Who are the terrorists?

 

Between 1947 and 1953, America went mad with fear of communists. They were everywhere, plotting to destroy America and impose Soviet style totalitarianism. Of course, everyone knows of Senator Joseph McCarty and his paranoid stance regarding all things he thought were anti-American. Everybody could be suspected and there was a real witch hunt all across the country.

Like in all dictatorships there were hearings in front of the Senate, people had to face questions asked to them like Fouquier-Tinville used to, and many were blacklisted. Even Charly Chaplin had to go into exile!!!

Eventually this madness came to an end with the downfall of McCarty.

You would think this episode has taught some lessons on the other side of the Ocean?

Now, the US is swept by a wave of Islamophobia, suspecting a would-be terrorist behind each and every Muslim. For years, Fox news had a scale of different colors to tell Americans which level of terrorist threat might be expected for each day of the year. I can't receive Fox any longer so I don't know if they've stopped this fear factor game.

What I know is that there hasn't been one single act of terrorism in America since 9/11. Many Americans would tell it's evidence of the effectiveness of the anti-terrorism measures that have been implemented in the past 6 years. Many others would reply that maybe anybody didn't even try to commit any act of terrorism in America.

What I know also is that there has been another shooting spree a couple of weeks ago, with 6 people dead. And I also know that hundreds if not thousands of Americans have been shot to death by their fellow American citizens since 2002. I haven't heard that one single killer was Muslim or coming from any Arabic country.

So who are the real, effective terrorists in the US?

Not about to be found

When the news of Steve Fossett's disappearance broke three years ago, we all thought it was a matter of hours, well, 2 days to the maximum, before he could be located and rescued.

Yet, since Sept the 3rd of 2007, in spite of all the technical wizardry that the American teams could rely on, not a single hint of any shadow of where Steve could be had emerged until his remains were found one year later.

And we're talking of the search of an American icon in the mainland USA!

Now, why do I have a feeling OBL isn't about to have his swimming-pool recess come to an end?

Far from the madding crowd

 

How many Americans in 2002 knew who the President of the French Republic was? One year later he was the most hated and despised foreign politician among a majority of them. What a difference one year makes…

Because he was the one who wanted more evidence about the existence of WMDs and had the courage to oppose the hysterical urge to war of the Bush administration (bolstered by about 90% of the American media), Jacques Chirac became the paragon of treachery, deceitfulness, ungratefulness, wickedness, perversity etc. Look no further: the ultimate anti-American antichrist was French!

No matter how strongly he voiced his concern about the consequences of a war he knew America would win and how strident he was in his insistence in telling our American friends that what they were about to go into would be catastrophically detrimental to themselves, he predictably has been more vilified, despised and insulted than the real enemies of the U.S. ever were.

Yet, when we look at the history of his life, nothing, absolutely nothing, could vindicate the American accusation that he acted out of “anti-Americanism”.

He spent one year in the U.S. as a student back in 1952, worked there and wrote an essay about the New Orleans’ harbor, he speaks very good English, had the American anthem played (for the first time ever) in the courtyard of the Elysée palace when the then new American president (G. Bush) visited France in 2000 and was the first head of state to side the U.S. the day after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Following this event, he is said to have told the French secret services to share any information with their American counterparts as if they were French. Talk about being anti-American!

Although the unfolding of History has proven him right from the very beginning, it looks like America will never forgive him for having dared opposing her when she was becoming inebriated with a lust for war and death. There’s no point, it seems, trying to explain to those who hated him in the first place when he said “no”, that he certainly didn’t act out of anti-Americanism, the “concept” that is supposed to explain any dissension with Americans.

I promise I have even read on a blog and some articles in the American MSM that Chirac’s ultimate goal when opposing America was to initiate a European anti-American dynamic that eventually would lead to a new Holy Roman Empire with France at the helm! The mind boggles… 

About every accusation has been hurled at him: He was Saddam’s buddy, France was on the payroll, he was protecting French oil contracts in Iraq, he wanted to keep alive a regime to which France was eager to sell weapons etc. All this has been debunked time and again on this blog and elsewhere, there’s no need to return to it.

