Smart Diplomacy: A French Presidential Candidate Vows to Valiantly Fight the American Empire and Bring the World Out From Under Its Domineering Shadow

It's not much longer than a filler, but the Le Monde piece by Gilles Paris has a chilling description of the foreign views of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose "leftist" (communistic) front, le Front de Gauche, may surpass Marine Le Pen's Front National during the first round of the French presidential elections to become the third-largest party in France.

A new Internationale, an "Internationale of the pavement", is the diplomatic project of Mélenchon, whose world vision begins (and ends) with the United States, "the primary problem in the world", what with "their 700,000 troops present on five continents". With the fight against terrorism or the cause of Tibet being only — deliberate — distractions to distract the populace (for in Mélenchon's viewpoint, only Palestine is a worthy cause), it is against America's "multiform" domination — from the Chicago School to NATO — that he wants to go into battle and take the world out from under the shadow of the United Statesian Empire.

(Oh, and keep in mind — this is during the friendly, peaceful reign of Barack the Redeemer, aka He Who Would Repair the Mistakes of Bush the Clueless and Make the World Come Together Thanks to His Smart Diplomacy.)

The New York Times' Maïa de la Baume and Steven Erlanger have a report on Mélenchon on the front page of the International Herald Tribune:

They sang “The Internationale,” carried red flags and shouted “Resistance!” They booed whenever the word “rich” was pronounced, and they applauded when their leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, called the far right “professional racists” and the Socialist candidate “a pedal-boat captain.”

… Mr. Mélenchon is now running third in many polls for the French presidential elections this month.

With the first round of voting two weeks away, the far left is running just ahead of the far right of the National Front and its candidate, Marine Le Pen. Together, those on both wings of the French spectrum, who share strong criticism of globalization and the European Union, could take 30 percent or more of the vote in a race with 10 candidates, which would be more than either President Nicolas Sarkozy or the Socialist candidate, François Hollande, the two front-runners.

And how the voters on the so-called fringe choose to cast their ballots in the second-round runoff on May 6 is likely to decide the race.

… He once confessed that he was bored in Brussels and dreamed of creating a French equivalent of the German Die Linke, a hard-left party rooted in the old East German Communist party. He has defended the Chinese repression over Tibet, admires Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and has called the United States “the first problem of the world,” criticizing what he considers to be America’s malign military hegemony.

And the original text from the Le Monde article by Gilles Paris:

LE BILLET

L'ombre de l'empire américain

Jeter à la rivière le clivage classique entre atlantistes et gaullo-mitterrandistes, au profit d'une " Internationale du pavé " - celui qui finit par voler après avoir été longtemps battu -, tel est le projet diplomatique de Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Sa vision du monde part des Etats-Unis, " premier problème du monde " avec " leurs 700 000 hommes de troupes présents sur cinq continents ". C'est contre leur domination multiforme - de l'Ecole de Chicago à l'OTAN -, étendue à une Europe conservatrice et libérale, qu'il appelle au combat. La lutte contre le terrorisme ou la cause du Tibet ne sont, pour lui, que des acouphènes de nature à distraire le populo. Seule la cause palestinienne mérite quand même, selon lui, qu'on s'y intéresse. L'ombre portée de l'empire " étasunien " explique aussi l'attirance de M. Mélenchon pour les pays de l'Alliance bolivarienne, préférés aux émergents : l'Equateur de Rafael Correa plus encore que le Venezuela de Hugo Chavez, qui fait traduire Victor Hugo, ou Cuba, qu'il se refuse à qualifier de dictature. Cuba, où un autre internationaliste, vêtu de blanc, vient de remporter une victoire symbolique propre à désespérer le candidat du Front de gauche, en obtenant que le Vendredi Saint y soit désormais chômé.

par Gilles Paris

FG poster: "Seize power: Let's make the banks pay, not the peoples"
(that's the "peoples" — i.e., the peoples of the Earth — not the "people")

We Can Learn from the Germans

In more than one German State (Länder) that I’m familiar with, you need not just a phot ID to vote, but a photo VOTER ID to demonstrate you’re an eligible voter.

