Article copy
WARNING. I'll be short: it's a bit longRoger L. Simon was wondering recently what Merde in France and myself were thinking about the French government's latest move into the Fantastic World of Fatuity.
Oh. Drat.
Looks like I just revealed my intimate conviction on that question, right away in my opening statement. Clumsy me.
I guess that, as a professional mystery novel writer, Roger will never forgive me for ruining the plot of the post so bluntly.
Anyway Before we can have a look at the French Government's disappointment with the unsporting and anonymous vicious US Hawks and the anti-French slander they distill to the obsequious (and vicious too) US press, let's have a look, like Merde in France has ♠ been ♠ doing over the past days, at the French conception of information, when it comes to the United Sates.
After all, maybe Dominique Galouzeau [de Villepinř (Patent Pending)] is right, maybe we're being absolutely honest and fair, and maybe we're being the victims of an "ugly campaign to destroy the image of France" by
In case there is something left to destroy of the image of France after more than 30 years of social-mediocracy, corruption and underhanded statism over here, of course.
Considering that Merde in France has been very effective to expose the TV and printed press shameless propaganda and gratuitous trashing, I, for once, decided to focus on information via radio broadcasts.
To be fair, I had to choose a state owned and state ran radio station like, for instance, Radio-France.
To be honest, when it comes to information via radio broadcasts, there is not really another choice anyway.
So let's have a look at The Voice of ChIraq's special coverage of the "USA-Iraq conflict", as they put it.
I'm sure you already appreciated the fact that right from the beginning, the Coalition is dismissed and that 45 countries suddenly cease to exist, as far as Radio-France and Iraq are concerned.
But of course, it's just the beginning.
Go to Radio-France's USA-Iraq War dossier home page.
Can't read French? Don't worry, you don't need to.
Look at the banner.
Look at the picture on the right of the banner.
Look at George W. Bush.
Look at Saddam Hussein.
Try to put yourself in the shoes of an interstellar traveler coming from some distant galaxy or those of the average Radio-France listener (i.e. somebody with little knowledge on the subject at hand, if any) and tell me who the good guy is.
Wrong. It's not the good-natured and well groomed fellow with a smile. You lost, sorry.
Oddly enough, it's the other guy, the one who's obviously shooting or at least speaking very aggressively, waving his hands and furrowing his brow, with a tank behind him threatening the genial chap who did nothing but massacre two millions people.
But of course, since you're coming from a very distant galaxy, there's no way you can tell.
Let's have a look at the content now.
You don't read French because you're one of those
">actu" stands for "actual event". The actual event in Iraq for Radio-France is, according to the title, the "slowness of reconstruction".
That's a crafty hint at the idea of "quagmire" which, for the interstellar travelers among you, is some kind of myth in France, at the dawn of the XXIst century, that probably takes root into France's projection of her own political, military and diplomatic weakness.
An entertaining anecdote: I just reloaded the page in my browser, which updated the day-old information in the cache.
The actual event for Radio-France-Iraq is now "winded reconstruction amidst contestation".
I guess any comment is superfluous.
Before we dig deeper in the dossier, I will give you 30 seconds to notice that under the "Enjeux" (Wagers) section of the ">Repères" (References) column, the first term in the abstract is "Pétrole" (Oil).
Just in case you would still have doubts about the main motive of this war, of course.
Now, have a look at the "Portraits" link. Ignore the fact that the one up front is Saddam's (this is just a demonstration of French pettiness) and learn that Donald Rumsfeld is
one of the worse despotsHenry Kissinger ever met, that he is in love with "order and might", that Colin Powell is "responsible for "selling" the idea of a hard-to-avoid conflict" (consequently, one fails to understand why it would be necessary to send Colin Powell "selling" it) while Cheney and Rumsfeld are pulling the strings in the wings.
Moreover, Radio-France concludes Dick Cheney's portrait with what she probably takes as a valid counter argument to Mr. Cheney's declarations on the links between Saddam and Al Qaeda: a quote of the (Saddam era) Iraqi press.
The Babel newspaper reports:
America's oil needs are in increasing augmentation (sic) and the Bush administration can't ignore or dismiss Iraq's reserve, one of the most important in the world.If I was a cowboy, I would tell that to my horse, I guess.
You'll also learn that Condoleezza Rice educated George W. Bush to international politics "during the electoral campaign" but most of all, that she was born in a southern town:
plagued by racial segregation, where Martin Luther King was imprisoned after a manifestation. At the age of 9, a bomb posed by the Klu Klux Klan in a church killed four little girls, including a classmate of Condoleezza, witness of discrimination in a town governed by the "Jim Crow" laws that divide white and black people.I'm suddenly wondering: could the very fact that this unfortunate victim and witness of segregationism became the closest female advisor of the president of the incriminated nation be significant to the proud ideologist fighting against racial discrimination who produced this faithful portrait?
Anyway, this information is worth mentioning of course. It's probably terribly relevant when it comes to the Iraqi crisis and Condoleezza Rice's role within the Bush Administration.
For the rest, the reader can still follow the link to Condoleezza Rice's page on the White House's website, helpfully provided by Radio-France.
Too bad it's in English, but the average reader doesn't need to know anything more anyway.
