Prostitution of the pen and the dark side of the free market

[fpb]

Four years ago, the government of the French Republic took the lead in refusing to support the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. The French, who had taken a very active and successful part in the first Iraq war, simply did not think that an invasion followed by the occupation of an Arab country was a good idea. That was their prerogative (see under "sovereign state").

(My position was that I loathed Saddam Hussein so much that anyone who wanted to drive him out was fine by me. I would even have supported an Iranian invasion. But I would not have started to insult people who disagreed.)

The idiot part of the American right suddenly made France the bout of all their hatred. Someone spotted a market opportunity, as Americans do (the French do that as well, but when the French do it, that's evil!) and prostituted a certain amount of historical knowledge in the search for a quick buck, producing some sort of tract which rewrote history with the claim that "France have always been our enemy, but they have concealed it under a pretence of friendship".

I would dismiss this intellectually contemptible and factually fraudulent thesis in as many words, and not even bother about it, were it not that one of the finest minds in my f-list seems to have been taken in by it. As it is, I want to ask how you imagine you can trace a consistent attitude of hatred, and what is more, of subtly disguised hatred, in a nation that has, since the foundation of the United States, experienced three royalist constitutions, five republican ones, two bonapartist ones, and one fascist tyranny, and completely boxed the compass in terms of attitudes, views, and alliances. This is the kind of things that rabid anti-Semites postulate about Jews - attitudes consistent across the centuries, constant vicious subtlety in carrying them out, hatred fertile in invention but completely barren of reason. The French ought to be proud: they have been promoted to the rank of Chosen People, next to that other target of unreasoning, blind, stupid, despicable hatred. In case anyone had any doubts, I regard Jew-bashing as a stain on the face of mankind.

No doubt the prostitute or prostitutes who set out on this bit of free enterprise got out of it what they wanted - money, admiting letters from ignorami and fanatics, and the odd spot on TV talk shows; rewards that serious historians get rather less often. But as we are still free people here, I want to use my own freedom of expression, rather less despicably than the prostitute or prostitutes concerned: first, by calling whoredom by its proper name; and second, by stating clearly that there shall be no pity here for such views. The historical slag or slags who sold their integrity for popular success will not be treated as anything but filth, and anyone who takes them seriously is warned that I will do what is in my power to restore them to sanity.

Comments

[kulibali.livejournal.com]

Don't confuse me with other posters. I said nothing about Pinochet or about American meddling in other countries' affairs. I simply was trying to point out that French criticism of America on that score is breath-takingly hypocritical.

I would say that the constant of American policy is NOT that they know "what's better for France", or any other country. The constant is what they think is better for the USA, period, full stop, end of story. As it happens, from 1946-1990 the USA was in a global struggle for existence against the USSR, and did what it thought would help US interests. The US won that war, which I think is, in the end, a better outcome for the world than the alternative.

The source of American frustration with France is that when the US, having been forced back onto the world stage by 9/11, decides -- as one part of its overall strategy; read Robert Kaplan's _Imperial Grunts_ about some of the other less-visible parts -- to remove one of those dictators for which it was so roundly (and justly) criticized for propping up during the Cold War, it takes all kinds of opposition from a government that was itself hand-in-pocket with said dictator and at the very same time engaged in interfering, often violently, with numerous other countries' affairs.

I'm not defending the American record of foreign involvement. I'm defending the American disgust with France over criticising the US for its foreign involvement -- while engaging in the very same kinds of activities.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

What started this polemic - in another thread - was my disgust at the ignorant right-wing American attitude to France, and specifically to something that offended me, personally, very much. I am a cartoonist and a comics fan from of old, and once upon a time, Captain America used to be one of my favourite Marvel heroes. I was disgusted to find that some moron had made him use "France" as synonimous with surrender, and that started the whole thing. Any complaints about French African policies are in the nature of red herrings, dragged across the trail to draw attention away from the sickening ignorance and vanity of this sort of attitudes.

[kulibali.livejournal.com]

You started this thread with the following: "Four years ago, the government of the French Republic took the lead in refusing to support the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. The French, who had taken a very active and successful part in the first Iraq war, simply did not think that an invasion followed by the occupation of an Arab country was a good idea." You then proceeded to say that this precipitated vocal criticism (and admittedly invalid historical revisionism) of France from a certain segment of American society.

However, the French did NOT merely say that they thought that an invasion & occupation of Iraq was "not ... a good idea". They criticized the US for being warmongering cowboys (in so many words). I am arguing that the American reaction was in disgust at such blatant hypocrisy, given that France was engaging in just such unilateral military faction elsewhere in the globe. French African policy is entirely relevant.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I told you what started this polemic. To take this position is as good as to call me a liar. Please remember that this is my LJ and that I am the ultimate judge of what goes in it. If you insist on fruitless and one-sided reiterations of what I told you is a side issue, I will have to put an end to this debate.

[kulibali.livejournal.com]

I am not calling you a liar. I simply believe you are wrong in thinking that French African policy has no bearing on the argument. You may choose to ignore a line of evidence in an argument if you like, but that does not make it any less valid.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not ignorant Americans are justified in calling the French cowards. I was in the Italian Army when the Americans, having suffered one major terrorist attack, left Lebanon without even warning their supposed allies, a small British force and large French and Italian ones. And everyone remembers the similarly precipitate retreat from Somalia. A nation that, in the face of enemy fire, decamps without even warning its own allies, has no business calling anybody cowardly.