In Obama’s America, though...:

When the French flics broke up a pro-Algerian demonstration with their high-power water hoses, they were as vicious as the redneck cops in Birmingham

Needless to say, what with the Trayvon Martin case, the French have been all over themselves concerning alleged racism in the United States, suggesting cold-blooded 007s and other professional assassins running around with licenses to kill and gunning innocent people down.

In that perspective, it is interesting to read Dwight Garner's New York Times book review of Dreaming in French, Alice Kaplan’s tome about "the formative year that three ambitious and striking American women — Jacqueline Bouvier, Susan Sontag and Angela Davis — spent in Paris while in their 20s."

Angela Davis … was in Paris during the Birmingham church bombings in 1963, combing the European edition of The New York Herald Tribune for news. She saw hints of racism in France, a country where black American artists had traditionally fled to escape the oppression they felt in the United States.

About a pro-Algerian demonstration she saw on the Place de la Sorbonne, Ms. Davis wrote: “When the flics broke it up with their high-power water hoses, they were as vicious as the redneck cops in Birmingham.”

After Ms. Davis was charged with murder, conspiracy and kidnapping for her role in the 1970 kidnapping and death of a California judge (she had purchased the weapons used in the crime), her case became a cause célèbre among French writers and intellectuals like Jean Genet and Michel Foucault. They considered her one of their own. There was celebration in Paris when she was acquitted.

Requiring all citizens to purchase something, regardless of how worthy the cause, is a tax imposed on all the living

A reader of the International Herald Tribune puts one of the New York Times' star columnists straight:

Regarding Broccoli and bad faith (Views, March 31): Paul Krugman fears certain Supreme Court justices don’t understand how insurance works. I fear Mr. Krugman doesn’t understand how taxation works. It is not people who are taxed; rather, it is their income and their taxable assets. Someone with no income and no assets cannot be taxed merely for existing. Requiring all citizens to purchase something, regardless of how worthy the cause being funded, is a tax imposed on all the living, regardless of their circumstances. This cannot be compared to any principle of taxation.

Stanislas Yassukovich,
Oppède, France

And while you're at the IHT link, check the letter below his for one leftist European's proud tirade — he claims to "speak for many millions of Europeans" no less — against that terrible danger to humanity and to civilization, I am speaking (or Peter ten Hoopen is, rather) of… Starbucks!

House Organ run by Stasi Early-Retirees Blames Jews for being Insulted by Anti-Israeli Comment

This cartoon appeared in Neues Deutschland, which was the house organ of the SED, the east German Communist party. Following the collapse of the regime it’s been owned by its successor, the Democratic Socialism Party (PDS), which is part of the unctuous Die Linke



Bat: "what must be said". That Grass meant by this, has to do with his notion that Israel is to be balmed for Iranians seeking nukes.

Wow! And to think that I believed their apologists who insist that the Iranians just want "peaceful atomic science" !

They are the only German party today to run a daily newspaper. So this defense of, and apologia for Gűnter Grass by these jokers.

I’m going to make an Exception to my Usual Respect for the Aged

Günter Grass is a douchebag.

Observing Hermann illucidates:

But what we do do is regularly transform a little imaginary something we call “collective guilt” (World War II guilt, there is no such thing as Communist East Germany guilt) into new products (poems) with new perpetrators (Israel) which we market at irregular intervals to cover our countrymen’s never-ending demand for ritual redemption which of course will never be satisfied, or so we lead them (and us) to believe.

Having watched Grass' strange attempt to make things better on the Tagesschau has not been as entertaining as much as it has been a confirmation of his arrogance and detatchment from human morilaty.

AP: Elementary My Dear Watson — This Is How You Can Tell If a Criminal Is Black

Two young women are dead, first tortured, and then murdered, in atrocious conditions, and we know that the perpetrators are black or members of a minority.

How the devil do you know that, Holmes? Given that there is no mention of the alleged murderers' race in the Associated Press article?

