racist, or a thief, or even a murderer. Are you gonna shoot at any passer-by just because he or she might look bizarre to your eyes only???
Come on!
WHS.
Kodiak,
The war will not be illegal until it is declared as such by the UN. The UN did not authorise the war, but it has not ruled it illegal either. So the war is:
1. in legal limbo; or
2. we are assuming innocent until ruled guilty; or
3. guilty until ruled innocent.
I’m with 2.
And I’m not rewriting history – I’m just saying the same as what you are in that paragraph, but using grown-up language and avoiding calling the war illegal.
BTW Saddam has gone – check the inventory listings in the mass graves, and you will see that there have been no new arrivals for a while.
Kodiak,
Yes to your question about a drink. I’ll have a freedom whiskey. Make it a double.
TIM
Thanx for your delicate, attentionate reference to mass graves.
Saddam is at large, & so is Ben Laden.
Iraq is just a boat that is floating adrift. It’s gonna sink soon with the gracious help of the Bushist army. You arrived in Mesopotamia with empty pockets & no less empty ideas. Accept it.
THE RESORT TO ARMED ACTION AGAISNT THE MEMBER STATE OF IRAQ AS IT WAS PERFORMED BY BUSH IS ILLEGAL. (There haven’t been any French backstabbing with the veto stuff?).
JohnJo,
Sorry. All I have to offer you is a glass of oil with a drop of Iraqi blood.
Kodiak,
Why do you present opinion as fact? You happen to think the war is illegal. I happen to think the war is not illegal, as it has not been declared as such by the UN, who appear to be the only body who is able to do so.
Your statement at the bottom of your post is opinion, pure and simple. It is not a fact. I cannot disagree with fact, but I can disagree with opinions. And in this case, I disagree with your opinion that the war was illegal. Get over it.
Kodiak (and Tim Newman):
What has the UN got to do with the “legality” of the Iraq war?
I was (and still am) against the war.
However, I don’t see that the views of that foul and corrupt bunch of tyrants at the UN have anything to do with what is and is not legal.
Why would the law have been any more “legal” if some more tyrants had been bribed to support it or if Chirac had decided that his political interests lay in support rather than opposition?
Cydonia
Cydonia,
You have a very good point, and I agree with it. I do not think any ruling by the UN would count for much, simply for the reasons which you put forward. But whilst the UN is in place and it has the authority to make a ruling one way or the other, then I am going to refrain from labelling the war as illegal until it does so. International law is so ill-defined and ill-enforced that unfortunately it is only the UN who are in a position to rule on this issue.
The UN had a chance, and blew it. The UN is now history. It’s finest hour was probably during the Korean War, if it had a finest hour, and it’s been on a long slow downward trajectory ever since.
Not surprising really. Most of the worlds nations are scumholes, it is a minority which can claim any moral high ground. The UN is made up of national representatives, ergo, only a minority can claim any moral high ground, while the majority are merely the representatives of thugocracies.
The world is, by and large, an uncivilised place still.
Cydonia,
Be fair, at least…
Don’t mention Villepin’s bribing tyrants without standing out the purely intellectual discussion that Powell had with examplary honnest democrats…
The Last Toryboy,
“The world is, by and large, an uncivilised place still.”
Yes it is.
But (excuse me if this saying doesn’t sound like anything at all in English), why throw the baby with the water for baby’s bath?
I mean the UN or the States are not perfect. It’s not a reason to be fatalist.
Kodiak: please either make a reasoned argument or do not bother at all. Resorting to reductio ad absurdum is often a sign that a person has run out of arguments. My desire to see tyrants killed is a critical preference based on the contention that people who engage in extreme violation of the objective rights of others have alienated their right to any consideration whatsoever themselves. To kill such people is nothing less than enlightened self-interest and self-defence.
The whole notion that applying the same judgement to the behaviour of collective entities such as nation-states (and collections of nation-states such as the UN or EU)…and also to individuals… is absurd. That suggests individuals and nation-states are materially the same, which is preposterous. You might as well argue that cats and lemons should be treated the same because they are both organic. What you are in fact saying is that there should be no consequences (i.e. their views should just be listened to politely in the UN) if the head of a regime slaughters a million people in their own nation because to assassinate that tyrant and their associates, rather than accord them diplomatic privileges in the UN, would mean I have to apply the same set of imperatives (i.e. kill) an individual person who steals a newspaper. Not only are the actions materially different, they are of vastly different moral magnitude.
