Erik Svane over at ¡No Pasarán! has an extended post on Le Monde's four-hankie disappointments in the Paix Contre Pétrol program and the genuine tragedy of alleged lucrative French involvement.
On its own nickel Le Monde sought the truth behind the various damning reports of the UN-administered program that allegedly turned honest Frenchmen into alleged grifters. And what it found will tear at your heart: French idealists, French humanitarians, French friends of Iraq, French naïfs -- whose alleged graft was incidental or accidental or wholly unknown to them. [Pause. Tears plash about our boots. A small sump pump is employed.]
How do you start out on a French article dealing with France's involvement in the oil-for-food scandal? If you are Gérard Davet and Natalie Nougayrède, you evoke 30 years of faithful ties and bring in a touching scene full of pathos between Iraq's Tarek Aziz and Frenchman Serge Boidevaix [alleged profiteering: 32.6 million barrels] as the sounds of war draw closer."What can France do?", i.e., to avoid war. The Iraqi says nothing. Tears well in his eyes. "He already knew the dice were cast", Mr Boidevaix would later confide.The article points out that there are three categories of "friends of Saddam": idéologues, affairistes, and militants-affairistes. Ideologues and militants had, or have, at least partly good intentions, and are therefore owed a measure of redemption (hence the entire tone of this article and Le Monde's coverage in general), while hucksters and wheeler-dealers (affairistes) are nothing but dirty capitalist pigs (of the, need we mention it, American-type style). In fact, expecially redeeming is the fact that "militants" "militated" against the (American-organised) embargo.
Regarding Boidevaix, at least, French citizens can feel proud that he is an ideologue. Not so with Jean-Bernard Mérimée [alleged profiteering: 2 million barrels], who (I can hardly believe I am reading this), "contrary to Serge Boidevaix, has never made an effort to publicly defend the policy of France in the Iraqi crisis"!
Also mentioned are the heartbreaking plights of Michel Grimard, former member of the RPR national council [alleged profiteering: 7.5 million barrels], and Gilles Munier, the secretary-general of the Franco-Iraqi Friendship Association (AFI) [alleged profiteering: 9.5 million barrels].
It is enough to make one pretermit the abundance of alleged evidence. What -- Le Monde makes the question unavoidable -- is the higher good? Justice? Or sobby sympathy for self-dealing idealists just out to make the rent and expenses?
Read it all.
PLEASE! DO NOT ATTEMPT A FULL SKIM OF MR. SVANE'S POST WITHOUT A NEW BOX OF KLEENEX TO HAND. Break the cellophane and clutch a tissue before proceeding. Send the children off to play in the street. This is a shocking and teary read.
PFFT (What is this?): Four-hankie weep-fest 5 | What can France do? 4 | Rayonnement français 0