Five men have been charged in the abduction and slayings of two Michigan women who were kidnapped and stuffed in a car trunk at gunpoint …

Brandon Cain, 26, Miguel Rodriguez, 24, Reginald Brown, 24, Jeremy Brown, 19, and Brian Lee, 25, all of Detroit, are charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of felony murder, two counts of torture and two counts of unlawful imprisonment.

Elementary, my dear Watson: both women are members of minorities, at least one is definitely black (am I guilty of racial profiling for pointing this out, Lestrade?), probably both are or identify as such, and… there has been no uproar over racism among the élites and in the mainstream media (including this very article by the Associated Press).

Ergo — the killers are black, or at least members of minorities, and this is a story that should blow over much more quickly than the one of a violent male nearly as old as they, killed during a one-to-one struggle down in Florida.

No mention of the killers' premeditation, not to mention their likely larger body weight (and few references to the cowardly group's numerical superiority along with — am I guilty of sexism for pointing the following out, Lestrade? — the outnumbered females' natural physical inferiority), and little chance of a statement from the White House pointing out that if Barack Obama had a third, elder, daughter, at least one of the women, and possibly both, would look like her… ("If I had two elder daughters, they would look like Abreeya and Ashley"?)

And let's not even get into the fact that the situation could have turned out differently if either Abreeya Brown, 18, or Ashley Conaway, 22, had had a gun in their purse and had had the time — and the training — to use it…

Related: Regarding the Trayvon Case, Le Monde Suggests America as a Place Where James Bonds with Licenses to Kill Run Around, Gunning Innocent People Down

Were we not Told that they are the Happiest People on Earth ?

Maybe they should call this a “happy riot”.

Aarhus police have detained a total of 82 people in connection with left-wing demonstrations in Denmark's second city.

Fifty left-wing activists were detained after refusing to leave an area near Mølleparken in Aarhus where some 200 Danish and international far right-wingers had been holding a demonstration.

Prior to that arrests were made when a large group of black-clad activists split off from a main anti-racism demonstration and attacked police in an attempt to reach the far right-wing demonstration.

“About 100 activists left the peaceful demonstration. In an attempt to get to the other demonstration at Mølleparken. They attacked police with cobblestones,” says Georg Husted of the East Jutland Police.

Elsewhere, Danish officials try to stop an arms race.

“Girl Power” at a Glance

As if a UN Committee would weep about this or any other incidence of Male Genital Mutilation or hear the BBC drone on and on about “MGM”.

The victim, 57, told police that he was working at his computer when Reber, pictured in the adjacent mug shot, “walked into his house uninvited,” according to a Muncie Police Department report that will make every guy wince. The man said Reber screamed at him to “call the fucking police” before launching her assault.

Reber, the victim told cops, first struck him repeatedly in the head before latching onto his scrotum and “squeezing as hard as she could.” The man, interviewed by police at a hospital emergency room, said that he “was in incredible pain when Reber grabbed his scrotum and began digging in her fingers.”

Please also note the unfortunate name of the hospital.

- Danke sehr to Herr Doktor Professor Arf

Regarding the Trayvon Case, Le Monde Suggests America as a Place Where James Bonds with Licenses to Kill Run Around, Gunning Innocent People Down

With both feet, Le Monde jumps gaily into the Trayvon Martin racism scandal, stating on the front page that In overarmed America you are allowed to kill — suggesting cold-blooded 007s and other professional assassins running around with licenses to kill and gunning innocent people down. (Le Monde's title recalls the French translation of the James Bond movie License to Kill, i.e., Permis de Tuer, with Permis meaning License and Permission along with the adjectives Permitted and Allowed). Inside the paper, the title of the full-page article recalls the pre-war articles of civilized Western explorers in the land of the head-hunters or other primitive peoples — In the Land of Justifiable Homicides.

No, Le Monde, you are not "allowed to kill", you are allowed to defend yourself. (And guess what?! That goes for blacks as well!)

Yes, Le Monde, t'is true, when a homicide is the result of self-defense — even in France — it is considered justifiable. (Yes — that does go for blacks as well!)

