Chirac to Bush mind your own business!

The shrub keeps trying to interfere in other nations internal affairs, and keeps being told the same thing.

Damned straight . . .

Wilso
Is the EU a nation?IMO It is entirely proper for him to comment and give his opinion. And the response of Chirac is uncalled for. But you can always depend on the French.

You can always depend on the French irritating Au simply by getting out of bed in the morning. It's none of the Shrub's damned business, and kudos to Chirac for telling him so publicly.

Ask yourself how Americans typically react to European comments on the affairs of the United States in particular, or North America in general.

Yes. It is my favorite nation and has been so since De Gaulle.

I bet you were really overjoyed when ol' Charlie showed up in Québec, and told them:

Vive le Québec libre!

That ol' boy was a corker, that's for sure . . .

He did the best he could to divide Canada. But that is for the Canadians to worry or not worry over.

Ironically, after De Gaulle was elected, he took immediate steps to crush the OAS, the Secret Army Organization, which opposed the withdrawal from Algeria. They tried to assassinate him. Six members of the air force officer corps were convicted and guillotined for that. De Gaulle coopted the power of the extreme right in France by outlawing the OAS at the same time as he "expelled" the Americans.

Consider for a moment, though, if you will: France was our ally in the Second World War, ostensibly at the least. Why should they be occupied by American troops if they did not wish it? I often suspect the antipathy toward the French results from them having de gaul to express independent opinions . . .

de gaul . . . heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee . . .


I crack me up . . .

What is your opinion about Germans?

No comment!!

I will just say there is no room in my heart for forgiveness of the Holocaust. And I refuse to believe that the German people were not aware and part of the program.

Right.

Bush rebuff to Chirac over Turkey
Tuesday, June 29, 2004 Posted: 1:24 PM EDT (1724 GMT
ISTANBUL, Turkey (CNN) -- U.S. President George W. Bush has repeated a call for the European Union to admit Turkey, despite criticism by France's President Jacques Chirac that he was meddling in EU affairs.

Bush said Tuesday that Turkey belongs in the EU and that Europe is "not the exclusive club of a single religion" in what amounted to a rebuff to the French leader.

In an address at Istanbul university, Bush refused to back down in the face of Chirac's criticism that Bush had no business urging the EU to set a date for Turkey to start entry talks into the union.

He said that Turkey was moving rapidly to meet the criteria for EU membership.

"America believes that as a European power, Turkey belongs in the European Union," Bush said.

Turkey was a bridge to the wider world, Bush said.

"Your success is vital to the future of progress and peace in Europe and in the broader Middle East," he said.

He said that Turkish EU membership would be a "crucial advance" in relations between the Muslim world and the West because Turkey was part of both.

The main message in the U.S. President's speech was a bid to mend relations between Muslims and Americans that were left tattered by the Iraq war.

"We must strengthen the ties and trust and good will between ourselves and the peoples of the Middle East," he said.

Bush held up Turkey as an example of a Muslim democracy.

"Including Turkey in the EU would prove that Europe is not the exclusive club of a single religion, and it would expose the 'clash of civilizations' as a passing myth of history," Bush said.

Chirac took Bush to task Monday over his call for Turkey's admission to the European Union.

"If President Bush really said that in the way that I read, then not only did he go too far, but he went into territory that isn't his," Chirac said of a remark Bush made over the weekend.

"It is is not his purpose and his goal to give any advice to the EU, and in this area it was a bit as if I were to tell Americans how they should handle their relationship with Mexico."

Turkey has been keen to use this week's two-day NATO summit in Istanbul to showcase its credentials as a westward-looking democracy before December, when EU leaders decide if it has met the political criteria to be put on the formal road to EU membership.

Countries such as Germany, Italy and Britain strongly back Ankara's bid, but Chirac's government has expressed wariness about kicking off a formal process to admit the relatively poor country of 70 million people.

Bush's verbal spat with Chirac threatened again to upset relations with France, which leaders on both sides of the Atlantic had been working to mend.

Chirac was one of the most outspoken critics of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, but France recently approved a U.S.-backed U.N. resolution recognizing the new Iraqi authority.

World > Terrorism & Security
posted June 30, 2004, updated 12:45 p.m.

