Correspondence
Correspondence FACE LIFT FOR THE LEFT INITIALLY, I doubted William Kristol's insight into American liberalism, but he presents a compelling interpretation of the current struggle within the...
...Jerome Monod, President Chirac's special adviser, set out the plan...
...Our society has always had sizable groups obsessed with being morally fashionable in an effortless manner...
...The Iraqi crisis has been seized upon by Chirac to assert French leadership while the rest of Europe is weak or reluctant to challenge French dominance...
...What we need is not less NATO, but more NATO in the guise of NACOM, a North-Atlantic Common Market...
...I now offer to you my very own poem about Dominique de Villepin, to wit: A French attache, Villepin, Was a truly remarkable man...
...He would certainly have attacked our Founding Fathers when their diplomacy "failed so miserably" that we were forced to fight the American Revolution and win our independence...
...a very sophisticated version of it...
...I am a disabled veteran and I have an obvious personal interest in the art of war...
...The left assumed for so many years that the United States was a backward, bourgeois nation fighting the progressive forces of the Soviets, and they have yet to recover from this assumption...
...DEMETRIA CARTER Arlington, VA POETRY AND PARODY I LOVE THE PARODY of the "Marseillaise" (March 31...
...The contrast (in every way) between Moynihan and the current holder of his Senate seat could not be more glaring...
...Daschle would certainly have attacked Roosevelt when his lack of diplomatic prowess drew us into World War II...
...The soldier's concentration on his duties, coupled with what appears to be a reflective and unthinking act of protecting an innocent life, is such a powerful image that I will carry it with me as the symbol of this war...
...Can one have much doubt that today's Christian pacifists for the most part also shudder at the horrors of alleged global warming, enthuse over Palestinian rights, and are indignant over Israel's attempts at self-defense...
...In other words, the war is a continuation of "Wil-sonianism," though (thanks to Wolfowitz et al...
...There is little reason to suppose that this has changed since then...
...I felt like stopping my car, rushing into the small crowd, grabbing their signs, and tearing them to pieces...
...As an expert on the E.U...
...His vision is for Europe to be gradually weaned from U.S...
...Daschle would certainly have attacked Lincoln when his diplomatic failures forced us to fight the Civil War...
...He would have been a fascinating man to have a few pints with...
...If the peace activists only knew what is known within the hidden world of military intelligence, they would not be protesting in our streets...
...Personally, I do not share this transmutation of old Gaullist ideology into a Pan-European credo, and am in favor of the other position, that of a "Europe-Espace" that allies inter-governmental cooperation and the single market while surrendering the security of Europe to NATO...
...But I contained myself—after all, they had a permit and a right to voice their opinions...
...These same characters also complain about the U.S...
...I was a nuclear weapons specialist in the Air Force and served all of my time during the Cold War...
...It began: "Aux gares, citoyens, montez dans les wagons . . ." ("To the railway stations, citizens, climb aboard the cars...
...There are worse things than war...
...After all, both North American and European economies have become intertwined and are becoming even more so after each passing year that our interests are incontrovertibly linked and consequently our defense should remain common...
...As usual, the magazine is extremely well informed when it comes to French politics...
...It was a big hit...
...Loconte's quote from Harry Emerson Fosdick reminded me of another quote from that luminary (dating from 1931) concerning the counterpart of environ-mentalism during the first third of the twentieth century, namely eugenics: "Few matters are more pressingly important than the application to our social problems of such well-established information in the realm of eugenics as we actually possess...
...The United States soldier with one hand on his weapon and the other outstretched to protect a young Iraqi boy was a striking picture...
...His interpretation is personally relevant, as I see the de Villepin faction of the left almost every day...
...influence, an independent military force established, and NATo dismantled...
...But if any mistakes are made during the war, he will take all of the blame, unlike the previous administration...
...I see in them no respect for the troops, no sympathy for the Iraqi people, and no appreciation for the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction...
...As a French Liberal (i.e...
...The enemy is Saddam's regime, which will be overthrown and replaced by a liberal democracy...
...It is being fought as what Alexander Kojeve (and Carl Schmitt, and Leo Strauss) would call "a police action...
...JEFF CLARK Washington, DC FASHIONABLE PACIFISTS JOSEPH LOCONTE'S OBSERVATIONS on Christian pacifism constitute part of a larger trend ("Onward, Christian Pacifists," April 7...
...In quiet repose, He can chant through his nose, The entire Islamic Koran...
...This is a battle to bring about a world in which there will never again be a need or opportunity for "finest hours" like this one...
