France's Mistral Sale: For the First Time Ever, a NATO Member Will Deliver Sensitive Military Technology to the Former Soviet Union

The French-Russian agreement is symbolic, says Le Monde: Thanks to the deal with the Kremlin for the purchase of French Mistral ships, a NATO country will be, for the first time ever, delivering sensitive military technology to a country of the former Soviet Union.

The Mistral (check for previous articles on the ship and its sale) is nicknamed the "Swiss Army knife" by members of the French military because if it was expressly built to carry (some 15) helicopters, the latter can be replaced by some 60 armored vehicles, or a dozen tanks, or a dozen amphibious vehicles, or 700 troops, or a hospital with two operation rooms, or (obviously) a combination of the above.

There will inevitably be a technology transfer to the Kremlin, whose naval yards have not built a warship in over 10 years, as two of the four bâtiments de projection et de commandement (BPC) sold will not be built in France, according to the contract, but in Russia.

This led to tension between Paris and Washington, but as John Vinocur explained back in January, the Americans could hardly complain when their leaders were constantly touting the reset button with Russia.

Indeed. At the time, then-defense minister (now foreign minister) Alain Juppé quoted who else but America's Apologist-in-Chief:

In Lisbon, I heard Barack Obama tell Dmitry Medvedev: "You're not just a partner but a friend." You can not blame France for delivering boats to a friend.

Next on the agenda: the sale to our newfound Russian friends of 500 to 1,000 of France's Panhard-built light armored vehicles.

(And what comes after that? Military sales to China?!)

From the original article by Dominique Gallois in Le Monde:

Après trois ans de discussions, la France et la Russie sont parvenues à un "accord définitif" sur la fourniture à la marine russe de quatre porte-hélicoptères Mistral. …

L'accord est symbolique : c'est la première fois qu'un pays de l'Alliance atlantique (Otan) livre du matériel militaire " "sensible" à un pays de l'ex-Union soviétique.

… Les deux dirigeants ont confirmé le montage industriel : deux exemplaires du Mistral seront construits pour l'essentiel par les chantiers STX de Saint-Nazaire (Loire-Atlantique), les deux autres en Russie. Ils n'ont cependant donné aucun détail sur le montant du contrat, estimé à 1,5 milliard d'euros. Encore moins sur les équipements, notamment électroniques, prévus à bord. Conçu aux normes civiles, le BPC, long de 200 mètres, est le plus gros bâtiment de la flotte française après le porte-avions Charles-de-Gaulle.

La question du transfert de technologie a longtemps retardé la conclusion de ce contrat. Dès le départ, MM. Medvedev et Poutine n'avaient pas caché leur intérêt pour la technologie du Mistral et exigé la livraison d'exemplaires dotés de tous les systèmes de commandement sophisitiqués équipant les deux bâtiments déjà en service dans la marine française. Se voulant rassurante à l'égard aux pays alliés d'Europe centrale, la France affirmait que les porte-hélicoptères seraient vendus "sans équipement militaire".

L'une des spécificités et des principales qualités de ce bâtiment, baptisé le "couteau suisse" par les militaires français, est sa polyvalence. Il a, en effet, été conçu pour transporter une quinzaine d'hélicoptères et, au choix, une soixantaine de véhicules blindés, une dizaine de chars ou d'engins amphibies pour une opération de débarquement. Il peut embarquer aussi 700 combattants, un état-major de grande dimension, et un hôpital contenant deux salles d'opération.

…Au fil de mois, ces discussions avaient fini par provoquer des tensions entre la France et des pays d'Europe centrale et orientale, et par susciter la réprobation des Etats-Unis. En octobre 2009, le ministre des affaires étrangères de l'époque, Bernard Kouchner, avait espéré que Moscou puisse acheter "ce merveilleux navire".

… Outre le caractère stratégique du Mistral pour les militaires, ce contrat permettra aussi aux industriels russes de se remettre à niveau. Leurs chantiers navals n'ont pas construit de bateaux de guerre depuis dix ans. Côté français, d'autres contrats sont en cours de discussions, comme l'achat par la Russie de 500 à 1 000 véhicules blindés légers (VBL) fabriqués par Panhard.

Change, Mutual Respect, and Russian-EU Relations: When the Obama administration stamps its foot, no one any longer snaps to attention

…“the Russians now have far more leverage in the U.S. relationship [with Europe] than they should”

John Vinocur quotes a former senior State Department official with responsibility for Russia (David J. Kramer) as saying in the conclusion of his International Herald Tribune article.

The United States used to call wayward members of NATO back to the reservation with a whistle or a shout. It decided what was deviation from doctrine, and that decision was pretty much law.

When the Obama administration stamped its foot this time, no one snapped to attention.