Let us examine your notion from the other direction: if your neighbour kills ten people, surely then you must think that he must not be punished as to punish him would require that Fidel Castro be treated as a murderer because of all the people he has murdered and thus allowing him to come to the UN would be an outrage. Or perhaps you think that only if your murderous neighbour seizes control of some third world nation-state should his crimes go unpunished because then he would be a government and different rules apply to people who run governments? But if different rules apply to governments, why do you say my views towards those who lead them would force me to conclude individuals who commit minor crimes in society should be dealt with in the same manner? You cannot have it both ways.
Unless you are illogical, of course.
Kodiak:
I said nothing about who was doing the bribing. Clearly Bush et al were doing their best in this department.
Fortunately they failed, so the war happened without the support of the UN and that (if nothing else) is a good thing because it damages the credibility of that bunch of scumbags.
David:
Sorry, we seem to have gone off topic!
Cydonia,
Flat apologies. I misread your stuff.
PERRY
Are “The UN is a monstrous organisation” & the populist (yet irrelevant >>> the US is a very bad payer) tirade reading “all at huge expense to British and above all, American, taxpayers” reasoned arguments & “reductione (excuse my French) ab absurdum” either?
Please sweep your doorway first & then only come to mine.
“The whole notion that applying the same judgement to the behaviour of collective entities such as nation-states (and collections of nation-states such as the UN or EU)…and also to individuals… is absurd”
Not so absurd. Especially if you consider the US as a cigar-smoking fat cat (forgive the leftist cliché) complaining that unwealthy disagreeing citizens are also given the right to have a say in the course of events.
“What you are in fact saying is that there should be no consequences (i.e. their views should just be listened to politely in the UN) if the head of a regime slaughters a million people in their own nation (…)”
No, I am not.
I’m merely saying that steady co-operation works better than unilateral wars.
I’m against stupid wars as much as I oppose tyranny.
A tyrant can also be toppled by its own people. If they can’t, external help is wanted & delivered provided UN world-community supports it.
The thing is not every one is convinced US unilateralism is grounded upon humanitarian rather than oil-smelling or mere vote-grasping reasons. Why didn’t your country topple Pinochet as Salvador Allende was assassinated? Because the CIA had plotted the whole stuff.
US interventionism to “propagate” freedom is a cynical farce no one buys.
Again I am appalled at Cuba & the rest. Just we’ve got to sort that out with what we’ve got: UN consensus (including the US). A US missile on La Havane wouldn’t be the best solution. It’s never been tried anyway.
The only UN consensus is that the US and Israel are the source of all the evil in the world. I’m not saying you yourself believe that Kodiak.
Why didn’t your country topple Pinochet as Salvador Allende was assassinated? Because the CIA had plotted the whole stuff.
Bullshit
A tyrant can also be toppled by its own people. If they can’t, external help is wanted & delivered provided UN world-community supports it.
More bullshit. Someone without scruples will always be prepared to make deals with the dictator to make money without giving a stuff about the suffering of the country’s population. TotalFinaElf for instance. Recall that the son of the company’s largest private shareholder is married to the daughter of the Canadian prime minister and no one needs reminding how deeply invloved French politicians have been in its dealings. So there you go. An oil company with billions of pounds of investment reliant on Saddam Hussein staying put complete with two prominant voices at the UN. And you still want the world to sit up and take notice of these people?
And don’t believe the hysteria coming from the media. The situation in Iraq is not that bad after all.
Perry
Yep, the UN epitomizes everything that is wrong with international institutions – one dictator, one vote!
So when are we going to have an ignore feature on Samizdata? You are not immune to the pollution of the commons.
BRIAN
Isn’t you analysis about UN consensus provocative?
The UN (implying US full agreement) have passed billions of resolutions for decades demanding that the Israelians evacuate some parts of Cisjordan (or West Bank) & that apartheidised Palestinians be teated decently.
No preventive war against Israel (who’s got WMD aplenty) has been launched so far. So please admit that the so-called UN consensus against Israel is nothing compared to US double standards (Israel/Iraq).