...JEAN SCHÉRÉ Talloires, France THE COMMANDER I WANT TO THANK FRED BARNES for one of the most accurate articles on President Bush I have read recently ("In Command," March 31...
...Be that as it may, I agree with Kristol when he hopes that the pro-war liberals win the heart of liberalism...
...Heaven help us if these radicals become the face of the American left...
...I think he is right...
...The great majority of the other European members, including Germany, are loath to embrace such a radical change that would leave Europe under a Franco-German (more Franco than German, to be sure) duumvirate...
...I cannot say enough about the pot calling the kettle black, but I had many heated discussions about racism in the United States with French citizens who have not had so much as a cup of coffee with their Arab neighbors...
...CHARLES V SCOTT St...
...Senate, Tom Daschle, has said, "I'm saddened, saddened that this president failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're forced to war" ("War Democrats," March 31...
...WILLIAM RADIGAN Scarborough, ME...
...RICHARD S. LINDZEN Cambridge, MA FRENCH CONNECTION ROGER KAPLAN'S "Righteous Frenchmen" is a marvelous article (March 31...
...As the prewar Christian realists recognized, the quest for easy virtue is frequently immoral and dangerous...
...As American leaders are claiming, this war is being fought not for national glory (however much some conservatives may be moved by that) or for colonization, or for acquisition of territory...
...Today I saw a few antiwar protesters dressed in ponchos and toting umbrellas demonstrating in front of Bayfront Park in downtown Miami, with Channel 4 News on the scene to report it...
...We are fighting a war for disarmament, peace, security, stability, and democratization...
...Petersburg, FL IN 1914, according to Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, as the Germans approached Paris, much of the government was departing in what seemed to many unseemly haste...
...Brooks notes as part of the "vague but mighty shift in expectations" that this war manifests that "you have to beat [the enemy] without making yourself more unpopular with the world...
...But I wonder if his observation does not point to the ultimately apolitical character of the war...
...If I were to add anything to Barnes's article, it would be that if the war goes as expected, President Bush will give all the credit to all the men and women that made things happen...
...I wish that I had been given the chance to meet him...
...Wags were inspired to compose a 1914 version of the "Marseillaise...
...Timothy Burns Saratoga Springs, NY DASCHLE IN A TIME WARP THE MINORITY LEADER of the U.S...
...Correspondence FACE LIFT FOR THE LEFT INITIALLY, I doubted William Kristol's insight into American liberalism, but he presents a compelling interpretation of the current struggle within the American left in "War for Liberalism" (April 7...
...Daschle might have preferred that we remain English colonies...
...and author of position papers to the European Convention, I must point out that one cannot fully fathom Chirac's position without taking into account the power play that exists within the Convention regarding the future of the Joint Foreign Affairs and security Policy...
...He would have preferred Hitler to rule all of Europe and Japan to rule all of Asia if it meant avoiding war...
...PHILLIP L. WATTS Louisville, KY THE FUTURE OF WAR DAVID BROOKS'S "The Phony Debate" was insightful (March 31...
...I have one comment, and I don't know if it is an addendum or a sed contra...
...I DON'T ALWAYS AGREE with The Weekly Standard, but William Kristol's tribute to senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was perhaps the best that I have read (April 7...
...BARBARA HERMAN New York, NY KUDOS TO THE WEEKLY STANDARD for its two excellent articles on France by Christopher Caldwell and Roger Kaplan...
...Our nation is fortunate that Daschle was not around throughout our history...
...neocon in the United States), a member of the Cercles Liberaux headed by Alain Madelin, I was particularly pleased to read at long last in the American press an article that shows there are a lot of rumblings amongst the center-right coalition against the stance taken by Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin...
...When I was at Yale, I researched the original music to write a more compact version than the full Berlioz orchestration so that it could be performed on tour in France at each stop...
...ROBERT O. OSBORN O Fallon, MO IMAGES OF THE WAR I MUST COMMEND THE WEEKLY STANDARD on the April 7 cover...
...So too will all other pre-and anti-liberal regimes...
...It begins to shed some light on the longtime animosity of the French for Americans...
...That is, the left has yet to realize that the United States is carrying history's torch on the final leg into the stadium (Christopher Hitchens is the exception that proves the rule...
...Daschle might have preferred to avoid war by allowing states to secede and continue the practice of slavery...
...France is seeking to take advantage of the present weakness of Germany to advance its agenda for a "Europe-Puissance" concept...
...JOSH GUERRA Miami, FL MOYNIHAN R.I.P...
...There is a very important issue missing from Caldwell's explanation of the French position...
...engagement in Vietnam, which the French, of course, held as a colony for decades...
Vol. 8 • April 2003 • No. 31