Rather, Germany and France, meeting with Russia in Deauville, northern France, last week, signaled that they planned to make such three-cornered get-togethers on international foreign policy and security matters routine, and even extend them to inviting other “partners” — pointing, according to diplomats from two countries, to Turkey becoming a future participant.

That can look like an effort to deal with European security concerns in a manner that keeps NATO, at least in part, at a distance. And it could seem a formula making it easier for Russia to play off — absolutely no novelty here — the European allies against the United States, or NATO and the European Union, against one another.

… As for the Obama administration stamping its foot, what it came down to was a senior U.S. official saying: “Since when, I wonder, is European security no longer an issue of American concern, but something for Europe and Russia to resolve? After being at the center of European security for 70 years, it’s strange to hear that it’s no longer a matter of U.S. concern.”

So, a follow-on burst of European contrition? I asked a German official about it. He spoke of German and French loyalty to NATO. And he said, “I understand there are American suspicions.”

“But,” he added, “the United States must accept that the times are changing. There are examples of it having done this. Why wouldn’t it accept our view in this respect?”

The official did not list them, but there are obvious factors explaining the French and German initiatives.

A major one is President Barack Obama’s perceived lack of interest and engagement in Europe. His failure to attend a Berlin ceremony commemorating the end of the Cold War and his cancellation of a meeting involving the E.U.’s new president has had symbolic weight.

… Consider this irony: the more Russia makes entry into the E.U.’s decision-making processes on security issues a seeming condition for deals the French and/or Germans want (think, for example, of France’s proposed sale to Moscow of Mistral attack vessels), the more the impression takes hold that the administration’s focus for complaint about the situation has been off-loaded onto the Europeans.

… When Mr. Medvedev bestowed Russia’s highest honors at a Kremlin ceremony on a group of sleeper spies who were expelled from the United States last July, a State Department spokesman turned away a reporter’s question with a “no comment.” Washington chooses not to say anything either about Mr. Medvedev’s support, repeated in Deauville, for Mr. Sarkozy’s plan, as next year’s president of the G-20 consultative grouping, to focus its attention on limiting the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency.

Prior to John Vinocur's article appeared an IHT editorial page column in which Roger Cohen appraised us that

France is in a quiet sulk. Nicolas Sarkozy is the most pro-American president of the Fifth Republic. He brought France back into NATO’s military command, rejected the de rigueur cynicism of French political discourse on the United States, and reached out to Obama. For all of which he got nothing. He must hear de Gaulle’s ghost at night whispering, “I told you so.”

In London, the British are shaking their heads. … “Beside the E.U., is there another bunch of countries anywhere willing to work as closely and permanently with the U.S. on almost all issues of global and regional concern?” asked Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German ambassador in Washington. “I wish Obama would say just that.”

Somewhat related is Virginie Malingre's interview in Le Monde with Alastair Cameron, who "est chargé des questions européennes au Royal United Services Institute, un think tank londonien spécialisé dans les questions de défense et de sécurité. Ce Franco-Britannique a fait ses études à Londres et à Paris, où il a travaillé quelque temps pour le ministère de la défense."

…on peut penser que la guerre en Irak a mis en évidence le déséquilibre de la relation. On a parlé de la Grande-Bretagne comme du "caniche de Washington"...

William Hague, le ministre des affaires étrangères britannique, et David Cameron, le premier ministre, ont tous deux dit qu'ils étaient les alliés des Etats-Unis mais qu'ils ne seraient pas "son esclave ". C'est une manière d'admettre que les Britanniques, ces dix dernières années, ont eu le sentiment qu'ils étaient trop souvent à la botte de Washington. De ce point de vue-là, la coopération avec la France sera la bienvenue. Mais, sur le fond, rien n'a changé.

France's Sale of the Ultramodern Mistral Warship to Moscow: A massive transfer of sensitive military technology by a NATO ally to the Kremlin

The French government is facing pressure from the U.S. over the sale of two warships to the Russian navy

reports Fox News,

amid reports that Paris plans to push ahead with the controversial deal.

Despite broader efforts by the U.S. and Europe to isolate Moscow over the intervention and unrest in Ukraine, French President Francois Hollande said he plans to go through with a $1.6 billion deal to build warships for Russia, NPR reported.

No Pasarán has been on this subject for the past four years. Indeed, with rare exceptions, I do not think that any American newspaper or blog had until now written anything of consequence about what amounts to as a massive transfer of sensitive military technology by a NATO ally to the Kremlin on Obama's watch — France having decided to sell Russia its ultramodern helicopter transportation ship (to the horror of, among others, Georgia).

We linked story after story about the Mistral — many of them written by the most conservative pundit in the entire New York Times organization (far more so than David Brooks), the International Herald Tribune's Paris-based John Vinocur. It would have been important for Americans (all Americans, not just conservatives) to understand, pre-Syria and pre-Crimea, to what degree the idealistic Obama White House had already then been deficient (or appeasing) in its relations with the Russian bear.