Even the coolest of Americans, those who opposed the war, couldn’t forgive him the effort he made on the international stage to gather enough votes in order to prevent a majority at the UN to authorize the American attack on Iraq. They will never accept, it seems, that when someone sees a friend about to commit the worst mistake ever, he will do his utmost to prevent said friend to do the irreparable.

The funny thing (sort of) is that Jacques Chirac is the least missed president of a huge majority of the French who certainly would be hard pressed to remember anything positive he made on the domestic stage but who will thank him nonetheless for the position he held during the Iraqi crisis. That may be the only thing he will ever be gratefully remembered for in France. Not exactly America’s point of view, is it?

O vanas hominum mentes, o pectora caeca!

Note: The painting is “St. Thomas”, by Georges de La Tour, Louvre, Paris.

Did Joan of Arc sail aboard the Mayflower?

When Leonard Cohen wrote a song called Joan of Arc in 1970, I was a bit puzzled that an English speaking Canadian would be interested in this rather distant French historical figure.

For sure, Joan of Arc isn't exactly an everyday object of interest in America, no more than it is in France for that matter, but nevertheless, the few opportunities I've had to meet this character mentioned in the American press or books, it looks like there's some sort of sympathy -if not mild fascination- with this 19 year old maid who contributed decisively to oust the English out of XVth century France.

Ousting the English out of some territories... Hmmm... Is that music to American ears?

Also, Joan, from the very beginning of her self appointed mission, never failed to recall she heard divine voices telling her to deliver France and that God was always her inspiration. This religious component of her story certainly contributes to the interest and respect she may enjoy among such a religious people as many Americans are.

And who would have expected the great American writer, Mark Twain, to write an imaginary biography of the French national heroin?

Now, when I come across Joan of Arc when speaking with English people or when her name is mentioned in the British literature, I can feel some uneasiness, to say the least. The less she's talked about, the better it seems.

And I was wondering if Americans in general don't make a connection between the story of Joan of Arc and their own experience of English intolerance which eventually led their ancestors to leave England and settle in the new world.

Close encounter of the third kind

 

We, French, are often told that Americans don’t really think of us and I strongly believe that. Why on earth would they? Don’t they have their own fish to fry?

Yet, hardly a week passes by without an article in any given American media about France or the French. In fact, there are many more articles about France than about any other European country or even Asian country. How the French do this or that, how they tackle such and such problems, their failure, their success, they way of living, their habits, what they like and dislike, etc…

The latest examples to date are to be found in Time and Newsweek. Americans by and large may not be much interested with France and the French but the American press, certainly is.

And here we have something rather exceptional: the apparently bemusement of “certain” Americans towards the French who, it seems, they consider as the very paradigm of strangeness. Doesn’t France appear like the ultimate foreign country, the one which didn’t deign to pay much attention to the exceptional opportunity America presented to all peoples of the world? Ain’t such attitude the very confirmation of France’s arrogance? Hence the “reasoning”: “If they’re not interested in our country it can only mean they hate us.”

The reason is simple: France being the wealthiest country in Europe during the XIXth century, very few people felt the need to immigrate to the U.S. at that time. It seems like many Americans consider this lack of French presence in the original melting pot as some sort of evidence of French aloofness and desire to set themselves apart.

To top it all, the founding value on which the American society was built, “get rich”, seems to have fairly little importance in France. 

Now, you can’t deny these differences are more than enough to feed the cliché of the French as being the people who represent the “Stranger” per se in the eyes of many, many Americans.

When you add to this a possible underlying feeling of debt vis-à-vis the country that sent Lafayette, Tocqueville and Miss Liberty to America, you begin to understand the uneasiness of the relation as experienced from the American side of the Atlantic. 

Now, to add insult to injury, the French were right about Iraq, seemingly teaching another lesson to Americans.

How not to feel there’s something uncannily special with the French which, among all their shortcomings, seem to be reluctant to any integration into the Anglo-American vision of the world. Not to mention the French’s notorious incapacity to speak English and even their apparent refusal to do so.

Going to meet them is a definitive experience, something not totally unrelated to an encounter of the third kind, really.

Note: the painting is «The meeting. Bonjour Monsieur Courbet» by Gustave Courbet (1854), Montpellier, Musée Fabre.