You will also learn that George W. Bush, before 9/11 was nothing but a:
domestic and international politics novice, an improperly elected president, without a real vision for his country and whose primary attribute was to be the son of the 41st president of the United States, George Bush.Radio-France disowns this depiction by quoting a so-called "large amount of American political experts" The tremendous quantity being probably the reason why Radio-France does not care to mention their names.
Be advised eventually that the son of the 41st American president had a "chaotic yet lucrative course in the oil business where he used the full extend of his father's financial and influential network", (Where would we be without Daddy huh?) and that he was elected as governor of Texas because he bought the Texas Rangers baseball team.
He was then "pushed" by Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney to "place the Iraqi danger at the heart of his discourse" and was "rewarded" in November 2002 when the Congress authorized the use of force.
Radio-France concludes:
for many people, George W. Bush's intimate vision of the Iraqi case is conditioned by his father's. The later never hid his regret for not eliminating the Iraqi dictator, even though he financially supported and equipped Saddam Hussein's regime, to the very eve of the United States war against Iraq in 1991.And of course, just as the "numerous American political experts" these "many people" are just too many to be named.
Come back Horse. We're not finished talking.
Now you can have a look at the "And why the War?" special dossier, if you like. (Although I guess, you've probably had enough by now).
Check the "Presentation", if you like:
Ineluctable yet without any clearly identifiable motive, the war engaged by president G.W. Bush against Iraq still triggers numerous questions. Waged against the advice of the U.N.S.C.'s majority and despite worldwide public opinions' contestation, this American enterprise puts the already precarious world equilibrium at risk.Radio-France then announces she will "examine the incidences of the bellicose American initiative"Ņ Enough already?
Check the "liens" (links) if you like: "Poets against the war", "Writer's call against the war in Iraq", the UNESCO "Let's cultivate peace", "Movement for Peace", "Old pacifism, new war", "Alliance" peace forum, "Not in our name" or even "United for Peace", almost jubilantly described as "anti-war and anti-Bush" Enough already?
Check the recommended books if you like. See that Radio-France suggests you read Tarek Aziz's interviews, next toŅ Scott Ritter's "War with Iraq: interview with William Pitt Rivers" Enough already?
To complete this journey into the French's mundane dimension of misinformation and anti-American propaganda, check Radio-France's archives and see how exactly the recent war was covered.
We could go digging around for hours, and still, we would never find anything else than false information, rumors, phony individuals and biased organisms that all have been exposed for what they are, already.
Scott Ritter? "Not in our Name"? Where did I park my horse again?
And for Christ's sake, Tarek Aziz is one of the Baath'ist Nazis!
In a mail exchange, Roger L. Simon told me that he "knows something of disinformation campaigns and how they work".
I hope Roger will give me his opinion on Radio-France's "USA-Iraq war" dossier.
This could very well be ANSWER's French affiliate, however, it's just the official French national, state owned radio station; her own local affiliates are relaying it down to the most secluded area of the French countryside.
In fact, it's basically the only - at least in terms of audience - information radio broadcast in France.
If you add to that the complacency and unanimous alignment of the printed and televisual press, you end up, hardly noticing, with a "light" totalitarianism that lies to its entire people and to itself as well.
The Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf syndrome, so to speak.
It is therefore, highly laughable to see France complaining over a denigration campaign when she has been using calumny and mendacity as a committed substitute to information.
Consequently, we could just kid around with this preposterous initiative of Dominique Galouzeau [de Villepinř (Patent Pending)]'s staff but we would be neglecting his real disturbance abilities.
Indeed, I'm not convinced that Dominique "My name is not fully registered yet" Galouzeau's goal is to wash the offense and heal the honor of the old Lady since, after all, who would care about France's image? America, Great Britain, Israel and the nations in the Coalition know too well what's going on and the thugs France hang out with at the UN don't care about public image anyway.
On the very contrary.
However, in her permanent quest to justify her own incompetence, her own morale and political bribery and the piteous upshots they lead her to, France is always looking for some imaginary unfair, cagey and uncontrollable external causes that she would blame, whenever possible, on some mightier entity, according to her attraction to sadomarxist fetichism and the postcolonial alibi of choice for every patent collectivist failure: we're Victims of the Potents Who are Plundering the World.
To that respect and once again, what could be better than a country able to lead and win a war, turning upside down every acknowledged preconception in that matter, limiting civilian and military casualties in proportions never achieved before and in half the time that's needed to fulfill half the administrative requirements to register a small business in France?
To that respect and once again, what could be better than America's conspiracy to try to justify France's mediocrity?
At the risk of repeating myself, my fellow Frenchmen would do well to exert more watchfulness when the people governing them resort systematically to the use of international causes to explain the domestic slump they created.
In recent history, such practices always lead the European country using them to their doom.
That said, judging by Radio-France's conception of information, I guess some things are worth repeating after all.
Comments
Comments thread (12)
69 - Douglas
Douglas
70 - Le blogographe
Le blogographe
71 - vin
vin
72 - Valerie
Valerie
73 - vincent
vincent
74 - Damian Bennett
Damian Bennett
75 - Fenway Nation
Fenway Nation
76 - YozZ, a french
YozZ, a french
77 - the dissident frogman
the dissident frogman France
...
And even if the article from radiofrance isnt the best exemple of objectivity (...)
Thanks for the confirmation.
"If you're happy and you know it, clunk your chains."
Now what would be the "best example of objectivity" I wonder...
I dare you to find one.
78 - YozZ
YozZ