Please note I’m not a Nazi, nor a “typical” French Jew-hater, nor a Muslim Fondamentalist, nor a communist nor anything that would easily label what I said to your best convenience (the blog’s one Brian, not yours).
******
MARK HOLLAND
1/ OK US influence in South America is a blessing of God (as for instance in Chavez’s Venezuela).
2/ Again, I have no interest in TotalFinaElf except this one consisting in denouncing French corporate gross ingerence as I do with the UK, the US, Russia etc.
3/ The decorous, humming self-absorption regarding Iraq you indulge in is fine. As long as you don’t have others believe that kind of megascopic lies…
Kodiak: You are not making any sense at all. You did not actually address the issues I raised and in so far as I could make head or tail of your latest remarks (not an easy task), you just seem to have repeated your original views (US bad… UN good) without actually explaining why anyone should think you are correct. Please explain why the votes and approval of mass murdering and/or kleptocratics leaders of various nations who are members of the UN makes the actions of some other nation objectively okay, but if those same mass murdering tyrannts do not approve (say… Communist China, for example) then those same actions, if done unilaterally without the votes of various
thugsleaders, are somehow objectively bad.Perry: near as I can work it out, the true believer internationalists have abandoned the ability to discriminate between right and wrong, because such discernments would result in value judgments being made about individuals and cultures. Instead, they equate consensus with moral right.
International law is pretty much a load. It tends to be more about governing international commerce than the behavior of nations. And frankly I don’t believe the U.S. quite gives a shit when our national security and the security of our citizen’s is at stake. Better to be judged by 12 nations than buried by six.
Other nations have for decades taken advantage of U.S. goodwill for the benefit of their people or ruling class. Unfortunately the American taxpayer has made many a dictator a multimillionaire in the name of humanitarian aid, Africa is rife with them. And for decades the U.S. has for the most part shunned protectionism, running huge trade deficits, for the benefit of most of the western economies’, and now China. The American taxpayer has beared an unfair burden of the U.N. expenses only to have U.N. bureaucrats plunder the coffers and then refuse to audit themselves and publicly air the finances. The United States even turned a blind eye to the Iraqi oil-for-food program which turned out to be an almost organized crime protection racket run out of the top offices of the U.N., France, and Russia.
Those days, however, are coming to an end. No the U.N. is not quite dead yet, but most Americans will never trust their national and personal security to that bunch thugs. The members of the U.N. have their nation’s and their own self interest in mind, and the U.S. has been that gravy train they’ve been riding. And what really pisses them off is that train is pulling out of the station, without signing those stupid ICC and Kyoto treaties which would give the U.N. control over Americans, and they can do nothing to stop it. Short of war, that is.
And tell those pinheads at the E.U. that we are not going to raise our taxes, or harmonize if you prefer a euro-sissy word, just so they can be competitive with us. Jesus, what a bunch of socialist dumbasses.
PERRY
“you just seem to have repeated your original views (US bad… UN good) without actually explaining why (…)”
As far as decision-making & policy-implementing are concerned, I prefer a community of States voting in a High Chamber called the UN (even if some of those are admittedly run by disgusting criminals) than one single State (which, to say the least, doesn’t come in for unanimous, universal praise) doing all the job without even being accountable for possible misdeeds & bad intentions.
I don’t expect anybody to be in favour of such an approach.
I just hope this approach will remain enforced as long as unilateralists of all sorts will understand it’s not intended against actual people nor against certain States.
Kodiak,
The U.S. is not going to turn its national security or self interests over to the U.N. Those days are over; if they ever really exsisted. Now what do you think the rest of the enlightened planet is going to do about that? Really, Kodiak, what can you do? The U.S. is the largest economy in the world by far. The U.S. military is the most powerful the world has ever seen. So unless Americans are just struck stupid and decide to turn their lives and their security over to a gang of socialists dipshits, just what can be done to force we Americans to acquiesce?
The answer: Not a goddamn thing! Short of war, that is. And if that is what the enlightened people of the world feel they need to do to subjugate us to the U.N. and their will then, “Bring it on!” Hell, I’m armed to my friggin’ teeth.
D2D,
You’re right: we all know the US has a socialising problem with the rest of the World.
You’re right again: no one can force it to be a part of it & no one wants to.
It’s all up to you.
Just revise Roman history.
Kodiak, I am voting for you as the resident Samizdata Village Idiot.
