THE SMELL OF MACHISMO

A poll published in the French newspaper Le Monde revealed that 33% of the French population want the U.S and Brittain to lose the Iraq war.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villipen visited Brittain last week to publicly reassert the French governnment's position on the war in Iraq. When asked about which side the French government backed, Washington or Baghdad, the Foreign Minister failed to respond directly.

It's interesting to watch how emperial powers use the media to challenge foreign governments that disagree with their actions to take a 'decisive' stance against the empires themselves. A question like the one posed to de Villepin can only be intended to expose the French government's ultimate military (and economic) inferiority when compared to the American and British empires. Everyone knows that even if the French government wanted Saddam to win the war, it would never send troops to help the Iraqis. Those 33% who want America and Brittain to lose the Iraq war would also staunchily oppose the deployment of French troops into the gulf--even if it was to defend Iraq.Yet the Brittish and American press cannot help but to expose the French government's ultimate 'weakness' in not being able to make its voice heard with its fists. 'Yeah, Im attacking Iraq-- now what are you gonna DO about it?,' America and Brittain seem to say, like the schoolyard bullies that they are. As much as the war on Iraq, this kind of attitude reflects machismo on a geo-political scale.

Just when you think that the rule of force has become obselete in interational politics, the big, corn bred, oil grubbing, ignorant hancho rears his ugly head.

ja