The money quote comes in the French defense minister's January 2011 excuse:

In Lisbon, I heard Barack Obama tell Dmitry Medvedev: "You're not just a partner but a friend." You can not blame France for delivering boats to a friend.

There you have it: that says all about Obama's idealistic foreign policy in a nutshell, doesn't it?!

Paris on Selling Warships to Russia: "You can not blame France for delivering boats to someone described as a friend" by America's President

In Lisbon, I heard Barack Obama tell Dmitry Medvedev: "You're not just a partner but a friend." You can not blame France for delivering boats to a friend.

— France's foreign minister, Alain Juppé

In an interview with Nathalie Guibert, ostensibly about the trouble in Tunisia, France's new foreign minister, Alain Juppé, justified France's sale of Mistral warships to Russia by quoting… America's Apologist-in-Chief (!), thus confirming John Vinocur's analysis regarding the consequences of

the perception [of] the Obama administration, in the context of its “reset” policy with Russia, [not making] much of a fuss about France’s now finalized sale of Mistral-class helicopter-carrying assault vessels to the Russian Navy.

It also seems to confirm the International Herald Tribune pundit's prediction that with schemes of this kind being "hunky-dory with Washington", the sales of EU weapons to China might not be far behind…

The interview excerpt in French, preceded by a couple of other excerpts (which contain a gem or two):

Didn't France commit a political blunder in the face of the Tunisian people's uprising by supporting President Ben Ali until the last moment?

France remains faithful to the two fundamental principles of its foreign policy: non-interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, support for democracy and for freedom. ... We have updated our defense agreements with our African partners: we are no longer in Africa to intervene in the internal affairs of various states.

... How to make Russia cooperate with a system that it considers a threat to its interests?

It will be complicated, but we must make a choice: do we want to create a climate of trust in cooperation with Russia? Or do we continue moving towards that point by walking backwards? Of course, on some subjects, we have differences with the Russians. But there again, the advantage of creating a strategic partnership with Russia is much higher than the possible disadvantages. It is a position we share with Germany, and even with the British, within certain conditions.

In Lisbon, I heard Barack Obama tell Dmitry Medvedev: "You're not just a partner but a friend." You can not blame France for delivering boats to a friend. And in Russia we have a stake in playing the card of those who want a true partnership with Europe.

The original French:

La France n'a-t-elle pas commis une faute politique face au soulèvement du peuple tunisien, en soutenant jusqu'au dernier moment le président Ben Ali ?

La France reste fidèle aux deux principes fondamentaux de sa politique étrangère : la non-ingérence dans les affaires intérieures d'un Etat souverain, le soutien à la démocratie et à la liberté. … Nous avons actualisé nos accords de défense avec nos partenaires africains : nous ne sommes plus en Afrique pour intervenir dans les affaires intérieures des Etats.

…Comment faire coopérer la Russie à un système qu'elle juge menaçant pour ses intérêts ?

Ce sera compliqué, mais il faut faire un choix: est-ce que nous voulons créer avec la Russie un climat de confiance? Ou est-ce que nous continuons à y aller à reculons? Bien sûr, nous avons, sur certains sujets, des divergences avec la Russie. Mais, là encore, l'avantage de créer un partenariat stratégique avec la Russie est très supérieur aux inconvénients possibles. C'est une position commune avec l'Allemagne, et même avec les Britanniques, sous certaines réserves.

J'ai entendu Barack Obama dire à Dmitri Medvedev, à Lisbonne : "Vous n'êtes pas seulement un partenaire mais un ami." On ne peut pas reprocher à la France de livrer des bateaux à un ami. Et en Russie, nous avons intérêt à jouer la carte de ceux qui veulent un vrai partenariat avec l'Europe.

Smart Diplomacy: "a new low point in U.S.-EU relations” may result from Obama's "all is hunky-dory with Washington" 'tude towards arms sales to China

Smart diplomacy: a former U.S. ambassador to NATO is apprehensive of "a new low point in U.S.-E.U. relations.”

How’s this for an unsettling (but still imaginary) news item: “The European Union has announced a plan that will allow member countries to offer sales or technical cooperation to China in the defense sector, involving combat planes, transport aircraft and satellites. This will strengthen Beijing’s potential for force projection from the Pacific and Indian Oceans to the coasts of Africa.”

That is the question raised by John Vinocur in the International Herald Tribune. When Gerhard Schröder and Jacques Chirac entertained the idea of resuming weapons sales to China in the mid-2000s, the Bush administration seems to have quickly put an end to the plan. What can we expect from today's occupant of the Oval Office, aka America's (ineffective) Apologizer-in-Chief who ignores all enemies (except for the internal kind, i.e., those dastardly Republican reactionaries and their distasteful Tea Party allies) and who does "not help quash the expectation that [EU schemes of this kind are] hunky-dory with Washington"?