I think you should up your salary (bits of string, twigs) by getting a degree in Idioting from the University of East Anglia. Arthur Sykes teaches there.
Dear most suavely urbane Alfred,
Thanx for that. I’ll think about relocating in East Anglia. I love green fields as much as seashore.
Kodiak,
I feel that the problem you are having here is complete misunderstanding of the United States and her citizens. We are not like Europeans, Africans, South Americans, or Asians. If I had to compare us to another nation I would say we are more like Australians than anyone else. We tend to be fierce individualists. We have never lived under a monarch or dictator. We value our freedom above the approval of other nations. We are slow to anger. And we are generous to a fault. We know giving up our sovereignty to the U.N. would put our chosen ways of life and liberties at risk.
The rest of the world has shown a disdain of liberty for the benefit of income equality and socialist entitlements. Europe values social securities over personal liberties. We as Americans do not wish to participate, it goes against our very nature of liberty and individual pursuits of happiness. To use an old South Park cartoon you are trying to get an elephant to make love to a pig. Its just not going to happen. The sooner Europeans and socialists accept this the quicker they can get on with screwing up theirs and other people’s lives. Leave us out of it, however.
The UN (implying US full agreement) have passed billions of resolutions for decades demanding that the Israelians evacuate some parts of Cisjordan (or West Bank) & that apartheidised Palestinians be teated decently.
I see you don’t know much about the legalisms of the UN.
Why, according to you, should the US have any kind of veto at all? Doesn’t that go against the notion of a consensus? I am quite sure the “consensus” of the UN is Durban. Any reason for me to think it isn’t?
Kodiak said:
“Saddam is at large, & so is Ben Laden”
Are you happy about this ?
If not – what are you, or your country (France) or the EU, or the UN DOING to bring those murderes to justice (i.e. kill them) ?
Just complaining about unilateralism and preaching pragmatism (i.e. – doing nothing).
“International law is so ill-defined and ill-enforced that unfortunately it is only the UN who are in a position to rule on this issue.”
The UN cannot say whether or not any war is “legal” or “illegal” because the UN is not a legislature and does not pass laws. The UN is also not a court charged with enforcing laws or treaties. What the UN has to say about the war may or may not be interesting, but it is what philospohers call a “category error” to believe that the UN can determine the legality of anything.
The only issue as to the legality of US military actions in Iraq is the US Constitution. That document requires Congressional action, which was taken. The war was legal.
Of course, the war can be perfectly legal and still be a bad idea, but whether the war was wise or moral or “right” in some sense is an issue that is not disposed of by whether it was legal.
Couldn’t the French send a brigade of special forces(what do they call them in France ? Frogmen ?) to Iraq to help hunt for Saddam and Bin Laden and other terrorists ?
Considering their good relationship with Saddamite Iraq, their connections there might prove useful.
Can’t France do at least what their European neighbors, Poland and Romania are doing ?
Kodiak says the US is encountering problems in Iraq. Well, France could help the US, help the Iraqi people, help itself gain some respectability.
D2D
Why not share this tremendously edifying stanza over US values (no kidding!) with your own starving low-income citizens ? I’m sure they would be impressed.
******
T. HARTIN
The “category error” was nonetheless the very location of US irrelevance & blatant failure.
As for the US constitution, just bear in mind this is in reality just a piece of paper that 7 billions human beings would use in perhaps a different way as 0,25 billion others would.
******
JACOB
No, I’m not happy that Saddam & Ben Laden can do again & again what the US was totally unable to prevent from happening.
I don’t know what France could do against those murderers. But I know the US doesn’t know either.
Please think about pre-Gulf War Rumsfeld salesmanship on weaponry in Iraq before uttering nonsense about the French.
As you perhaps know, France for one & Poland & Romania for two had diverging views about the Iraqi matter. Hence the difference as for Iraq occupation.
France won’t help the US army in Iraq. Still helping the Iraqi people to gain its independence & prosperity is something that goes without saying.
******
BRIAN
You’re right: considering some aspects, the UN arena looks a bit like the House of the Lords.
But don’t be afraid because people tell you why they get angry. Maybe talking & making every endeavour possible to put the cards on the table isn’t the worst solution to reduce mutual inintelligibility.
The UN’s a thugocracy and has no legitimacy. Why, as those who have posted before say, does the imprimateur of Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Zimbabwe, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran lend “legitimacy” to anything and why? Answers on a postage stamp, please.
