RE: How's it all playing in France itself?

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Feb 22 2003 - 00:16:32 MST

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    Christian writes

    > Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com> wrote:
    >
    > > > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2780881.stm
    > >
    > > How can Chirac get away with this *within* France?
    >
    > The way that question is phrased does not make any
    > sense at all to me. Try again.
    >
    > (I for one applauded Chirac's comments.)

    As in an exchange with Samantha, it's noteworthy how, from
    one ideological standpoint, something is obvious, and yet
    the opponents cannot understand it at all---even when they
    attempt to from within their adversaries belief system. It
    appears to escape *all* reasonableness. (This is why it
    crosses the minds of some that their opponents may be actually
    "insane". Thanks for not saying that about me :-)

    What I mean is this: to many in the U.S. (or the Anglosphere?)
    it seems overweening and arrogant for Chirac to say to the
    hopeful entrants to the EU: "You must do as I say. You may
    not have your own opinion. You will be sorry for speaking
    your own opinions. Just wait and see."

    In other words (from my perspective, and I'm sure, from many
    around the world) this amounts to extortion or even blackmail.
    Now my guess is that my ideological adversaries on the other
    side will say, "Talk about extortion! Consider what the U.S.
    and its allies are doing to Iraq for God's sake!".

    Well, to us, Iraq is an enemy, and so it's okay to threaten
    and attack a true enemy (which you'll probably agree to the
    logic of if not the particulars), but it's not okay to bully
    equals. For example, intimidating Iraq is okay, but if Bush
    was to secretly say to the leader of Spain, "you better sign
    that letter or else you'll be sorry when it comes to the
    next round of trade negotiations!", it would be ABSOLUTELY
    DISASTROUS if that leaked out (as it invariably would).
    It would be seen as attempting compulsion.

    Now, this is complex, because Spain does have an ulterior
    motive in being nice to the U.S. It all goes into the
    equations. Likewise, Romania does have an ulterior motive
    for being nice to France. But the weighing of subtle
    motives, and the strategies involved, is one thing---
    blunt and crude statements like that of Chirac's strike
    many of us as extremely obnoxious and high-handed.

    Don't Germans and French see it that way at all?

    Lee



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