Right now, that [imaginary news item] isn’t happening and might not. Still, the E.U.’s attitude on its 20-year-old embargo on supplying China with military wherewithal looks wobbly.

The United States has noted interest in the E.U. in lifting or modifying the ban, and while it does not consider it a fatality, is watchful and concerned, according to a U.S. official.

…The nub of the matter is a policy paper put forward last month by Catherine Ashton, the E.U. foreign policy chief, that asserts, “The current arms embargo is a major impediment for developing stronger E.U.-China cooperation on foreign policy and security measures. The E.U. should discuss its practical implication and design a way forward.”

…Ms. Ashton [aka the anti-war leftist who helped lead Britain's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament] added an additional rationale for lifting the ban that makes Soft Power Europe, after a couple of decades preaching against a hard power approach to the world’s problems, look like a convert to the diplomatic primacy of weapons peddling to nondemocracies. Noting that Europe was no longer the United States’ main strategic preoccupation, she said, “The U.S. has argued the need for an increased engagement in Asia, and there is a risk it will see the E.U. as a less relevant partner given our relative strategic weakness there.”

Oh, yeah. That’s a concern keeping America up at night. I talked to a European defense expert who zipped around Ms. Ashton’s formulation.

Instead, the expert, who asked for anonymity, described the driving forces for lifting the embargo as a “moribund European defense sector,” a market in China for European avionics, missiles, combat planes, transport aircraft and satellites, and expanded Chinese espionage operations that attempt to procure European defense technology one way or another.

Add to this list, he said, the perception that the Obama administration, in the context of its “reset” policy with Russia, did not make much of a fuss about France’s now finalized sale of Mistral-class helicopter-carrying assault vessels to the Russian Navy. (According to WikiLeaks, American outrage expressed to the French about the deal stopped at calling it “a mixed message” for the allies and Russia.)

These days, with President Hu Jintao due in Washington for a state visit on Jan. 19, the reset/arms sales connection cannot be far from some European minds. Le Figaro, the newspaper most carefully reflecting France’s desires — Nicolas Sarkozy has repeatedly called on the E.U. to abandon its embargo via a required unanimous vote of its members — has reported this could happen quickly. An explanation: it describes the United States as “losing its grip” on the previously nay-saying British and Dutch.

There are some big ironies here for the Obama administration. … President Barack Obama … wrote the speaker of the House on Oct. 26 that it was “in the national interest” to lift restrictions on the export to China of six Hercules C-130 cargo planes “to be used in oil spill response operations at sea.” (The aircraft in a standard version is the world’s pre-eminent troop transport.)

It would have been asking a lot of the Europeans to ignore this as a signal to them, or an American blandishment to the Chinese — which, indeed, came before Ms. Ashton’s pro-arms sales remarks. Match cynicism for cynicism here, and you come out with something like a U.S.-E.U. standoff.

…Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and now managing director at Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, [said]: “If all this were to play out — that is, lifting the embargo, subsequent sanctions, etc. — it would be a new low point in U.S.-E.U. relations.”

Related: Obama is learning the price a president pays when lofty rhetoric meets hard reality

How does the U.S. say no nowadays to Russia on a major military transfer when the administration does not want to consider Russia a strategic threat?

When Russia issues a reminder that it wants to buy an advanced, helicopter-carrying warship from France that’s built for amphibious assaults — hello all you folks along the Black, Baltic and Caspian Seas — then it’s pressing deeper its own reset button on altered relations with the United States and NATO.

That is how John Vinocur starts his (aptly-entitled) article, Russia Tries to Control the Reset Button.

The Americans can insist that scrapping plans for a ground-based missile shield on Moscow’s borders is all about Iran and not Russia, and that the Obama administration has traded away nothing to the Russians in the process.

But the Kremlin has made clear its will to extend what it considers a triumph. It’s talking up a plan that Russia sees as containing an alliance-splitting downside for the United States whichever way it turns.

The latest gambit is the warship purchase bid. Trumpeted by Russia three times over the last month — think Moscow wants to grab Europe’s attention? — and confirmed by the French Defense Ministry, the Russian proposal involves buying a 21,300-ton Mistral class helicopter carrier and eventual joint production of four or five more.

A response of silence over the long term from the American side could look like another cave-in to Russia in the minds of the European and Central Asian allies who consider Moscow to have vetoed the ground-based missile defense system.

Even more problematically, should a deal for the helicopter carriers materialize, it would open the door — at least in the view of an American specialist on international arms transactions — for European allies to sell arms to China.

That’s a horrific idea for the American military, yet it remains a suspended project on a low flame inside the European Union. Indeed, China arms sales continue to have the open backing of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

But how does the United States say no nowadays to Russia (and France, if it agrees to build the ship and share the technology) on a major military transfer when the administration does not want to consider Russia a strategic threat?

