NUTTY PATRIOTISM
September 25, 2003

by Joe Sobran

     America is still a great country, and it would be 
cruel to judge it by its patriots. I mean the sort of 
"patriots" who think the way to express your love for 
this country is to insult other countries.

     The events of 9/11 have brought the nastiest 
jingoists out of the woodwork, and their most toxic venom 
has been directed against France for opposing war on 
Iraq. Now that the war has failed in its express aims, 
the French are hated worse than ever. After all, they 
have committed the extremely annoying faux pas of being 
proved right by events. And as the French proverb says, 
it's only the truth that really hurts.

     Nowhere has Francophobia been more relentlessly 
childish than in the pseudopatriotic NEW YORK POST, where 
the columnist Ralph Peters has just published his latest 
tantrum. After a few swipes at the Democrats, he rails 
against "those, from Paris to Palestine, who hate our 
freedom, our values, and our success." He names France's 
president, Jacques Chirac, first among "morally bankrupt 
leaders." He lumps the French among "Eurotrash" who are 
"the most notorious sexual predators in the developing 
world."

     According to Peters, France is "one of America's 
ugliest enemies" and Chirac is "a moral pygmy whose lack 
of scruples is, fortunately, balanced by a lack of 
courage and power." As for Chirac's call for a 
"multilateral" policy on Iraq,

     "Stick it where the bum hid his money, Jackie-boy. 
It was you and your frog princes who ruthlessly destroyed 
the possibility of a multilateral approach to dealing 
with Saddam Hussein by refusing to cooperate in any 
serious efforts to call the regime in Baghdad to account. 
It was you and your political pimps who split the 
Security Council in two, with France nobly defending the 
rights of dictators to die of old age on the Riviera."

     It gets even more rabid. The French are "the 
parasites in Paris." They have "never stood for human 
freedom." In World War II "they didn't even fight to free 
themselves." Their opposition to the American war on Iraq 
was "reflexive and irrational. They hate us because we're 
us."

     So what should we do now? We should "make an example 
of France for the benefit of those countries that 
actively strive to frustrate our efforts to spread human 
rights and freedom. Far from seeking reconciliation with 
Paris, we should miss no opportunity anywhere, in any 
sphere, to rub French faces in the merde."

     Peters isn't through yet.

     "France should be made to suffer, strategically and 
financially. The French stabbed us in the back. In 
response, we should skin them alive.

     "If today's America is the new Rome, France is a 
garbage-dump Carthage. And Carthage needs to be 
broken....

     "And we should pursue every possible avenue to 
reduce American purchase of any goods produced by the 
French.

     "Perfidy must be punished. The French, who would be 
eating sauerkraut for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if we 
hadn't liberated them, need to have their treachery 
shoved down their throats.

     "First Baghdad, then Paris," Peters concludes.

     Treachery? Perfidy? Stabbing us in the back? The 
French were quite open about opposing the war -- and 
about resisting the imperial arrogance shown by the Bush 
administration, an attitude displayed by Peters himself.

     Makes you proud to be an American, doesn't it? No 
wonder this country is now feared and loathed around the 
world. And no wonder more and more Americans are looking 
for an alternative to George W. Bush.

     Not only liberals but conservatives are feeling 
qualms about the reckless militarism that has passed, far 
too long, for conservatism. An older and truer breed of 
conservatism had deep reservations about trying to 
"spread human rights and freedom" by raw force.

     Conservatism is where you find it. When Teddy 
Kennedy, the archliberal, charged that we were taken to 
war in Iraq by "fraud," he was expressing the kind of 
skepticism about the uses of power we should be hearing 
from more conservatives. Liberals are also doing the work 
of conservatives when they denounce the staggering price 
of this ill-conceived war.

     Granted, it's incongruous (and funny) to see liberal 
Democrats in green eyeshades fretting about budget 
deficits like yesterday's Republicans, but that's 
two-party politics for you. When one party goes nuts, 
you're stuck with the other one. And if Ralph Peters is 
any indication, the Republicans have gone nuts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read this column on-line at 
"http://www.sobran.com/columns/2003/030925.shtml".

Copyright (c) 2003 by the Griffin Internet 
Syndicate, www.griffnews.com. This column may not 
be published in print or Internet publications 
without express permission of Griffin Internet 
Syndicate. You may forward it to interested 
individuals if you use this entire page, 
including the following disclaimer:

"SOBRAN'S and Joe Sobran's columns are available 
by subscription. For details and samples, see 
http://www.sobran.com/e-mail.shtml, write 
PR@griffnews.com, or call 800-513-5053."