Inside the artile, Philippe Bernard describes Trayvon Martin as a "high school student" and as a "teen-ager". When a teen (of whatever color) is banging your head against the pavement, then he is not one (at least temporarily) of the sympathetic characters of Hollywood's ubiquitous cute teen movies.

I have many more comments and many more quotes on this matter (some in French, others in English) at Le Monde Watch: Alors que Le Monde répète les accusations de racisme hystériques, de plus en plus de Noirs américains s'attaquent aux antiracistes professionnels

Update: Elementary My Dear Watson — This Is How You Can Tell If a Criminal Is Black

Life before Greenies Exterminationists

Alas, a fabled time, ere it was.

One could produce food without irony, and feeding people with abundant crops was nothing to feel guily about.

New York Times Admits (Grudgingly) That the Lack of Health Insurance Does Not Equal the Lack of Health Care

In a New York Times article on the Supreme Court's examination of Barack Obama's health care law, Adam Liptak comes closer than ever to admitting — although it is far from the opening paragraphs, needless to say — that the lack of health insurance does not equal the lack of health care:

Justice Ginsburg seemed to agree, saying the mandate was a response to the fact that uninsured people receive free health care that ends up being paid for by others. “The problem is that they are making the rest of us pay,” she said.

In the global edition of the Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Adam Liptak article has been shortened and therefore slightly rewritten, so that Ruth Bader Ginsburg's comment is stated as a neutral and objective description of the situation by Donald Verrilli, i.e., what the reporter considers fact:

Uninsured Americans each year use $43 billion of health care they cannot pay for, effectively transferring those costs to other American families to the tune of about $1,000 per year, Mr. Verrilli said.

The cost of health care is certainly a problem, as liberals never fail to mention, pouncing on me angrily whenever I point out that the poor do get health care. Certainly, but the libs have changed the subject — as liberals are invariably in the habit of doing.

First, we get this description: the nightmarish hellhole that is America with its poor, miserable uninsured who have no health insurance (again, this is supposed to incontrovertibly mean that they get no health care) — oh, how tragic, oh why can't we imitate Europe? And when it is pointed out that the poor, miserable uninsured do get health care, regardless of health insurance, the liberals go berserk, mentioning the costs and basically accusing the poor of freeloading — or actually, to be more precise, deliberately going to great lengths to avoid accusing anyone of freeloading (i.e., being mean and hateful, which only conservatives are) by agitating, instead, to implement a system that will force all freeloaders, along with everyone else, to pay for health care. (So who is it who is more obsessed with money – the left or the right?!)

So the Left wants to have its cake and eat it too — appearing in all cases in a heroic light: first, they want to be seen as the knights riding to the aid of the poor, describing America as a nightmarish hellhole for the masses; when that fallacy is pointed out, they quickly change the subject, like that (snap of fingers), and describe the poor, consciously or otherwise, as freeloaders, while the leftists turn out to be the wise people with fiscal responsibility.

In any case, it is never a bad time to make a link to the Free Market Cure website and to Stuart Browning's film, Uninsured in America.

It’s German for Solyndra

Actually, you can extend that characterization for the entire “green” industry in Germany. Solar panel manufacturer Q-Cells is going into bankruptcy as a last-ditch effort to stay in business, or at least not ask for more subsidies, despite only existing because of subsidies from taxes attached to the using of non-phony power generation.

Q-Cells said it would file for insolvency after failing to agree a financial restructuring with all creditors.

The company said it would request the opening of insolvency proceedings at a court in Dessau, eastern Germany, on Tuesday, although executives hoped “to secure the survival of the company” while under administration.

It’s not just an isolated case either:

Fellow equipment maker Solon and Solar Millennium filed for creditor protection in recent months, and Solarhybrid, a company that planned, financed and built solar power stations, followed suit in the middle of March.

A penny stock since late last year, Q-Cells stock tumbled 41 per cent on Monday to close the day on the Frankfurt stock exchange at €0.13 per share. The company had listed some seven years ago at €38 per share.

Further to ‘keeping it unreal’, is the imagined cache they think it has:

Should Q-Cells’ administrator decide the company cannot emerge from insolvency on its own, he or she could try to find a buyer for what is still considered one of the strongest brands in the German – and European – solar sector.