…Russia, though, is exulting in a process in which its influence appears to be growing while American policy setbacks wobble from diminished control over events in Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan to taunting Russian arms sales to Venezuela.

In relation to the ship purchase talks — against the background of Russia’s invasion of Georgia last year and its virtual annexation of two Georgian provinces — the Russian Navy’s commander in chief, Adm. Vladimir Vysotsky, rhapsodized over how he could have done the Georgia job in 40 minutes instead of 26 hours if he had had the French warship.

The Loneliness of the Conservative Blogger (An Open Letter to Instapundit)

• Every day, for the past two weeks, Instapundit was mentioned twice on a French TV web channel in an in-depth one-hour debate between a conservative and a liberal blogger re-broadcast daily at 6 pm. (Right before the end, in the conservative's closing remarks, and some 20 minutes prior to that, the French audience was told "If you want to get a non-caricatured view of American conservatives, you should read the Instapundit blog from time to time".) Is this not worth mentioning on said Instapundit blog?

• Last week, a conservative blogger live-blogged the second presidential debate and the week before that, he live-blogged the vice-presidential debate. (Tonight, he expects to be live-blogging the third debate.) At all times, since he lives in Paris, these took place from 3 am to 4:30 in the middle of the night French time. Were those events not worth mentioning? (Related: What Mitt Romney Must Say at the Third Debate.)

• Last summer, a conservative blogger went on television and had an in-depth debate with a member of the mainstream media, giving as good as he could. May I reiterate that — all the while adding an exclamation mark? A conservative blogger — one of a valiant band of brothers united in fighting against the mainstream medias of countries of the world and the leftist élites in power throughout the west — participated in a televised debate on France 24 television (on its English-language channel) against a member of the mainstream media (Newsweek's Paris chief) and did his best to hit back at the MSM arguments — twice as hard, natch! Was that not worth a link? (If I am looking slightly dishevelled, it's because I had to cut short my vacation after being called up by the TV station the same day around noon and catch a high-speed train 800 km to Paris, where my only way of getting to the television studio in time was to speed from the Gare de Lyon train station on a motorcycle taxi…)

Full disclosure: The conservative blogger in all three paragraphs above was — is — myself.
And before I go on, let me make clear that I am not speaking for the whole blog, as not all my co-bloggers agree with this post, one of them saying that Instapundit will never link us again, plus they point out that nobody has a duty whatsoever to link to anybody you don't want — all of which, needless to say, I am in full agreement with.

And my fellow bloggers have talked me out of posting a version of this post in the past, but I have never been as nervous as now, two weeks before the election, what with the Democrats promising they are going to win the election (and knowing what kind of dirty tricks they are up to), and in these nail-biting times, I need to give some air to a number of arguments I have made over the past few years.

And even should Glenn Reynolds refuse to ever link us again (for which I will have to apologize to my co-bloggers), I will continue reading Instapundit avidly every day; continue suggesting to people I overhear dissing Romney or praising Obama to check out a couple of blogs including Instapundit; and continue linking post after post of his in discussion forums around the web (both in English and in French, on the blog of Le Monde's Washington correspondent, for instance). For the fight against liberalism, and for a beacon of liberty, one named America, is more important than any personal issues…

(Note: when mentioning that I quote Instapundit on discussion threads or quote Instapundit on our blog or will do such things as suggest Instapundit as a blog to read, whether in daily life or on TV, I am in no way saying, or suggesting, that Glenn Reynolds owes me anything or that he should even feel grateful. In fact, it is in no way a favor to him, it is a favor to myself, as copying and pasting an Instapundit post makes, if anything, commenting quicker and easier, while at the same time giving me not one outside authority to refer to, but two — Instapundit and the source the professor is quoting… Plus spreading conservative values, having more people (whether in America or abroad) understand them, and believe in them, through reading a blog like Glenn Reynolds', can only up the chances of bringing about the society conservatives like me dream of… Likewise, when I mention Instapundit on television, it's not gratuitous, to flatter him. I wouldn't mention Glenn Reynolds's blog on a show dealing with graphic novels or with the Danish royal family. And if on a political show I say, "If you want to get a non-caricatured view of American conservatives, you should read the Instapundit blog from time to time", it's because I truly mean it…)

Let me add that, believe it or not, I am not particularly interested in pageviews and stats — per se. A high number always rewarding, naturally, but what I am more interested in is fighting the good fight, and being praised by my fellow conservatives (when and if appropriate) and told whether the job I did was good or not and whether I have reason to feel some pride for a given post.

Because it's true, Professeur Reynolds, you have explained why in the past — that you are a limited resource (without interns). What's more, noone can deny that you have indeed linked No Pasarán in the past!!

