Russ Ward, a reader from Crystal Lake IL offers these cogent comments (which John Miller will especially appreciate):
French president Jacques Chirac now blames America for making the world a more dangerous place. This reminds me of the summer of 2002, when I spent a week in the Paris home of an old friend who loves America but cannot comprehend how we could have elected a trigger-happy cowboy like George W. Bush to be our president. His own leaders, he explained, had a more measured and realistic world view than Bush, who seemed eager to start another war.
A year ago I thought about what my friend had said. Reluctant to broach the subject of the war, I sent an e-mail to console him for the loss of the many WWII-era French citizens who died during the fierce heat wave that struck France the previous summer. His surprising response told me more about his leaders’ world view than anything he had said to me while I was in Paris:
“We were above all revolted that these elderly people, who as you said survived many horrors, passed because of lack of air-conditioning during the “sacred” French holiday time. Our dear president was having his in Canada – didn’t bother to return. This country is run for many years now by stinking corrupt ambitious unscrupulous and moneythirsty politicians. I do not have the slightest respect for these people.”
President Chirac recently told the London Times: “Britain gave its support [to the Americans] but I did not see much in return, I am not sure that it is in the nature of our American friends at the moment to return favors systematically.”
In light of what my French friend said, I have to wonder: what sort of favors Chirac is accustomed to receiving, from what friends, and in return for what? Perhaps the time has come to examine the motivations of the leadership of the UN and the three Security Council members who seemed to want to maintain the status quo in Iraq for as long as possible.
Those pre-war French, German and Russian petroleum contracts come to mind. And so does the UN oil-for-food program, that now appears to have enriched Saddam and his family to the tune of $21 billion that was supposed to provide food and medicine for the Iraqi people. No one diverts that kind of money from any program without the cooperation of what my friend might describe as stinking corrupt ambitious unscrupulous and moneythirsty insiders. How highly placed were those insiders and how much cash did they pocket? More importantly, how much influence did this money and those oil contracts have on the debate over the enforcement of UN resolutions?
There is much to question and to criticize about the way this war has been prosecuted. It certainly has not gone as well as we had hoped. But we can only guess at how it might have gone if, instead of telling us to give Saddam more time, Kofi Annan had told Saddam that his time was up – and our ‘old European’ and Russian allies had stood with us.
Is it possible that an isolated, friendless Saddam might not have attempted to resist such a powerful, united coalition, and that thousands of Iraqis, Americans, Britons and others might not have died? If so, then perhaps we should consider whether those deaths can be best attributed to the willingness of some to act – or to the unwillingness of others.