We're rightly horrified by fascist murderers; why aren't we also horrified by communist killers?

Is There “something admirable” About Murdering People for the “greater good”? asks Matt Welch (hatip to Instapundit who answers tongue-in-cheek, "Yes, so long as you’re on the left").

… this Darragh McManus column, in Ireland's Independent, is a reminder of the opposite sort–that some people in the free world will continue providing intellectual cover for political mass murderers. Writing about Che Guevara, McManus ends his column like this:

Yes, Che was ruthless and fanatical and sometimes murderous. But was he a murderer? No, not in the sense of a serial killer or gangland assassin. He was one of those rare people who are prepared to push past ethical constraints, even their own conscience, and bring about a greater good by doing terrible things.

Whether morally justifiable or not, there is something admirable in that -- pure principle in a world of shabby compromise. Maybe this is why Che remains such an icon, both in image and idea.

Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie on Che's "Killer Chic":

We're rightly horrified by fascist murderers; why aren't we also horrified by communist killers?

Texas Tornado

Why Americans are Different

It is plainly different because it avoided the world view and the trap that Lenin defined to be at the core of his social thinking:

"Since there can be no talk of an independent ideology being developed by the masses of the workers themselves in the process of their movement the only choice is: either the bourgeois or the socialist ideology. There is no middle course (for humanity has not created a 'third' ideology, and, moreover, in a society torn by class antagonisms there can never be a non-class or above-class ideology). Hence, to belittle the socialist ideology in any way, to turn away from it in the slightest degree means to strengthen bourgeois ideology."

So for all of the “populism” attributed to him, he did not think that people could see the world in their own way and think for themselves. Man, he believed, would need him and his party, despite anything mankind has yet done or is understood to be capable of. East German Communist party organ “Roter Morgen” put it this way, in a similar bid to arrogantly prove its’ indispensability to an otherwise unthinking and humanity, “selfish” to retain its’ dignity:

In 1902 Lenin's book "What Is To Be Done" was published, which had great significance for the struggle against opportunism. In this book Lenin explained that socialist consciousness can not emerge out of the spontaneous workers' movement, but only out science, that consequently socialism can only triumph if the workers' movement is connected with the theory of scientific socialism. This connection is the communist party.

Liberal elites demand tolerance for all things perverse and find intolerable all things righteous

Liberals recognize that when arguing on the merits, they cannot prevail

writes Matt Barber.

Not only are their morally relative, redistributionist philosophies untenable and utopian, but they read the same polls demonstrating that reasonable people reject their ideas outright. In fact, Americans identify as conservative over liberal by a two-to-one margin. Even those who call themselves “moderate” lean conservative.

It makes sense. The “progressive” movement wars against natural law, pushes perpetually failed secular-socialist policies, and places — above constitutionally safeguarded individual liberty — thickheaded tenets of postmodern political correctness. Liberal elites demand tolerance for all things perverse and find intolerable all things righteous.

And so, the final, desperate act of the left-wing, lemon-hocking charlatan is to marginalize, smear, and ultimately shut down the competition. As a result, liberals obfuscate, propagandize, and strive to silence all dissent [in Orwellian censorship crusades]. They no longer even try to hide it.

… George Orwell famously said: “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” Today, conservative truth tellers are revolutionaries, fighting a guerilla war against an elitist establishment that blankets free speech with bunker-buster bombs.

Their motives are disgraceful, their tactics are cowardly, and their actions are un-American. But these things rank high among the progressive “book of virtues.”

Realsozialismus 101

Because it’s really Realsozialismus, baby!: dumpster-diving for something to eat in humanity's most elaborate welfare state.

Many pensioners and unemployed people in Berlin are turning to an unusual means of supplementing their meager incomes: collecting discarded deposit bottles. They can return them to stores or supermarkets for a few cents per bottle. But as the activity becomes more popular, competition among collectors has intensified.

