Registered: Jul 2001
Location:
Posts: 543

French Iraq policy= Genocide and oppression for oil and money

As many in the free world protest against Pres. George Bush's bold and politicaly risky plan to bring American style democracy, liberty, justice and prosperity to the middle East, they in turn applaud France for standing up to the US. What the protestors fail to acknowledge in their one-sided, emotionaly charged ignorance is that France is against the liberation of the Iraqi people mainly because France has a huge financial interest in the continued oppression of Iraq and the continued tyranny of Saddam Hussein. Read on.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2757797.stm

Opinion polls show almost 80% of people in France are against a US-led war against Iraq.

Many of those see American military and economic aims in Iraq as one and the same thing.

America's critics claim that America's policy on Iraq is driven by its appetite for oil.

But could similar claims be made about France?

Power games

During the late 1970s, French companies started work on the Tamuz One nuclear reactor near Baghdad - designed to produce plutonium - and on a second reactor, Tamuz Two.


Mr Chirac has extensive links with Baghdad
The first was destroyed by Israeli fighter bombers in 1981.

During the Iran-Iraq war, France was soon supplying Iraq with top level military hardware of its own.

All told, France sold some $25bn-worth of weaponry to Iraq before the UN embargo was imposed after the Gulf War.

A report commissioned by the French parliament published last September puts the value of French exports to Iraq since sanctions were imposed at $3.5bn.

Agnes Levallois, a specialist in business in the Middle East, cites the example of French pharmaceutical firms, all of whom she says sell antibiotics and other basic medicines in Iraq.

Oil the spur

In July 2001, when relations chilled, Saddam froze these companies' contracts, but renewed them once diplomatic relations thawed.

Even in 2001, France sold Iraq $650m-worth of goods, more than any other country, and was the Western country with the largest number of stands at last November's Baghdad Trade Fair.

But above all, the French are interested in Iraqi oil.

Nicolas Sarkis, of Arab Oil and Gas magazine, says France's state-controlled TotalFinaElf is poised to win contracts to drill the largest unexploited oil reserves in the world.

Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi banker who presides the Iraqi National Council - the American-backed organisation supposed to bring democracy to a post-Saddam Iraq - has said that American firms will be given a "preponderant role".

If war is unleashed on Iraq, it will not only be a blow to French diplomacy but to French industry as well.

By John Laurenson

end article

One who says "America wants to wage war in Iraq so they can get the oil," but fails to also say, "France opposes war in Iraq o France can get the oil" is a fool and a hypocrite.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Sep 2001
Location: ........
Posts: 15003

France has it's own invasion plans for Iraq?

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35656

In the UK, 80% of people are against invasion without UN sanction (down from 89%, woohoo!); just over half are in favour with UN sanction (I don't understand why it isn't higher than that).

France is certainly open to the same sort of accusations as the US is over this (profiteering and cynicism). Or to look at it another way, the US is certainly open to the same sort of accusations as France is over this (profiteering and cynicism).

Chacun a son gout.

Last edited by Smug Git on 03-11-2003 at 10:15 PM

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: A New England
Posts: 9187

quote:

---

Originally posted by skalie
France has it's own invasion plans for Iraq?

---

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: zanzibar
Posts: 10477

Total confident of Iraq position.
232 words
21 February 2003
The Herald
27
English
(c) 2003 SMG Newspapers Ltd.

TOTALFinaElf threw down the gauntlet to US rivals eyeing Iraq's vast oil reserves, saying yesterday it was confident of winning its share of oil deals there despite France's opposition to a US-led war in Iraq.

The remarks came as the world's fifth-largest oil group reported a 13% rise in fourth-quarter profit that came in slightly below expectations. However, it reaffirmed its target of 5% annual growth in output to 2007 in contrast with rivals BP and Shell, which have both cut output forecasts in the last two years. With more than 10 years of experience of negotiating with Iraq, Total is seen as France's top candidate to win business deals there if and when sanctions are lifted. Thierry Desmarest, chief executive of Total, conceded that the French government's policy could make the company's position "more complicated", but said it was confident of winning deals if Total were based on an equal footing with its rivals. Total said fourth-quarter net income before exceptionals rose to e1.6bn ((pounds) 1.07bn), from (pounds) 950m a year ago, as higher crude prices offset the impact of a weaker US dollar. However, net income for the full year fell 17% to (pounds) 4.2bn, undermined by poor European refining margins and a (pounds) 335m provision for the economic crisis in Argentina.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35656