Sweet intoxication

 

I confess: I’m a compulsive zapper. When I bought my satellite receiver 18 years ago I wanted to get rid of the crappy French channels and have a chance to monitor foreign TVs. Since then I’ve seen the American flag about several times a day just by zapping along. No need to watch an entire program, I don’t have to wait more than a few minutes before the flag is shown somewhere in the setting. And since I see it at any given moment, it is fair to assume the flag is shown numerous times during the entire duration of said programs.

Be it on German channels (outstanding!) Italian, Spanish, Polish, and even some Arabic ones, the world dominance of American movies and serials being what it is, one cannot miss to see the Old Glory in about every flick that is coming from the US. Not to mention American news programs (CNN, CNBC) and general reports on French TVs. where we witness how omnipresent the American flag is in any place of the country. From the largest cities (millions times) to the most remote hamlets (by the dozens)., even in the middle of the Arizonian desert, the flag will be carved on the rocks or painted on the sand…

Any neutral spectator with no preconceived idea or prejudice can only conclude that the American people are immersed in a permanent state of adulation toward the national symbol of its identity and uniqueness. One may also wonder if that is the best way to open one’s mind on foreign cultures and peoples. But this is another story…

The American film industry’s first market is the domestic one so it may make sense that the producers of all these products think it is mandatory to provide the American audience with what they’ve been used to for decades. Why is there such an apparent vital need to be given one’s national flag to see at every hour of the day is also worth asking. But this is another story…

Of course the domestic market isn’t the only available one. These products are seen the world over by hundreds of million people whose mental universe, like it or not, is fed with the image of a national symbol that isn’t theirs. No matter if they don’t want to see the American flag, they can zap as long and as often as I do, there’s no way they can avoid it. One may wonder if the natural reaction to an over exposure to any foreign symbol isn’t an equally over inflated need to enhance one’s own national feeling. But this is another story…

Many Americans I guess feel comfortable with this situation and would fail to understand what’s wrong with displaying their national symbol as long and as often as they want. Well, let’s turn the table for a second and let’s imagine it’s not the American film industry which is prevalent the world over but the Chinese one. How would they feel should they be given 5, 10 times a day the opportunity to see the red Chinese flag, every single day of their lives? Should they prefer any Arabic flag? Or closer to them, what about admiring the Blue, White, Red French flag?

Rest assured, the French film industry isn’t about to surpass the American one and, besides, you will have a hard time before you can spot the French flag in any French film…

Note: The painting is “American Express Card Flag” by Andy Warhol

Revolution? Which revolution?

 

 

“I keep my mind still open to instruction, if any one will vouchsafe to bestow it on me.”

This quote by David Hume comes to mind each time I think of the word “Revolution” as used by American scholars when they discuss the American War of Independence. I simply fail to understand in which way this historical event would qualify as revolutionary.

Of course one should start by asking what a revolution is. Bringing such modifications to the course of History that the world no longer is what it used to be? 

The archetypal examples of revolutions have been the French Revolution of 1789 (the “Great Revolution” as the Soviets used to call it) followed by the Russian Revolution of 1917. 

The consequences of the French Revolution weren’t limited to France but extended to the entire world and are continuing in the present times. It was the end of the monarchy through a complete upheaval of the political, economical, sociological, religious and legal structures of the Nation. “Down with the aristocrats!” was the motto. Most importantly, the ideas that the French Revolution were based upon spilled all over Europe through the Napoleonic Wars. And the very concept of democracy as we understand it now was born during the revolutionary years of France. Peoples all over the world, be it in Asia, in Muslim countries, in Africa, etc., refer to 1789 when they press for democracy.

Now, wasn’t the American War of Independence more a war of secession from the motherland than anything else? Not even a war of independence as we would understand it today since the colonists weren’t trying to get rid of any invaders/occupiers coming from elsewhere like the Algerians or the Vietnamese did during their wars of liberation against the French?

What was the Boston tea party but an urban revolt based upon general dissatisfaction in the face of fiscal pressure? It eventually snowballed into what we know but basically the rationale was just to get rid of the fiscal abuse by the English aristocracy which was ruling from beyond the Ocean. When the American Republic came into being, it didn’t shatter the political, economical, sociological and, overall, religious structures of the Nation. Quite the opposite. 