But on the other hand, from a reader's perspective, it is hard to get away from the idea that Glenn Reynolds is an extraordinarily open and gentle soul, one who goes out of his way to quote readers and read liberally through a post's comments. "A reader writes such-and-such, reader So-and-So writes bla-bla-bla, Update: reader John Doe adds a link to such-and-such a website. Reader points to the article in such-and-such a magazine." Plus all the "From the comments" add-ons and update after update…

The thing is, I am all for quoting readers myself (whether they are known to me or not); they often deliver a deadly zinger that "says it all" (also known as a Heh™) or uncover an aspect of an issue that not many people have picked up upon (one recent example: Obama Comments on Diplomats Reveal a Lot About His Responsibilities, His Oath, and His View of the Presidency).

The other thing is, we at No Pasarán know perfectly well that we are not the Other McCain or Ann Althouse. One digs up unpublished scoops, gets into danger for his life, while the other is a fellow law professor. In fact, I am quite happy to admit that most of what we send you is destined to nothing else as appendages (updates) to existing Instapundit posts and rarely deserve original stand-alone status. Indeed, I would be perfectly happy never to see us quoted, appearing only — once in a while — as a More Here item.

But on the other hand, I do think we have interesting things to add once in a while, and if you will bear with me, I have added just a couple of examples over the years below (you can easily read it faster by focusing solely on the bold text).

Because at times it feels like being in a football team during a the Fall season, where the same players are called up again and again, while you stay mostly sitting on the side, twiddling your thumbs.

Perhaps a better illustration (for someone who has written An Army of Davids) is a war scenario.

I once wrote a post saying that

In the Army of Davids, you are Dwight (David) Eisenhower — the general-in-chief overseeing the fight against those who hate America, liberty, and the rights of the common citizen.

In a Pearl Harbour illustration, it is slightly different, while Honolulu is being machine-gunned — by the mainstream media and the various élites — you are the one firing back, and there are a bunch of us eager to hand the ammunition to you. And we go, excellent, that person next to us just handed him a handful of bullets, keep shootin'. That other guy is handing him some shells — good for him. And you hand him an ammunition magazine, and… most of the time you are ignored. Alright, no problem. Another man's bullets are gratefully accepted. Another man's ammo belt is eagerly taken. Again, you hand up your ammo magazine, and almost every time… nothing happens. When it happens again and again, you start wondering, What the…?! What am I doing here? What's the hell's wrong with my stuff?! Because of course we have no way of knowing what you turn down on a daily basis. (Like I said, it seems like you are open to accepting all sorts of readers and comments etc…)

And the worst thing is scratching one's head and wondering why the heck is the Blogfather turning our posts or our comments down?! Are my emails even reaching the Blogfather?
Or are they going into the professor's spam box?
If not, is he even opening them?
Does he trash them out when he sees who they're from?
Does the Blogfather think that I am sending him too much stuff?
Am I sending him not enough stuff? Would he prefer that I send only one post per email per day?
Would he prefer that I wait until the end of the week to send one email with designated posts (the best of) from that week grouped together? (No no, I do not send all, or even most, No Pasarán posts in; relatively few, I would say.)
Do I write too much in my introduction to the post?
Do I write not enough in my introduction to the post ?
Am I coming across as too formal?
Or am I assuming too much and acting too chummy?
Did someone start a malicious rumor behind my back? (nah, conservatives don't do dat sh•t…)
Is the Blogfather angry that I wrote InstaPundit with a capital P, instead of Instapundit with a lower-case p?
Maybe the Blogfather doesn't want emails at all, and he'll go visit a blog from time to time?!
(Except The Other McCain says he does, if not want, at least accept them…)
Should I have sent a special email to thank him when he does link a post?
Or will that just add to the bucketload, and would he rather I not?
Was I discourteous to one of the Blogfather's friends or fellow bloggers at CPAC once?
Maybe the Blogfather thinks that the No Pasarán blog is trash?
Maybe — oh, Lord! — the No Pasarán blog really is trash?!?!
Are we so bad that we deserve fewer links?
Is No Pasarán past its prime? Has it run its course? Should it shut down, once and for all?
Have I messed up while trying to order books from Amazon through Instapundit?
Did I forget to go through Instapundit the last time I ordered from Amazon (and can the Blogfather even find out about such things)?!

See all that worrying and hand-wringing, Monsieur Reynolds?!
You are turning me… into a liberal!!

The Dea(r)th of Foreign Blogs

In a sense, it is entirely understandable that foreign blogs should have waned in this day and age, given that Dubya and "his" war in Iraq are (was) no longer at the forefront of events and of the headlines — superceded, indeed, by what is easily a far greater danger — America's liberties eroded (deliberately eroded) from within, by "a little intellectual élite" of "do-gooders", elected or otherwise, "in a far-distant capital [who allegedly] can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves." (As Ronald Reagan also said in 1964, paraphrasing the testimony of a political refuge who had escaped from Castro's Cuba, "If we lose freedom here [in the United States], there is no place to escape to [link to photo of mine taken at the last McCain campaign event from 2008, right before election day in Miami, of a Cuban-American poster saying, appropriately enough, almost exactly the same thing as the political refuge quoted by the Gipper in 1964].  This is the last stand on earth." And Reagan added: "This is the issue of this election!")

