Liberals Blame it on America!
Blame it on America
By Olivier Guitta
January 19, 2004
During the debate on the war on Iraq, the American public realized
that France was not our ally anymore. In fact, when France's Foreign
Minister, Dominique de Villepin, was asked whom he wanted to win the
war, he flatly answered: "I don't know", and 33% of his countrymen
wanted Iraq to win… Now,
supposedly, the relationship between our two countries is warming up.
But, nothing has changed: France's anti-Americanism just keeps on
reaching new highs.
A month ago, "The Man who ruined 2003" was the title on the cover of
the conservative, popular French newsmagazine L'Express. The picture
on the cover was not that of Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden or Yasir
Arafat, but that of George W. Bush. We would expect that from a
communist newspaper or an Islamist one but not from a right wing
French weekly. In this appalling article, we learn that President Bush
did not succeed in the war in Iraq or for that matter in the War on
Terror or in the Middle East in general. But that he was very
successful in creating a worldwide chaos where violent acts are only
increasing by the day: they blame Bush policies for triggering the
terrorist attacks in Riyadh, Casablanca and Istanbul. Finally, our
"messianic" President is engaged in an "imperialistic" war, a
"crusade" against the "forces of evil."
The following week, right after Saddam's capture, the French liberal
daily Liberation ran a column calling it "shameful" to show Saddam in
this condition-with the long beard and hair- and adding that the US
should get the "Oscar for Bad Taste." The French media is more
concerned about the image of the bloody dictator than the fact he was
captured! How convenient since it enables them to hijack the real
news: a US success.
But, best of all was last week's issue of the least anti-American
weekly, Le Point, which had a special section entitled "France
punished by the US." In one article called "Diktat on Air France," the
journalist seriously argues that the terrorist threats against Air
France flights during Christmas were just an excuse for the US to
"destabilize Air France." So for him, the "paranoid" Americans' only
goal was to financially damage the French airline. Diktat is a very
strong word referring historically to the Versailles Treaty of 1919
when the victorious countries in WWI forced draconian punishment to
the losing Germany. Thus, according to the journalist, now the victor-
the US- in the War in Iraq is unjustifiably punishing France for not
having sided with them. So, being cautious by canceling flights and
probably saving some French lives, is just accessory to the real
reason: the US wanted to bankrupt Air France.
France is indeed very good at conspiracy theories. It is not a
coincidence that the book, 9/11: The Big Lie, from the French author
Thierry Meyssan was a best seller in France for over a year. This book
supposedly proves how no plane ever crashed on the Pentagon on
September 11, 2001. It also states that Bin Laden was a US agent paid
by Bush to destroy secret CIA offices in the World Trade Center.
Unfortunately, I am not making this up: this kind of argument is very
common in France. To get a sense of this phenomenon, let's just take a
look at a recent French bestseller list: After the Empire, France
against the Empire, The Devil's Footprint, Bush's Secret World, The
New World Disorder, Washington and the World… Of course, the terms,
empire and devil, refer to the US.
In this list can also be found some American authors, who are part of
the Left anti-US crowd: Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky and Norman Mailer.
The French media is very happy to find some of our countrymen or
residents to denigrate the US. For example, Liberation had an op-ed
piece from Patrice
Higonnet, a French professor at Harvard, called "The triumph of the
American fundamentalism." Higonnet thinks America is "schizophrenic,"
"more religious, more puritan, more nationalist, more arrogant" than
ever before because of President Bush. According to him, America is
victim of "a fundamentalist radicalization" and he goes on to compare
Bush to the Wahabi imams-the Islamist extremists who inspired Al
Qaeda. Are we dreaming? If Mr. Higonnet detests our country so much,
why does he stay at Harvard instead of going back to France, where
everything is so much better?
Liberation does not stop there: they had another op-ed by Christopher
Newfield, professor of American culture at the University of Santa
Barbara. This intellectual thinks that France is becoming more
American by the day and that they should be very careful not to ever
become like America, which would be the worst thing that could happen
to it.
Now with all this in mind, how can one expect French people not to be
anti-American? Such brainwashing is ubiquitous, from the press to TV
networks and books, presenting only one choice: to hate us. When
another point of view, favorable to the US, comes along, it is not
publicized at all. For example Alain Hertoghe, a journalist from the
Christian daily newspaper, La Croix, wrote a book entitled An All-Out
War: How the Press Misinformed Us on Iraq. He did not get any press
coverage, any publicity. Why? Because his outstanding book shows
extensively and statistically how the French press took sides during
the war in Iraq. Studying the five major French newspapers, he found
out that out of 164 titles about Iraq, 135 were
actually against Bush ("the irresponsible, violent, imperialist,
fundamentalist" American leader) and only 29 against Saddam Hussein.
Furthermore, he proves how the French press lied in reporting the
situation
on the ground in Iraq just to justify their anti-Americanism. What do
you think happened to Hertoghe after the publishing of this book? He
was fired, a few weeks ago, by La Croix for obvious reasons:
criticizing the French press does not go well; if only he could have
done like everybody else and smeared America…
France has a long history of anti-Americanism, which has now turned
into an obsession. Everything negative occurring in the planet, or for
that matter even in France, is the fault of the USA. Blame it on
America has turned into a national sport.
The main origin for that feeling is the media and the intellectual
crowd. But, contrary to what is happening in the US, it is not only
confined to the Left. Everyone from the Greens to the Center to the
Right and the Far Right agree on only one statement: America is EVIL.
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