There was no aristocracy to be freed from, the power of the Church was fundamental and remained unchallenged, exploitation of man by man (in Marxist terms) wasn’t exactly questioned (see slavery until 1863) and the notion of a Parliament was transferred from Britain where it had already been active for centuries. It looks like the same can be said from the habeas corpus concept and the system of common law which were imported from the motherland and mostly kept unchanged.

Where’s the revolution?

As to why the word “revolution” has been abused in this way (as I see it), may I suggest that this word brings with it a romantic notion of birth from nothingness that gives some legitimacy and grandeur to any historical event of some importance. The old tabula rasa syndrome so to speak. Not to belittle the importance of the War of Independence for Americans of course, but a revolution?

“I keep my mind still open to instruction, if any one will vouchsafe to bestow it on me.”

Note: the painting is “Le château des Pyrénées” by René Magritte (1959).

Tarring and feathering

 

Last month I've read two books by Mark Twain (Huckleberry and Life on the Mississippi) in which he twice refers to a form of punishment well known to Europeans through the famous cartoon character Lucky Luke. But what is less known is that there's nothing specifically American in this practice since it has been imported from England where it had been in use at least since the Middle Ages.

All the same, there doesn't seem to have been that many cases of tarring and feathering as compared to another English import: the lynching, which, incidentally was far more serious since it was a death sentence.

Both practices were never official punishments of the US State but spontaneous acts of revenge emanating from the mob. Which also helps to remind that since the early years of the colonists the American population was made up of peasants, not exactly known for their level of sophistication, as opposed to people from the cities (which is also very relative given the times). It also is a reminder of the hardship it had been to develop and install a reliable system of laws and regular jurisdictions in the US.

Hence probably, the emphasis that is given to said rule of the law in America as the ultimate symbol of a regular State. This is also probably the reason why this theme is so prevalent in so many films and serials made in the USA. To an extent that is always surprising to non-Americans.

Always the same old line

 

When Europe was being occupied by the Nazis 65 years ago, a well known mean they would resort to (and the French milice as well) was "the bathtub torture" (supplice de la baignoire).

The Gestapo needed life saving information from the terrorists (also known as résistants in French) it would say, and the bathtub torture (among others) was needed in order to protect German soldiers as well as French citizens (or any other European ones, Czech, Dutch, Pole etc. you name it) from terrorists activities. The terrorists were evil and knew no limit in the horrors they were capable of inflicting to innocent German soldiers; They had to be stopped, hence the need to get information. That was the propaganda line (like they needed one anyway...)

All over the world, there are people who endorse the death penalty and there's nothing you can do about it. Million others see no reason why torture shouldn't be applied to criminals until they die from it. What can I say? Homo homini lupus, there's a beast in our deepest selves.

Americans are not different from other peoples around the globe: many favour the death penalty as well as torture.

Now, one of the differences between dictatorships and democracies is the utter rejection by the later of practices common among the former.

The "supplice de la baignoire" (Bathtub torture) is known in English as water boarding and many Americans, I suppose, don't see what's wrong with torturing evil terrorists. But since some, with a little more education, feel there's a little hitch yet, they simply accommodate their uneasiness by denying waterboarding is torture. And the trick's done... Ain't life cool and easy?

When President G.W. Bush last week announced he will veto a bill banning water boarding and other harsh interrogation tactics etc. maybe that rang no bell among many Americans but to many Europeans it simply was a reminder of what the Nazis would do with the very same rhetoric. 

Now, we're not talking of unofficial crimes by some sort of police or undercover agents of secret services but the President of the United States himself officially acknowledging his endorsement of torture. This man has been elected twice by the American people...

Where will the moral disintegration of America eventually stop?

(No need to recall the French army practiced waterboarding in Algeria. It did and there's much to be ashamed of. And the reason was that the terrorists - known in Algeria as freedom fighters- had to give precious life saving information...)