(No Pasarán's German equivalent, Davids Medienkritik, has seemed to die a slow death, posting only seven posts in the past 12 months, only one single one of which appeared (so far) in all of 2012. No Pasarán tackled France while Davids Medienkritik tackled Germany, and we were both among the three finalists in the Weblog awards (Europe section) — twice — which you also won (deservingly) or were a runner-up to numerous times.)

But still. Us foreign blogs can have some interesting perspectives to share too, whether they come from a foreign, or from an international, perspective, or simply because we are fellow conservative bloggers, no matter what countries we are citizens of and no matter where we may be based, with interesting and sometimes thought-provoking things to say. (And we like getting quoted too…)

Notably, foreign policy.

And social and health services.

No Pasarán has amassed a wealth of links to fact-filled stories that contradict Obama's claims (and the Europeans' own boasts) about Europe's universal health care.

One Infamous Foreign Contributor 
of Obama's Campaign Identified?

Regarding all the newly-discussed rumors of the Obama campaign accepting foreign web donations: A year and a half ago, No Pasarán wrote to you about this, linking an E-Nough post identifying pretty specifically where part of the money seemed to come from. And if E-Nough was correct, it came not from just some anonymous joe. One of the foreign Obama campaign contributors seems to have been none other than Muammar Gaddafi! Remember: in March 2011, you wrote a post announcing that Gaddafi's son had revealed that the colonel had helped fund the campaign not of Obama but of another Western president, France's Nicolas Sarkozy. I emailed you a No Pasarán post linking the E-Nough post quoting a Gaddafi speech, in which the Brotherly Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya does not state outright, but he does hint rather strongly, that he, along with

the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa … may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him [Obama] to win the American presidency.

Granted, wacky Gaddafi is or was hardly an authority on much, but the content of his speech, on the other hand, is hardly surprising.

Speaking of the Gipper, I think the honors to Ronald Reagan in Europe (notably Eastern Europe and mainly statues of the man) deserve to be mentioned — one in Prague, a statue in Budapest, and not one, but two statues, in Poland — with Lech Walesa (did we mention that like Obama he is the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize?) quipping that "Reagan should have a monument in every city"!

Three Stories I Considered "Gold" at the Time (And Still Do)

Before I bring this post to an end, I will recount three stories over the past two years or so with a foreign, or European, perspective where in particular I was thinking "these details are little known and unreported by the MSM, this is gold! this information deserves to get shared!"

• Do you remember the HBO "documentary" done by Nancy Pelosi's daughter in the South? The one from March 2012 which was shown on the Bill Maher show in which the comedian waxes thusly:

When I see the toothless guy, as a liberal, what I say is, "I want to help you get teeth!" Why does that make me an asshole?! (laughter) I don't understand why — "You damn Yankee, tryin' to get me teeth!" (laughter)

Meaning, of course, that clueless Americans should see the light, join the liberal club, and… introduce a system in America of free universal health care like those superb ones that are found in Europe.   A lot of conservative blogs in America hit back. But No Pasarán brought a perspective from Europe:  a couple of weeks prior to Alexandra Pelosi's second appearance on the Maher show, we had blogged about France's newspaper of record, Le Monde, publishing a report saying that dental costs are hardly covered by la Sécurité Sociale at all and, indeed, have never been so expensive. When you wrote about the Alexandra Pelosi/Bill Maher duet, I immediately wrote out a new post quoting Laetitia Clavreul's Le Monde articles; from the Frenchman who opted not to get five (!) teeth replaced and the French maid who had to settle for a botched-up job for her broken front tooth to the 49-year-old woman who no longer has any teeth at all and to the French teacher who would rather have holes in his mouth than wear a (humiliating) set of false teeth. I was going nuts that week. Link the story, Glenn! Link it! This is hitting back twice as hard! This finishes destroying Maher's argument! This is the final nail in his coffin! For the love of Christ, link it! Or so I went…

• Unless I am mistaken, I do not think that any American newspaper or blog has written anything of consequence about what amounts to as a massive transfer of sensitive military technology by a NATO ally to the Kremlin on Obama's watch — France having decided to sell Russia its ultramodern helicopter transportation ship (to the horror of, among others, Georgia). I sent you story after story about the Mistral — many of them written by the most conservative pundit in the entire New York Times organization (far more so than David Brooks), the International Herald Tribune's Paris-based John Vinocur — and I think one single link would have been more than useful for Americans to understand to what degree the idealistic Obama White House has been deficient (or appeasing) in its relations with the Russian bear. The money quote comes in the French defense minister's excuse:

In Lisbon, I heard Barack Obama tell Dmitry Medvedev: "You're not just a partner but a friend." You can not blame France for delivering boats to a friend.

There you have it: that says all about Obama's idealistic foreign policy in a nutshell, doesn't it?!

• When Frances Fox Piven was defended by sociologists and the mainstream media for being a target of the evil Glenn Beck in early 2011 (as someone doing nothing more than "calling for Gandhi-like nonviolent resistance"), you — rightly — hammered home, again and again and again, what those Greek riots that FPG wanted to see emulated in America were actually like:

… tens of thousands of protesters marched through Athens in the largest and most violent protests since the country’s budget crisis began last fall. Angry youths rampaged through the center of Athens, torching several businesses and vehicles and smashing shop windows. Protesters and police clashed in front of parliament and fought running street battles around the city.
Witnesses said hooded protesters smashed the front window of Marfin Bank in central Athens and hurled a Molotov cocktail inside. The three victims died from asphyxiation from smoke inhalation, the Athens coroner’s office said. Four others were seriously injured there, fire department officials said.

(Remember: this is even more noteworthy in retrospective, when one realizes that Piven's calls for "protests and riots" occurred before the advent of the Occupy Wall Street moment.) I felt the Wall Street Journal excerpt was outstanding, as well as Glenn's constant repetition of it, and it so happened that one day here while reading a European newspaper, I found material to illustrate the article: two photos of policemen engulfed in flames after being hit by a firebomb. Later, I found the video of one of the policemen, who turned out to be a motorcycle cop skidding down the street at full speed, getting struck by a club-wielding thug as he comes to a stop, before being hit by the molotov cocktail in an eruption of flames — almost as "exciting" as a scene from a Hollywood blockbuster. Keep spreading one of the photos and the video along with every repetition of the Wall Street Journal report, I figured, and Frances Fox Piven is finished.

In-Depth Posts of Dispassionate Analysis

I have already spent too much time on this, as I have not the slightest doubt you will agree, so I will be brief and finish up quickly.

At times, I have wanted to do to try and get to the bottom — to the very bottom — of an issue, just like an Abraham Lincoln or a Harry Jaffa. Using long research coupled with in-depth and dispassionate analysis, we have written a small handful of extra-length posts over the years, from a thorough dissection of the left's chickenhawk charge to the Why We Blog series (the "we" in Why We Blog applying to all conservatives). And one or two of the posts below are some I admit I wouldn't have minded being linked by the intellectual DJ of the blogosphere.

• The JournoList Issue No One Is Bringing Up
One is the birther issue. (Out of a total of over 11,000 posts, No Pasarán has only mentioned the birther issue five times, so I feel confident in stating that none of us counts among any crazies.) I spent weeks on end on this post and I feel that, even though it came out before Obama finally released his birth certificate, it still holds up (with the addition of a couple of updates) very well. I don't believe anyone has linked the birther issue as much to the JourOlist scandal as we have, while comparing the Birthers with the Truthers and while taking the pivotal decision of contrasting the 2008 election with the campaigns of 1984 and 1988…

• To Understand Liberal Issues Like Gay Marriage Correctly, It Is Vital to Get the Basic Premises Right
Another issue is gay marriage. Again, I believe, rightly or wrongly, that we raise points raised nowhere else, notably pointing out exactly what had to happen beforehand for homosexuals to want to get married in the first place. And unless I am mistaken, our post is among the few who have called on a key constitutional scholar and on his books (none of which bother to address the issue of homosexuality outright, to the best of my recollection) to support our theses. (I will add that I believe that Harry Jaffa's A New Birth of Freedom should be required reading for all college students wishing to graduate — Just like W Cleon Skousen's 5000 Year Leap ought to be required reading for high school students to get their degree.)

• Some Thoughts on American Patriotism…

Finally, No Pasarán has some "basic" posts where we keep adding (not least thanks to… Instapundit) new links so that the post in question forms one bountiful source of information.

Those "basic-themed' posts include:

• The feminist war on men (with the bottom of the post featuring a dozen updates so far) and

• What hides behind the adulation of European health care (it's the same post as the above-mentioned Bill Maher post, with new links added periodically at the bottom of the item). These link to thoroughly-written articles and posts laden with facts and figures — penned by Americans as well as by foreigners (French or Eastern European or other) — that pretty much unravel, if not destroy completely, the leftist argument that Europe's social services (and in particular France's) are the nirvana while America's health system has been (until Obama) little but a hellhole filled with wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Update: Thanks to…  (dramatic pause) Instapundit (!) for linking this post…

Update 2: Instapundit Learns that Le Pen's Front National Is Actually Left-Wing, Something a French-Based Blog Has Been Reporting on (and Trying to Bring to Their Attention) for at Least 6 Years