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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (345)	4/17/2003 11:38:47 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

"Saddam was installed by Iraqis." No doubt Saddam had cronies who wanted him in power, but by no means did the Iraqi people have any say in the matter. The overthrow of prior governments by the Ba'ath Party, Saddam's taking of power & the creation of the Vichy government have enough similarities to satisfy my contention that both were wholly illegitimate. One was invaded by another country, the other was invaded from within, both without the consent or approval of their indigenous population. Both countries suffered immensely at the hands of their new leaders. The indigenous populations of both countries were gleeful to be liberated by the US & UK, ET AL. "the Vichy government was created in response to the German invasion" Again, I disagree. The German installed puppet government, AKA the Vichy gov't, was ot exactly without substantial German influence......... In June 1940, France was partitioned into two sectors by Germany: a German-occupied zone (including the Atlantic coast, the English Channel front, and Paris). The remaining two-fifths of France was an unoccupied zone in the southeast, administered by the Vichy government. Prime Minister Henri Philippe Pétain's vice-presidents were Pierre Laval & Jean-François Darlan. Remaining French naval vessels were destroyed in Mers El Kébir harbor near Oran in July 1940 by the Royal Navy after Churchill found that the Vichy regime was prepared to hand them over to the Germans. Despite the cooperation of the Vichy government, German forces took control of southern France in November 1942 and the real power came into the hands of Laval. Joseph Darnand was head of the Vichy Milice, the wartime police. Darnand had an SS rank and took a oath of loyalty to Hitler. The Milice was responsible for the suppression of the French Resistance and the Maquis as well as promulgating German race laws. In 1945, many members of the Vichy government were arrested and some, including Laval and Darnand, were executed. Pétain was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Were the French in German occupied France people not liberated from an illegitimate government? The German Vichy puppet government & the illegitimate government that Saddam claimed for himself, then "cleansed" both have substantial common ground in regard to their lack of legitimacy & subsequent liberation IMVHO.