(Written in 2008)

Play it again Sam

 

In Februar 2008 Robert Gates, American Secretary of Defence, was in Münich, attending the International Conference on Security, urging the European NATO members to increase their participation in the war effort in Afghanistan. Basically he was saying that there are terrible terrorist threats hanging over Europe and it was incomprehensible that Europeans were so blind to the impending menace.

Ah, these Europeans! How naïve and candid and irresponsible... What would they do without American's good advice and benevolent help?

The Euro sissies fail to be impressed by the huge aviation (jet fighters, helicopters, drones, missiles etc.) the navy (their aircraft carriers are formidable), the infantry, and all the most modern weaponry terrorists can rely on (slings, cell phones, Kalashnikovs etc.). And yet, they should know all these weapons could be deployed within 45 minutes and reach the heart of Europe and cause unspeakable devastation.

No, wait, that was Rumsfeld's line 8 years ago to whom Joshka Fisher, German Minister for foreign affairs, replied: "We're not convinced Mr Secretary".

Now, what could be the ultimate goal of NATO occupation of Afghanistan? To turn the local peasants into good western allies, sharing American values? Or to eradicate every single one suspected of links with someone suspected of would be terrorist activity or even sympathy for freedom fighters?

But because as far as I can see, the Afghans so far have done nothing to the US which went there in the first place to catch OBL. This goal has been discarded long ago.

Afghanistan has been invaded and has been occupied for 8 years now and you wonder why Afghans wage a war with next to no weapons against the invaders. This is really incomprehensible... Should America be invaded and occupied by a Muslim coalition, of course Americans would welcome them with music and flowers for sure.

Americans have been understandably traumatized by the 9/11 attacks to the point they've lost the most basic common sense and now wage a war against a country stuck in the beginning of the Middle Ages and present it as the ultimate threat on peace in the world.

In the mean time, just in January, there have been at least 3 shooting sprees across the US, with American citizens killing other American citizens. Notwistanding the 40.000 dead on American road every year. But that is irrelevant, imaginary terrorist attacks are likely to wipe out half the country according to the American warmongers.

Remember the announcement last year of a failed plot in New-York airport that, had it succeeded, would have caused havoc to an unprecedented scale? Hmmm? Who? How? We haven't heard any information about that since. Yeah, for security reason of course..

Hasn't the terrorist alert permanently oscillated between red and orange every single day since 9/11? Talk about mass conditioning into fear. Be scared Americans, be very scared, the Bogeyman is after you.

But I have a question here. Isn't all the American frenzy to rally allies in their insensible war on Afghanistan another smoke screen set up by the American military-industrial complex so as to bolster its activity and in the end, its turnover? Who do you think would be the ultimate recipients?

And also, isn’t' it a way to secure more American bases around the globe with Europeans gently invited to contribute to a more imperialistic hegemony of the only Superpower?

Back to the basics

A young man is reading at the terrace of a café place de la Nation in Paris, on a sunny Saturday of October 2007. Well, and then what? will you ask. There's nothing to write home about.

But wait; let's have a closer look at the book he's reading.

Now, which title do we read?

"De la démocratie en Amérique" by a certain Alexis de Tocqueville.

Please, will you notice that the young reader is holding a ball-pen which means he's studying the text, underlying what he thinks is worth memorizing etc.

I won't go in the "only in Paris" line (you could witness the same scene in Lyon, Bordeaux, or any other important French city) but at least our American friends can't accuse the French of ignorance when it comes to America and the classics of literature. Of course, not all young French read Tocqueville but this man at the terrace of the café is far from being an exception.

On average, are young Americans as aware of this classical text regarding their own country as the young Frenchman we see on this picture?

Americans and history

 

When they think of Europe, Americans often rave about the centuries of History Europeans enjoy as their common legacy. The inexhaustible bounty of artistic treasures, centuries-old villages and castles, the innumerable palaces, museums etc., can even be overwhelming. But their feeling is often that while it’s marvellous alright, it’s also… dead. It’s the past and it’s now totally irrelevant. And this is where Europeans and Americans diverge. For Europeans, while their History belongs to the past, it is certainly not dead and definitively not irrelevant. It lives on. 

So when he made his famous remark opposing Old Europe to New Europe, Donald Rumsfeld didn’t shoot at random. He knew that the relatively weak sense of History Americans have would make them rather sensitive to this jab. His aim was to disparage the French and the Germans as belonging to a world of old that makes them incapable of perceiving the true nature and the dangers of today’s world. Which of course isn’t the case of America, “the New World” by excellence in the eyes of Americans. Identifying their society with modernity as opposed to the Old World where so many of their ancestors came from in search of a better life, they are known to be always on the move, constantly perking over the skyline, aiming at the future in which they see the promises of a better life. 

Optimism, which has been identified with Americans since the Republic was founded, is probably their greatest asset. Americans, among the least thrifty people on earth have such confidence in the future that they don’t even bother to save. Why do so? Tomorrow will be better. Today is already gone. It sorts of illustrate the relationship of Americans to Time and therefore to History. Americans want actions, not endless talks. They want instant gratification. History, which they have so little of, doesn’t make sense and is “reserved” for the Europeans. Their ancestors left Europe and 2000 years of History. Now America is different and doesn’t care much about the past. And isn’t it essentially un-American to be turned to the past?

Wasn’t Rumsfeld also playing on the inferiority complex towards age-old experienced Europeans, always ready to remind Americans they are just spoiled children with no experience of life and the world? By pointing out France and Germany for belonging to “Old Europe,” wasn’t he in fact telling Americans to have no inferiority complex towards these old men? Look forward, be Americans! And look at other European countries, the good ones, the modern ones. In fact, this can be rather funny when you consider it: Italy, England, Spain (at the time…) Poland, being the new Europe…

When he made his notorious speech at the U.N. Security Council, Dominique de Villepin, the French Foreign Minister at the time, didn’t miss the opportunity to remind the world that, yes, his country was an old one, to which J. Straw, British Minister of foreign affairs, could only agree and say that his country, too, was an old one. And how! Nearly one thousand years ago, England was invaded by the Normans coming from France. Hastings, 1066! Every British citizen knows this date marking the foundation of “modern” England: the year the French arrived… 

In the Norman town of Bayeux, one can admire a tapestry woven during the years of the French invasion, both a fantastic work of art and an extraordinary witness of the conquest of England by the French. Among the fascinating details that can be admired on this nearly 70 meters (76 yards) long piece of linen, there is the one which I chose as an illustration for this post: it shows Halley’s comet, which was crossing the sky during the year 1066. Seen as a bad omen by the astrologers of the King of England (Harold II) and a good one by the French, it proved the French to be right… 

As the comet returns every 76 years, can’t that be understood as a metaphor for the enduring permanence of the past and the importance and respect any human society should devote to its History, as both France and Old Europe do. But wouldn’t that be totally un-American? 

As Plato would write: “Time is the moving image of eternity”. Not sure Rumsfeld thought about Plato when disparaging old Europe and the French…

Note: The picture is the Bayeux tapestry.

Run Mickey Mouse, run!

Trying to imply there are certain paranoid traits in the American psyche is the best way to hear back indignant outcries of indignation for the accusation. Why is any suggestion of paranoia always received as an accusation is interesting (like it were a confirmation of a paranoid mentality) but never mind... Probably everyone would have the same reaction.

Yet, the History of America could very well explain the fear mentality when the colonists were always on the watch, fear of the Indians, fear of wild Nature or of unknown beasts. But never mind...

One of the darkest periods of the US was just after WWII, when Senator Joseph McCarty became famous for his commies witch hunt. During the early 50's, the media, the politicians the FBI, the police, about everybody in America was suspecting everybody to be a hidden communist. To the point where Charlie Chaplin himself had to go into exile in Switzerland. Charlie Chaplin!!! If that isn't paranoia, then I don't know what is. How did Walt Disney manage to escape the furor of the hunters is a mystery.

Now, there was a huge power shortage last week in Florida and the authorities safely assured there was no terrorist sabotage behind the scene. Pwfff!!! Who would have thought?

This seems to be a lasting remnant of 9/11 that everyday, as soon as something unusual or unexpected happens in America, whatever the magnitude of the incident, Americans have to be told there is no terrorist motivated plan to suspect.

You tell me this is no paranoia all right, but you'd better run Mickey Mouse, you'd better run!

