Bdos: US to France on Haiti, "Bugger off!"

Sometimes the reflexive pro-Europeanism of the Caribbean makes a person want to puke. This is an editorial from Barbados Advocate that wavers between obsequiousness and high dudgeon that the almighty French have dissed Caricom by ignoring them in regard to Haiti. The title of the editorial is, amusingly, US spurns French kiss. De Villepin was showing tongue, I'd guess.

BE careful what, and how, you oppose. It could come back to haunt you.

However, that is too simple a face to put on Franco-American relations since the United States-led war in Iraq, and now juxtaposed to France’s request for help to quell Haiti’s spiralling violence and instability.

This is a clear dig at France, but the writer does not quite understand that French opposition to US action in Iraq has negatively affected Franco-US relations. I can't blame him cuz the French don't either. The second paragraph is rather screwy, by the way, cuz it's incomplete.

As fate would have it, Caribbean countries that also opposed the Iraq campaign are now receiving America’s approval for their efforts to try to bring at least a semblance of peace in Haiti. And France, whose position these Caribbean nations very much mirrored, is now slighting them in a very interesting way.

Hopefully, Caribbean countries exercise some more sense next time and stop listening to the idiotic Euros. Don't depend on Caricom being a sort of U.S. border to keep the Caribbean in U.S. graces. Why would the Caribbean follow the surrendering French, for goodness sake? I don't recall seeing any Caricom countries listed as recipients of Saddam's largesse as the French were.

It cannot be unknown to France that CARICOM took the initiative to meet with Haiti’s stakeholders to try to fashion some sort of solution to the worsening crisis, and also met with US Secretary of State, Mr. Colin Powell, on the issue.

That's what you get for supporting the French ... dissed! On the other hand, the U.S. has provided material assistance with crime fighting and other such.

One would think that in the process of soliciting US assistance the French government would at least be interested in what came up during the dialogue between CARICOM delegates and the world’s most powerful diplomat. Oh no! France’s Foreign Minister, Mr. Dominique de Villepin, boldly engages Mr. Powell, but with not so much as a passing reference to CARICOM’s noble, if unavailing, involvement.

Why should de Villepin? In the French view, there are two poles. The U.S. and France. The Caribbean doesn't count, so why should France talk to Caricom about a matter with which Caricom is dialoguing with the U.S.? What Caricom says doesn't matter to France or to the rest of the Euros.

We are unaware whether de Villepin has sought to elicit any such information from the CARICOM Secretariat, bearing in mind that France’s overseas departments – Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana – lie near and have many traditional cultural and social experiences in common with the mainly English-speaking CARICOM states.

This situation is all the more surprising because Haiti is a member, however prematurely, of CARICOM and its president, Mr. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, had quite recently been urged once more to work towards a system of transparent democracy.

See the previous comment. Caricom is a zero in French eyes. You don't talk to zeros when you think you're a world power. As for the U.S., consider what the difference in U.S. attitude to Caricom reveals. Imagine, the world's only hyper-power bothering to talk to bunch of nations it can have for breakfast, without breaking a sweat. That's what Caribbean countries should be noticing ... the difference between French and American attitudes to small nations.

While kissing up to the US in this hour of need, France is also making plans to deploy a peace-keeping military and police force in its former slave colony.

Who asked the French for help? Did Aristide? Did Caricom? Did the U.S.? Where is Caricom critiques of French unilateralism? Has France gone to the U.N. before doing this? Did France go to the U.N. before intervening in any of the former Francophone cocuntries in Africa? Does Caricom know that the Francophone countries are begging Bush to come to their aid cuz they don't want France? Hell, who the hell wants France, anyway?

It has been our position that the US should not become deeply involved in restoring peace and stability in Haiti. We are equally certain that France bears an overriding moral responsibility to strive for those objectives on its own or in “a coalition of the willing”, to use America’s pre-war definition of its allies on Iraq.

Have the French interventions in Africa proved so spectacularly successful that The Advocate wants the useless French to intervene? Why does this paper take the position that it does? What harm does The Advocate envision that the U.S. will do in Haiti? What coalition of the willing has France attempted to gather to aid Haiti? France did not even talk to Caricom or care what conclusions Caricom had come to with the U.S. This is serious French booty-kissing The Advocate is doing here. Why the suck up?

Such is the intensity of feeling on all sides in the region’s first black republic, however, that a quick solution seems unlikely, even if opposition forces were to achieve their aim of forcing Mr. Aristide to resign.

In this general election year, Americans are in no mood to commit to another open-ended military intervention, even if the UN approves it. This stands above any hint of vindictiveness for Mr. de Villepin’s blunt opposition on Iraq.

Message to the Caribbean: the U.S. does not ask the U.N. to approve of its actions. Get over the idea that the U.N. has any power or legitimacy or relevance that the U.S. does not give it, especially after the U.N.-Iraq-Saddam mess which revealed the U.N. to be a bungling, corrupted, selfish bunch of bureaucrats who don't give a damn about oppression and human suffering anywhere. What fantasy land are Caribbean people in when it comes to the U.N.? Also, get used to the idea that GWB does as he deems right to do, whether or not he can gain from it. The man has said that different situations require different responses.

It is sheer pragmatism, despite Washington’s warning that it will not allow Aristide’s removal by undemocratic methods.

So France has no cause for optimism that the world’s lone super-power will answer the siren call from oppressed Haitians: “You freed Iraq from dictator Saddam, now free us from dictator Aristide.”

Damned if you do and damned if you don't. One can only hope that the writer of this piece would make up his mind. Either no U.S. intervention or U.S. intervention. It seems that what the writer wants is U.S. intervention that is dictated by France and the U.N. If that is the case, then the writer must think that John F. Kerry is president of these United States.