Otherwise you know they’re going to spin it this way:

His supplementary source of income is only possible because of German laws aimed at encouraging recycling and reducing waste

But in reality, just like the #Occupy “movement”, they end up competing with bums and winos for sustenance:

Those who in the past managed to make money collecting the bottles that other people throw away are now facing increasingly tough competition. Berlin residents describe a boom in bottle-collecting, and there are stories about unscrupulous collectors who hover over people drinking in public, waiting to seize their empties.

Dans le vieux débat assimilant l'Europe à Vénus et l'Amérique à Mars, Sarkozy et Obama ont parfois semblé incarner des rôles inversés

In the old debate assmilating Europe to Venus and America to Mars, Nicolas Sarkozy and Barack Obama have seemed to incarnate opposite roles

writes Natalie Nougayrède in Le Monde.

Paris et Washington, une relation tout en nuances

Loin de s'être " aligné " sur les Etats-Unis, Nicolas Sarkozy a cherché à camper la France en acteur ambitieux sur les dossiers de crise. Quitte à braquer la Maison Blanche

La France, " plus vieil allié " des Etats-Unis, " allié mais pas aligné ", " Sarko l'Américain "... les slogans sont connus. Il est certain qu'après la rupture majeure qu'avait provoquée la guerre d'Irak de 2003, quand, outre-Atlantique, les Français étaient décrits comme des " singes mangeurs de fromage et capitulant " et quand les frites étaient baptisées " Freedom " plutôt que " French ", l'ère Sarkozy s'était ouverte en 2007 avec un affichage appuyé d'amitié, si ce n'est de réconciliation. Le président effectuait une visite d'Etat en novembre aux Etats-Unis de George W. Bush, et lançait devant le Congrès un cri du coeur pour l'Amérique. Il omettait de mentionner le problème de Guantanamo alors qu'Angela Merkel, elle, avait fait connaître sa désapprobation publiquement à M. Bush.

Le hiatus franco-américain avait en réalité déjà été en partie résorbé par Jacques Chirac, qui, dans les années 2004-2005, avait convaincu l'administration Bush, avide de promotion d'une " démocratie " au Moyen-Orient, qu'il serait bon de déployer cet effort ensemble au Liban, en chassant de ce pays les troupes syriennes. La coopération antiterroriste bilatérale de l'après-11-Septembre ne s'était en outre jamais démentie, symbolisée par le mystérieux centre de coordination " Alliance Base ", au coeur de Paris, rassemblant des services secrets occidentaux. Son existence avait été opportunément révélée au Washington Post fin 2005 à l'initiative de l'Elysée, pour prouver l'excellence de la relation. Au même moment éclatait le scandale des prisons et des vols secrets de la CIA en Europe.

Le marqueur " anti-djihad terroriste " de Nicolas Sarkozy, ministre de l'intérieur à partir de 2002, et voyageant à ce titre régulièrement dans des pays arabes peu regardants sur les méthodes d'interrogatoire des détenus, n'avait pas échappé aux responsables américains faisant de la " guerre contre la terreur " l'alpha et l'oméga de l'action extérieure. Peut-être, outre les affinités de caractère, faut-il d'ailleurs rechercher là une clef de sa bonne entente avec George W. Bush.

Avec Barack Obama, qui, pour redresser l'image de son pays, voulut mettre en sourdine le langage de la chasse aux terroristes - sans renoncer à la chasse elle-même, comme l'a montré la mort de Ben Laden, ou la multiplication des opérations de drones -, le langage a paru parfois décalé. Ainsi cette scène : en janvier 2011, Nicolas Sarkozy, qui prépare sa double présidence du G8 et du G20, est reçu à la Maison Blanche par Barack Obama. A propos des événements au Sahel, où deux jeunes Français kidnappés viennent de trouver la mort, le chef de l'Etat parle avec emphase de " combattre les terroristes partout dans le monde ", tandis qu'à ses côtés l'impassible dirigeant américain évoque sobrement un " défi " nécessitant de la " coopération ".

