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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (74075)	2/14/2003 9:28:03 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Oh, I wasn't asking you or anyone else for that matter to agree with Johnson's assessment of the present situation. What I enjoyed was his tour back through the undersides of the 60s and his own reading of it. Like you, I was unaware of the Times role as Johnson presents it. As for Johnson being biased, I think that's the wrong word. He has a definite point of view out of which he writes. I haven't read those books so I don't know any specifics. But the titles are certainly not bland ones. But you should read some of those as I read Novak, Frum, Woodward, Brooks, and some of your Reason stuff.

To: LindyBill who wrote (74075)	2/15/2003 2:40:54 AM
From: KLP	Respond to of 281500

France and Germany? Americans are up in arms Steven R. Weisman The New York Times Saturday, February 15, 2003 KLP Note: Richare Perle was on Fox with Brit Hume today...looked for a transcript, but didn't see one. Perle has some comments here as well... iht.com Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune \| www.iht.com WASHINGTON American impatience toward France and Germany, which has been racing through Washington and through much of America for weeks, has reached such a fevered pitch that many in and around the Bush administration say they are worried. But they also say they are not surprised. Mounting anti-European feelings began with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's dismissal of Paris and Berlin as "old Europe" and has expanded to denunciations on Capitol Hill, including demands for a boycott of French products like wine and cheese. "I'm concerned about it," said Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, referring to anti-European sentiments. "This is an awkward political moment. But politics has lots of awkward moments. Professionals are usually able to work their way through them." Notwithstanding Lugar's comments, this has been a difficult time for longtime American advocates of the alliance with Europe. The French and German rebuff to an American-backed UN resolution authorizing force against Iraq has infuriated the Bush administration and its supporters. All week, members of Congress have been denouncing France and Germany. A favored theme is their supposed ingratitude after being saved from disaster in World War II and defeat in the Cold War. The theme has echoed through editorial pages across the country. "The United States saved France's bacon in World War II," the Tulsa World editorialized. "The United States has long stood by and protected Europe. But this is not a question of payback. It's simply a matter of doing the right thing." The Boston Herald wrote that "the graves of soldiers" should serve as "a timely reminder that there is no appeasing a tyrant, not then and not now." Longtime students of the European-American relationship note that there have many troubled times in the past, each time provoking a wave of denunciations of the French in particular as passive, ungrateful, selfish and unrealistic about the dangers facing the West. During the early 1980s, President Ronald Reagan tangled with President Francois Mitterrand of France over the French insistence on building a natural gas pipeline to the Soviet Union. "The current crisis has brought back a lot of old clichés," said Stanley Hoffman, professor of international relations at Harvard. "How the French haven't mattered for 75 years, how we saved Europe twice. This is one more episode in a long history of disagreements." But Hoffman said the current disagreements have been aggravated by what he called the unusually imperious tone coming from Washington. "I don't think the tone was quite as strong during the Cold War," he said. The accepted notion is, if someone disagrees with us, they are wrong, without examining whether there isn't something right on both sides. One should not treat one's allies as if they are satellites. We used to condemn the Soviets for doing that." Administration officials say that current anti-European sentiments have widened the cleavage within the circle around President George W. Bush over whether to work with allies on crises or to act unilaterally in pursuit of American interests. Many of those close to Rumsfeld warned last year that a major American investment in trying to get a UN resolution inspections first, and then the use of force against Iraq, would be unsuccessful and eventually paralyzing. Some of these same officials are arguing that France and Germany can be disregarded as the United States seeks support among European nations, even though France and Germany account for nearly half of Europe's economies and probably more than half the economic ties with the United States. Conservative supporters of this wing in the administration helped to produce a letter from eight European nations supporting the American approach on Iraq, and then another 10 nations from Eastern Europe echoing that view. President Jacques Chirac of France was described by French officials as furious at what he perceived to be an American attempt to isolate France and discredit its leadership of Europe. Richard Perle, chairman of the administration's Defense Policy Board, said that since France and Germany had arrogated to themselves the right to speak for Europe on Iraq it was only natural for other Europeans to chafe at such a move if they disagree. "I think we have to abandon the romantic, nostalgic notion of the United States and the members of the European Union as allies working to achieve a common policy," Perle said, adding that he was speaking for himself and not the administration. He added that France seemed to see itself as a "counterweight" to American influence rather than ally, and that the United States should respond perhaps by seeing itself as a counterweight to Europe. But this idea is anathema to the State Department, where Secretary of State Colin Powell has been defending the importance of European ties, even as he has demanded that France and Germany work with the United States to threaten force against Saddam Hussein. "Many people in this government are alarmed over the rhetoric ricocheting around on both sides of the Atlantic," said a State Department official. "But when we get over this shouting match, and you look at our relationship with Europe, you will see that these people are our friends. Our longtime friends." Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune