[Culturechat] In Defense of our French Allies

[WesTexas@aol.com]

Chirac's Errant Course Raises Fears in His Party (3/4/03 WSJ, Page A-15)

The captioned column is by George Melloan.  Brief excerpts follow.  For what 
it's worth, I think that Chirac is primarily concerned that his involvement 
with Hussein's nuclear program is going to be fully exposed, which would--at 
a minimum--destroy what's left of his political career.  Jeffrey Brown

<<Mr. Chirac is losing support from his own political party (UMP), which 
holds a majority of seats in the French National Assembly.  Le Monde reported 
that party leader Alain Juppe and other leading members had warned their 
president against a veto of any American (Security Council) resolution.   

Said Pierre Lellouche, "You don't fool around with your veto right in the 
knowledge that there can be a war tomorrow that the Americans, our allies,  
are involved in.  We're not going to shoot them in the back."  Mr. Lellouche 
said the majority of the UMP parliamentary delegation agrees with him.  

The power of the left is in decline in French and throughout Europe, so Mr. 
Chirac, for all his political cleverness, has put himself on the wrong side 
of history.  The left hates America because they see American ideas, 
particularly free-market democracy, as the source of their decline.>>