More of the same

As the world knows, shooting sprees are rather common in the US. So far, 5 occurrences since the beginning of the year 2008. It's none of my business to have a say on that matter of course, though I'm a little surprised by the arguments advanced by those among the Americans who advocate that:

1°) It's part of America's history and culture. Like maintaining a pattern of social relationships from the time of the colonists is something positive per se. Well, all right, this is none of my business, once again.

2°) More surprising, those people say that the best way to prevent these killings is to provide more guns and rifles to everybody so that would-be killers would think twice before attacking or could be shot before they cause too much havoc. Hmmm... Well, maybe is this argument valid in the end, what do I know?

But why not apply this very same logic to nuclear weapons? The more H bombs there will be, the safer the world also will be, won't it? So why did the US and the Ussr negotiate for years during the cold war in order to diminish the overall number of each other's nuclear warheads? Weren't these negotiations held in the name of peace? These talks even led to international disarmament treaties.

And following the same argument of providing weapons to everybody to secure everybody's security, why wouldn't the Iranians be allowed to get their nuclear bomb then? Are certain weapons the exclusive privilege of those who already possess them? Like "I have a gun and I don't want you to have one because I hold a superiority position I don't want to lose".

But wait... isn't that the mindset of thugs and criminals who indulge in mass killings?

Did I miss some part of the reasoning here?

Nation building, yeah, sure...

If there may exist a more insane war than all others the world has ever known, it has to be the one currently being waged by the West in Afghanistan. With no end in sight, Americans as well as Europeans persist in occupying a country and killing its population which have done nothing to them and didn't even think of doing anything against them.

A war that was launched in October of 2001 with one stated goal only: to get hold of one single man, possibly 2, counting Molah Omar. Yeah, a war launched to catch one single man!!! Ain't that rich?

And since then we've been brain washed into thinking the survival of the West was at stake, terrorists had to be eliminated from the surface of the earth and the only way to achieve these objectives was to stay in Afghanistan as long as it would take to finish the job and on and on and on… 

Been there before? Yeah, right, the Iraqi terrorist regime had to be put to death in order to protect civilized countries from the devilish WMDs S. Hussein was about to launch and which could reach Europe within 40 minutes! (Or was it 20?)

So far this whole madness has cost America the sum of… see here, it changes every tenth of second and soon over 2.000 casualties among all members of the NATO (which actually is meaningless in terms of war casualties)

This morning, General Secretary of the NATO, Anders F. R. Rasmussen, writes another text in the New York Times where he assures the NATO-led alliance is on the good track, there has been unexpected difficulties and more are to come but it the end everything will be fine since "our strategy" is the right one!

Each paragraph of this text is a fraud and exposes the sheer hypocrisy of the West with no ultimate responsibility of the author. The same goes of course for all the politicians who acquiesced to this war, be it Bush, Blair, Chirac and their ilk.

A text you could have read in the Pravda 30 years ago when the Russians were there in order to protect the Afghan population from anti-social forces and help it construct a democratic and vibrant democracy (Soviet style).

The arguments used by all politicians and members of the military regarding Afghanistan are copied/pasted on those used by the French and other Europeans colonists in the XIXth century! We're in your country in order to help you and facilitate your accession to a life style worth your country etc. (See "Y'a bon la France").

To make it short, we're here to help you construct a democratic and vibrant democracy (American style).

Fact is the West is in complete disarray and knows not how to withdraw without losing face and admitting it was wrong from the very first day. Main beneficiaries: the industrial-military complex, whether American or French (Thales, Dassault etc.).

I should take some time to do a research and see how all those companies have fared on the international markets since 2001…

The NATO-led alliance is in Afghanistan in order to build a nation, yeah, right… I've read that line before. For what I remember, these same nations didn't blink an eye when the Taliban regime exploded the Bâmiyân statues for example or when Afghani women had been imposed subjugative way of life upon them for centuries.

But rest assured, this war is a democratic one since it has been launched by democratic countries whose populations have democratically elected their leaders. Although said populations never elected their leaders for the purpose of waging wars, no matter what, it's democratic and the trick's done!

Ain't nation-building great?