Le retour de la France dans les structures militaires intégrées de l'OTAN après quarante-trois ans d'absence a été acté par M. Sarkozy en 2009 mais préparé avant même son élection sans qu'il en soit question dans ses propos de campagne électorale. Les remous politiques en France redoutés par l'Elysée n'eurent pas lieu. L'affaire était présentée comme la résorption d'une " exception " qui privait la France de leviers au sein de l'Alliance. On rappelait que Jacques Chirac, au milieu des années 1990, avait déjà voulu en faire autant. Ce " retour " n'allait pas empêcher l'Elysée de refuser à Barack Obama, quelques mois plus tard, le moindre " soldat combattant " français supplémentaire pour l'Afghanistan : le " surge " français avait déjà eu lieu.

En 2011, quand la France entre en guerre en Libye, c'est dans un premier temps contre la " machinerie " de l'OTAN que sa diplomatie se positionne. Et si, durant les années Sarkozy, " l'Europe de la défense " n'a pas vraiment pris son envol, ce n'est pas tant parce que l'OTAN l'empêchait - George Bush avait déjà donné son imprimatur en 2008, au sommet de Bucarest, à une telle évolution -, mais parce qu'au fond, à l'Elysée, on n'y croyait qu'à moitié, et que les partenaires " poids lourds " manquaient pour la réaliser. Le rapprochement bilatéral avec le Royaume-Uni paraissait plus réaliste et urgent. L'épisode libyen n'a pas amélioré le lien avec M. Obama. Pour ne pas hériter d'une nouvelle " guerre américaine ", celui-ci retirait ses avions bombardiers au bout de dix jours d'opérations - ce qui poussa M. Sarkozy à minimiser, voire dénigrer, l'apport du Pentagone pourtant essentiel à l'effort de la coalition. Sur plusieurs autres dossiers, les divergences ont été notables : insistance française sur une ligne stricte face à l'Iran, rejet français teinté d'ironie face au slogan d'un " monde libre d'armes nucléaires " lancé par M. Obama, soutien mitigé de Paris à la défense antimissile perçue comme potentiellement attentatoire à la dissuasion, hostilité farouche de M. Sarkozy envers la Turquie d'Erdogan érigée en partenaire de choix par Washington...

Nicolas Sarkozy n'a donc pas " aligné " la France sur les Etats-Unis, quoi qu'en disent certains détracteurs. Il a cherché à s'appuyer sur la notion de " famille occidentale " pour obtenir des marges de manoeuvre et camper la France en acteur ambitieux sur les dossiers de crise, quitte à braquer Washington. En 2008, quand des membres du Hezbollah sont invités à La Celle-Saint-Cloud pour parler du Liban, l'administration Bush n'est pas vraiment contente.

M. Sarkozy a ensuite paru frustré par Barack Obama, le jeune président américain " du Pacifique " qui démontrait si peu d'attachement à l'Europe, une grande inefficacité dans sa relation avec Israël sur le dossier palestinien, et s'est de surcroît décrit un jour comme " de centre gauche ".

Barack Obama semble aussi avoir vu dans le leader économique européen qu'est l'Allemagne un interlocuteur à privilégier, et pas seulement sur des questions financières. La nouvelle Allemagne plutôt pacifiste, tournée vers les émergents et l'Asie pour entretenir sa force de frappe exportatrice, semblait en phase avec sa vision du monde. Dans le vieux débat assimilant l'Europe à Vénus et l'Amérique à Mars, Nicolas Sarkozy et Barack Obama ont ainsi parfois semblé incarner des rôles inversés. Mais c'est là prendre le risque d'oublier que le président américain a aussi durci sa posture en l'espace de quelques années : le redéploiement stratégique face à la Chine en atteste, ainsi que les renforcements militaires dans le Golfe. Et ce serait aussi oublier que, malgré l'intransigeance affichée par Nicolas Sarkozy face à l'Iran, la France n'est jamais allée jusqu'à dire, comme les Etats-Unis et le Royaume-Uni, que " toutes les options sont sur la table ". France - Etats-Unis, une alliance aux multiples nuances.

Making Beeg Trouble for Crazy Moose and Squirrel

It seems that “Radio Moldova International” is still on the air. I know how excited you all are about that.

Frankly, I never knew it existed, but staying true to their trope fit for Central Casting, they should be.