Indeed, if we aren't carving up Iraq's oil wealth to suit ourselves and are allowing the Iraqi people to seek the deal that offers best value to them, then TOTAL should be fine (and, indeed, fina)(and elf), competing as they will be on a level playing field.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Apr 2001
Location: 0.50
Posts: 9355

i would think most here are sufficiently cynical or whatever to not trust france any more than they do the US. i don't think anyone sees this as france's attempt to bring french-style democracy, liberty, justice and prosperity to the middle east.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jun 2002
Location: Just to the right of the moon
Posts: 3141

Aha

I see that egomaniacal, reactionary prick Itch has resurfaced

Delighted to have you back

How was your stint torturing liberal babies and boycotting caemembert. Fulfilling?

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: zanzibar
Posts: 10477

Also:

quote:

---

Originally reported by Reuters:

Russia, which has opposed unilateral military action against Iraq, has expressed concerns that if Washington takes military action to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, millions of dollars in contracts signed between Moscow and Baghdad would be deemed moot, allowing Western and U.S. companies to profit instead.

Iraq also owes Russia $8 billion to $12 billion in Soviet-era debt.

---

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: zanzibar
Posts: 10477

In any case, even if its a given that it is about oil and business for all sides, which is better? Supporting a murderous dictator to ensure contracts, or toppling the dictator and opening the market?

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: zanzibar
Posts: 10477

Oh, and I should stipulate that I didn't read the first post, so I don't mean to say the French are genocidal, I just think the opposition is as much motivated by oil and business as the US/UK side.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35656

quote:

---

Originally posted by DevilMoon

In any case, even if its a given that it is about oil and business for all sides, which is better? Supporting a murderous dictator to ensure contracts, or toppling the dictator and opening the market?

---

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Oct 2001
Location:
Posts: 18142

Check out this rant by George F. Will

"We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation's security."

-- President Kennedy, during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

WASHINGTON -- Wars do not always begin with an abrupt, cymbal-crash rupture of conditions properly characterized as peace. There can be almost seamlessly incremental transitions.

The war against Iraq has begun -- much as America's war against Nazi Germany really began months before Pearl Harbor and Hitler's Dec. 11 declaration of war on America. It began when President Roosevelt ordered aggressive patrolling by the U.S. Navy against German submarines in the North Atlantic. On -- note the day -- Sept. 11, 1941, he said:

"Do not let us split hairs. Let us not say, 'We will only defend ourselves if the torpedo succeeds in getting home, or if the crew and the passengers are drowned.' This is the time for prevention of attack."

The Second Gulf War was under way weeks ago, with special operations forces in Iraq and U.S. and U.K. aircraft expanding their target lists in the name of enforcing the no-fly zones. Soon the bow wave created by the movement of the great ship America into full-scale war will wash away Lilliputian nuisances, such as French diplomacy.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, on ABC's "This Week" last Sunday, said: "Do you want me to tell you, really, what France is worried about? How many boys, American boys, are going to die in Iraq." The effrontery of his expectation that gullible Americans will believe that French policy flows from compassion for American "boys" is exceeded by that of his innuendo that France has more concern for those "boys" than does their commander in chief.

Such smarminess is the least offensive of current French stances, some of which, if successful, would increase the threats to American troops. No longer in any meaningful sense an ally, France does not disguise its aim to be a counterweight to the United States. It seemed uninterested in the fact that the deployment of defensive missiles to protect Turkey from Iraqi attacks, a deployment France opposed, also would protect U.S. forces at Incirlik air base in Turkey.

Many in the Bush administration believe that France is comprehensively complicating NATO actions for no better reason than that the United States favors the actions. For example, because the buildup around Iraq requires increased shipping through the Strait of Gibraltar, the United States has favored increased NATO maritime patrols there. Although France in the end acquiesced, it did so only after NATO was forced into diplomatic and institutional contortions to counter French bloody-mindedness.

Asked about anti-French feelings in the United States, Villepin said, "We've known that in the past. I've known that in the past. I was in the French embassy (in Washington) in '86 when happened the crisis of Libya." Thank you, Mr. Minister, for reminding us that in 1986 France, true to form, tried to encumber one of the most effective blows ever struck against terrorism -- the bombing raid President Reagan ordered in response to Libyan involvement in a terrorist bombing targeting Americans in Berlin. France denied U.S. planes fly-over rights.

