WE'RE FROM FRANCE, WE'RE HERE TO HELP:

What a Farce (SETH GITELL, August 18, 2006, NY Sun)

In a classic case of the French being the French, reports indicate that President Chirac is balking at sending troops from his nation to be part of the international force to enforce the United Nations-orchestrated "peace" deal. [...]

France's track record is not good. We need look no farther than to the words of 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, General Wesley Clark, for a sickening example. After years of watching European nations diplomaticize, discuss, and dither while thousands of innocents were slain in the Yugoslav civil war, America in 1999 became the driving force to protect ethnic Albanian Muslims in Kosovo. (Prior to this, when it came to protecting actual Islamic lives in their own backyard, the French were almost as ineffective as they were in saving Jewish lives during the Holocaust.) In his 2001 memoir "Waging Modern War," General Clark writes of his fear that some of his "allies" were providing information to the enemy. "Back in October, one of the French officers working at NATO headquarters had given key portions of the operations plan to the Serbs," he writes. Later in the war, the Europeans objected to Clark's desire to bring in Apache helicopters, use ground troops, and bomb a troublesome Serb airbase in Montenegro. "This was a matter of protecting our American and NATO forces," according to Clark. After Clark ultimately ordered air strikes, France protested.

Any time the Frech aren't trading Jews for chocolate bars they're behaving with unaccustomed bravery.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 18, 2006 9:08 AM