The transatlantic rift

Bush and Chirac's disagreements at NATO summit show wounds haven't healed.

by Matthew Clark | csmonitor.com


Much time has passed since the transatlantic rift - epitomized by the opposing positions France and the US held on whether to invade Iraq - reached a fever pitch in the leadup to the war. But, despite a much heralded show of unity during the G-8 summit at Sea Island, Ga. in the US, the June 28-29 NATO summit in Istanbul was a reminder that relations between the US and France are still strained. The sharpest disagreements in months between French President Jacques Chirac and US President George W. Bush were on full display in Turkey. News sources from around the world reminded readers of the tense state of affairs between the traditional allies. Referring to the D-Day commemorations in France, the G-8 summit, last weekend's American-EU talks in Ireland, and the NATO summit, The Sydney Morning Herald wrote:
"Clashes between George Bush and Jacques Chirac have brought a sour end to a series of recent high-profile gatherings of European and US leaders which were supposed to finally heal the transatlantic rift caused by the Iraq war."

The Herald reports that the two presidents marked the end of the summit by "openly and undiplomatically disagreeing over the alliance's role in Iraq and Afghanistan and Turkey's proposed admission to the European Union."
Reuters reports that Chirac "crossed swords with Washington ... demonstrating that Franco-US relations are still at best lukewarm...."
[Chirac] missed no opportunity to needle the United States during the alliance's summit in Istanbul, souring a mood of rediscovered amity more than a year after bitter divisions over the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.
The Guardian reports that Chirac "undermined hopes of burying transatlantic disagreements when he insisted he was 'entirely hostile' to any NATO presence in Iraq, which he warned would be 'dangerous and counterproductive.'"
Chirac also resisted pressure from the US and pleas from Afghan president Hamid Karzai to send some NATO troops to Afghanistan to boost security ahead of Afghanistan's elections in September. Although NATO leaders pledged to boost the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from its current 6,500 troops to 10,000, France refused the call to send the NATO Response Force (NRF) to Afghanistan. "The NRF is not designed for this. It shouldn't be used just for any old matter," said Chirac.
US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warned that opposition to deploying the NRF "could be circumvented by taking a decision in a forum which excludes France," reports The Guardian.
At the end of the summit Bush restated US support for Turkey's admission to the EU, despite the fact that Chirac had publicly rebuked him a day earlier for becoming involved in European affairs. Bush said Tuesday that Turkey belongs in the EU and that Europe is 'not the exclusive club of a single religion', in what the Straits Times of Singapore said "amounted to a rejection of [Chirac]."
On Monday Chirac suggested that Bush may have overstepped his boundaries in his saying that Turkey should be an EU member.
If President Bush really said that the way I read it, well, not only did he go too far but he went into a domain which is not his own. ... It is like me trying to tell the United States how it should manage its relations with Mexico.
Speaking of France's relationship to the US, Chirac said: "We are friends and allies but we are not servants. ... When we don't agree we don't say so aggressively, but in a firm manner."
New York Times columnist William Safire asserts that Chirac's moves are isolationist and suggests that France wants the situation in Iraq to worsen in order that it might justify France's "profitable protection" of Saddam Hussein's regime.
I was profoundly mistaken about how far into isolation this former ally would go. Evidently Chirac finds political salvation in being openly and contemptuously anti-Bush. He has placed all of his nation's diplomatic chips on the defeat of Bush in November.
Chirac takes that gamble because he is afflicted with certitude about this: if freedom fails in Iraq, France's long and profitable protection of Saddam will somehow be justified.

The Herald reports that "the US plan to push for an increased NATO presence in Afghanistan irrespective of the French is likely to set the scene for further transatlantic clashes in the coming months and may further slow efforts by several countries to repair relations between Washington and Brussels."
Meanwhile, in Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair "says he worries NATO's efforts against international terrorism are still not strong enough," reports the BBC.

Oh what a conundrum. I find myself in the unusual situation of agreeing with both Bush and Chirac. How uncomfortable.

That is truly unfortunate. The fact is that murder and exploitation of others are facts of the history of nearly every nation and people. We once held the illusion that modern societies were not capable of such things. We now have innumerable examples that remind us that this was an illusion. From the greater slaughters of Stalin and Mao to the French treatment of Algerians, the many worse examples in post colonial Africa, to American treatment of Indians, and even to some aspects of israeli treatment of Palestinians, we must know that these things are a part of the human condition.

good point, mate. you cant blame every single german for the rest of eternity for a horrible deed committed by only those high up in the national socialist party.

melbournian cheese
I take issue with your statement that the horrible deeds were committed by only those high up in the NAZI party.

Interesting you would say that about Germany,because this is exactly how I think others around the world look at Americans. With a wide brush they assume we all back Bush and his invasion of Iraq.

Just something to think about.