On "This Week," Villepin was asked: Given that Saddam Hussein has said that his mistake was invading Kuwait before he acquired nuclear weapons, do you now believe that Israel was right to bomb the reactor outside Baghdad and that France was wrong to help build it? French diplomacy has sunk to this Villepin gaseousness:

"I think you cannot remake history. You can take lessons, you can imagine different scenarios. I don't think it's possible, today, definite answers. I think that the idea of pre-emptive strike might be a possibility. Have it as a doctrine, as a theory. I don't think it is really useful. Sometimes by using force pre-emptively we might create more violence and we have to be always thinking to what are the consequences."

It is not a "scenario," it is a virtual certainly that absent Israel's 1981 pre-emptive attack, Iraq would have had nuclear weapons in 1991, and today, as Gerard Baker of the Financial Times writes, Kuwait would be the 19th province of Iraq -- and Saudi Arabia would be the 20th. France's goal -- less violence -- would have been achieved because the First Gulf War could not have been fought.

Fortunately for the United States, which has serious things to think about, the French foreign minister continues to demonstrate the absurdity of his country's demand to be taken seriously.

__________________

[Ignore Sig]

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35656

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mugtoe

Thank you, Mr. Minister, for reminding us that in 1986 France, true to form, tried to encumber one of the most effective blows ever struck against terrorism -- the bombing raid President Reagan ordered in response to Libyan involvement in a terrorist bombing targeting Americans in Berlin.

---

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Oct 2001
Location:
Posts: 18142

smug - short words and an insult to the french ever paragrah

smug - paragraph

smug - I can cope with that

Mugtoe - the french still suck, however

Mugtoe - even if it's fashionable to think so

Mugtoe - this is where you say, "Indeed"

Mugtoe - or *chortle*

Sabine - lol?

smug - indeedily

smug - 'lol' is gay

smug - gayer than mugtoe with a bagfull of dicks

smug - bag full, that is

smug - absolutely, the french are awful, but it is important to hate them for the right reasons and I get the impression that the people making these stupid jokes that were probably originally said about some other nation anyway haven't met many french people

smug - you have to get to the actual point

smug - english people are boorish uncultured whiners, americans are fat vain idiots, french are supercilious arrogant poofs

Mugtoe - you really are marvelous. have I told you that recently?




that was so edifying, I had to post it

__________________

[Ignore Sig]

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2001
Location:
Posts: 543

quote:

---

Originally posted by funkyrooster
Aha

I see that egomaniacal, reactionary prick Itch has resurfaced

Delighted to have you back

How was your stint torturing liberal babies and boycotting caemembert. Fulfilling?

---

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2001
Location:
Posts: 543

quote:

---

Originally posted by DevilMoon
In any case, even if its a given that it is about oil and business for all sides, which is better? Supporting a murderous dictator to ensure contracts, or toppling the dictator and opening the market?

---

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35656

quote:

---

Originally posted by Itch
This is absolutely right. Its kinda funny how the French side seems to reflect the idea of profit and good business through keeping dictators propped up (neo-colonialism) and the US reflects the idea of profit and good business through toppling dictators. I'd have to say the US does better business in this regard.

---

Last edited by Smug Git on 03-13-2003 at 09:22 AM

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Mar 2003
Location: Southeast Iowa
Posts: 6

Lets see how well I understand everything I've been reading so far.

France, Russia and other powers comdemn the American advance on Hussein's Iraq, accusing them of material interests in Iraq's oil. While France is basically doing the same thing, only instead of using military force to get the oil, they are buddying up to them, helping and supplying them in order to get good deals in return. Russia on the other hand has alot of deals with Iraq dating from the Soviet years, including a $8-12 billion dollar debt Iraq owes. If Iraq's government was deposed, it would nullify French efforts as well as Russian.

So in other words, its like a bunch of bullies fighting over who gets the crippled kid's lunch money?

It's interesting to me, to see how these powers are manipulating each other. At the same time, its pitiful in a disgusting sort of way. To me, this only reflects how people as individuals are constantly screwing each other over for their own gain.

I'm working on developing my own political views, so I'll be posting a bit like this, putting things in my own words to see how well I understand them.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Location Location
Posts: 26415

Sounds about right to me, Syven.

Welcome!

Feel free to put into words any politcal stuff you like. God knows it will make more sense than Smug's stuff (though, as a matter of policy, it can not be directly contrary to Smug's stuff. Being directly contrary to Smug's stuff will get you banned.)

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35656

My 'stuff' may not make sense to the intellectual pygmys of Farmington, Maine, but it is true, godamnit.

Anhow, hey there hatabax.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged