Dude, Where's My Country_ - Michael Moore [31]
The war ended at Yorktown with the British surrendering to Washington and the band playing “The World Turned Upside Down”—but the Brits were actually surrendering to the French. The Redcoats were boxed in by the French navy, and on that final day, there were more French troops in the ranks than colonists.
In fact, France has always been the best friend to the United States. Almost a third of France’s direct foreign investment is in the United States. They are our fifth largest investor, and the French employ 650,000 people in the United States. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written by a committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt with Rene Cassin of France as the vice-chair. And, much like in Vietnam, we share a joint sordid history in Iraq where the Iraqi Petroleum Company—owned by U.S., British, Dutch and French oil giants—exploited Iraq’s oil.
Still, Americans accused the French of all kinds of treachery when it came to Iraq. There were claims that the French were only opposing war to get economic benefits out of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. In fact, it was the Americans who were making a killing. In 2001, the U.S. was Iraq’s leading trading partner, consuming more than 40 percent of Iraq’s oil exports. That’s $6 billion in trade with the Iraqi dictator. By contrast, 8 percent of Iraq’s oil exports went to France in 2001.
Fox News led the charge of pinning Chirac to Saddam Hussein, showing old footage of the two men together. It didn’t matter that the meeting had taken place in the 1970s. The media didn’t bother to run (over and over again) the footage from when Saddam was presented with a key to the city of Detroit, or the film in the early 1980s, when Donald Rumsfeld went to visit Saddam in Baghdad to discuss the progress of the Iran-Iraq War. Those videos of Rumsfeld embracing Saddam apparently weren’t worth running on a continuous loop. Or even once. Okay, maybe once. On Oprah. And when she showed Rumsfeld all lovey with Saddam, there was an audible gasp in her studio audience. Everyday, average Americans were shocked to see that the devil was actually our devil. Thank you, Oprah.
How soon we forgot that it was the French who led the United Nations Security Council on the day after September 11 to condemn the attacks and demand justice for the victims. Jacques Chirac was the first foreign leader to travel to America after the attacks to offer his support and condolences.
One of the signs of true friendship is when your friend feels comfortable enough to let you know when you’re screwing up. That is the kind of friend you should hope for. That is the kind of friend France was being—until we took a piss on our best friend, biting into the whopper while freedom fried.
#6 Whopper Combo, Extra Lettuce: “This is not just the United States going to Iraq. It is a Coalition of the Willing!”
This is my favorite whopper because I can’t stop laughing whenever I think about it.
In order to put some sort of international feel-good happy face on our invasion of Iraq, Bush stated that, hey, it’s not just we who feel this way about Saddam: “Many nations, however, do have the resolve and fortitude to act against the threat to peace, and a broad coalition is now gathering to enforce the just demands of the world. The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours.”
Of course, it’s always better sharing your whopper with friends. And the more the better. That way, everyone shares in the sacrifice equally. No one country will have to see only its young