Even if the UN were made up of a bunch of good, stout-hearted chaps, nations would continue to act in their own interests without regard to the opinions of those without a direct interest in the outcome. The way of the future seems to be ad hoc alliances, as in the Coalition which fought in Iraq. It will probably, for the foreseeable future, be the same ad hoc alliance but with some smaller fishes swimming in then out again depending on their own national interests at the time, but real life is like that.
Kodiak,
Low income people in the U.S. have a problem with obesity not starvation. I do not know where you get this stuff from but the only people starving in America are anorexics.
As for the US constitution, just bear in mind this is in reality just a piece of paper that 7 billions human beings would use in perhaps a different way as 0,25 billion others would.
Man, you really just don’t get it, Kodiak. We couldn’t give less of a fuck how “7 billions human beings would use it”. It’s our Constitution, and it is far, far more than just a piece of paper–it is liberty.
With every post you show more and more how little you know or understand about America, and how many Euromoron preconceptions you subscribe to.
Whoa, hold on guys.
People like Kodiak, Susan and Giggles may be intensely annoying but they are nevertheless necessary for a healthy debate so we shouldn’t be too rude to them, otherwise they might not come back.
Cydonia
cydonia: a healthy debate is a conversation. It involves counterpoints and arguments and facts and stuff. A debate with giggles is more like…being mooned. Of course, if you believe your opponent is a baboon, it’s useful if he voluntarily shows the world his shiny red butt.
I wouldn’t worry, anyhow. People who dash into the enemy camp to shout “neener, neener!” aren’t, as a rule, easily offended.
S. Weasel, I think Cydonia is being ironic.
regards
Phil: Oh. Huh. Well, I’m often told Americans are incapable of perceiving irony. I always assumed people who said that were just being ironic.
Weasel,
Americans do irony just fine, though it’s mostly the women, I admit.
Kodiak,
Since you said it would be desirable for France to help Iraqi people – could you ofer some sugestions what could be done ? Seeing that the US is unable to restore electricity, maybe France could send a power plant and some technicians, to help the Iraqi people (not the US occupiers). Why doesn’t France DO something positive ? Why just complain and whine ? I am inclined to beleive you are not Chirac, though you speak like him, so – do you agree it might be desirable for France to do more than just complain and obstruct the removal of murderous tyrants ?
DEAR MOST SUAVELY URBANE ALFRED
“We couldn’t give less of a fuck how “7 billions human beings would use it (THE US CONSTITUTION)”
Reciprocity garanteed.
“It’s (THE US CONSTITUTION) our Constitution, and it is far, far more than just a piece of paper–it is liberty”
All you say is fine within the borders of the USA.
The rest is just vain literature.
******
S.WEASEL
“It (A HEALTHY DEBATE) involves counterpoints and arguments and facts and stuff.”
Please read again any posts about France & Co.
Your volatile memory is second to none.
******
JACOB
Don’t forget France is a backstabbing 3rd-world country that’s invaded by fanatic Muslims. She has no army -just surrending sissies, no engineers -just incompetent bureaucrats. All that can be found in this ridiculous instance of irrelevance is antisemitic Nazillons & cheeese-eating communists on strike. How can we help at all?
******
LIBERTY BELLE
These are views you probably bought at the next supermarket.
You are allergic to UN, France, Statism (& even the mere existence of any State at all) etc.
Please drop Liberté & Belle. Neither of both could fit to such a paralysed, fossilised, populist recrimination.
“The way of the future seems to be ad hoc alliances” >>> as long as the US can sustain its current irresponsible behaviour that will cost it long-term credibility.
” (…) but real life is like that”
>>> real life is also 9/11 when warlike “ad-hoc alliances” only are considered the very answer to political unstability, to the exclusion of well thought-out long-term co-operation among UN countries.
“Don’t forget France is a backstabbing 3rd-world country that’s invaded by fanatic Muslims. She has no army -just surrending sissies, no engineers -just incompetent bureaucrats. All that can be found in this ridiculous instance of irrelevance is antisemitic Nazillons & cheeese-eating communists on strike. How can we help at all?”
Judging by the ammount of help France is providing it seems you are right.
Jacob,
I’m so happy we finally agreed on something.