Kevin Brooks wrote:

: GW2 on the other hand was an American pre-emptive and
: aggressive move against an old enemy whose very survival
: was seen by hardliners in Washington as an insult to the
: USA's power.

: That might be your perception, but that would not make it the correct one.

Well, perception matters. But as Wolfovitz has stated
clear enough, concern about WMD was certainly not the
only driving factor behind the US invasion of Iraq, and
probably not the most important one. The people who
wanted this operation most were the bunch who had wanted
to occupy Bagdad in 1991; they wanted to remove Saddam
first and foremost because they regarded this as unfinished
bussiness.

: The political framework consisted of a set
: of dubious claims about Iraqi WMD and vague pipe-dreams
: about a rosy-colored middle east formulated by the loonies
: who were not only allowed to advise the Pentagon, but also
: to appear on TV as the administrattion's talking heads.

: Odd, ISTR every major European power, France included, also
: had concluded that Saddam had an ongoing WMD program.

Your memory is selective. Remember how Powell went to
Berlin, and Joschka Fischer stated clearly and publicly
that he was not convinced by the Secretary's dossier
on Iraqi WMD?

There was a general recognition that, considering that
Saddam had acquired a large arsenal of WMD in the past,
and that in the absence of inspections on site there was
no way to be sure that he was not developing them now,
something had to be done to make sure. However, this is
far from accepting the extravagant claims made by the
USA and UK. Which did not limit themselves to Iraq having
a WMD /program/, nor /the intention to restart a WMD
program/, but included a claim that it had WMD ready
for use at short notice.

: very distasteful), then why all of the subsequent attempts at obstructing
: CURRENT progress, if the French are truly interested in the welfare of the
: Iraqi people and the formation of a fair, representative government?

It seems to me that 'attempts at obstructing current progress'
amount to refusing to forgive all of the debts (for they have
agreed to forgive part of it) of a potentially enormously
rich country that will be very well able to pay them back.
There is no objective reason to simply forgive all Iraq's
debts. That the USA would like to see it otherwise does not
change the perception that debt relief should be given to the
world's poorest countries first.

The other attempt to obstruct progress seem to be mostly
policy suggestions that, after strong initial resistance,
have been adopted by the USA, for the CPA has now accepted
the need to make a fast transfer of power to an Iraqi government.

: Which the French have been rather slow in recognizing, as their reluctance
: to forgive the debts accrued to them by the same "brutal, murderous
: dictator" on behalf of the Iraqi people demonstrates.

Iraq has almost as much debt to the USA as it has to France,
and the recent American-French-German agreement on debt relief
for Iraq states fairly clearly that all these debts will be
treated in the same way, with a 'substantial' part being
forgiven and payment of the rest rescheduled.

: Or was it that 9/11 gave us a sharper focus towards doing what has to be
: done as opposed to wringing our hands for another ten years of concurrent
: unbacked UN resolutions and French duplicity (hey, making that TotalFina
: deal while also claiming to REALLY be anti-Saddam took some panache, huh?)?

France -- and Russia -- had, IMHO, an entirely valid position
when they argued that economic sanctions against Iraq were
backfiring, strengthening Saddam's regime instead of weakening
it, and hurting only the Iraqi people. The USA insisted on
continued sanctions despite evidence of Iraqi disarmament (which
is what the sanctions were intended to enforce) because it wanted
to enforce Regime Change. That was a stupid policy, because there
was no effective internal opposition in Iraq, and an internal
opposition is essential if you want to get regime change through
economic means (look at South Africa for one example, Cuba for
the other.). It is also a policy the occupation authority has
to pay the price for now, for Iraq needs to be almost completely
rebuilt after so many years of economic ruin.

To negotiate a deal before sanctions were lifted, as the Total Fina
is rumoured to have done (I have yet to encounter the story in
a reliable news source) would be cynical, but not inconsistent or
illegal.

: We
: learned that we can't afford to accept the pronouncements of European
: nations that "We can handle our own Euro affairs without your input, thank
: you very much"

You could not have learned that in 1940, for the basic reason
that this did not happen. Between WW1 and WW2 European nations
repeatedly asked the USA to remain involved in European affairs,
it ws the USA that collapsed in a voluntary isolationism.

: Finally, we learned a healthy
: amount of disrespect for a nation that not only fell in six weeks

The USA does not have a border with Germany. If it had had
one in 1940, I doubt that the USA could have resisted the
German attack for as long as six weeks.

: but then managed to actively oppose the Allies during the
: North African campaign.

To call that "active opposition" is an exaggeration. The
French army defended neutral, sovereign territory against
as foreign invasion, as it was their clear duty to do; the
resistance ended when the political authorities ordered an
end to the fighting, as was their responsibility. That there
was any fighting at all was in part due to the concerns about
secrecy, which caused American negotiators to inform their
French counterparts only at the very last moment, deliberate
exaggerations of the strength of the invasion force, and
American illusions about the importance of general Giraud,
who turned out to be perfectly useless.

: Lots of lessons.

To learn from history, you first have to know it. I suggest
you make an attempt to be guided by facts instead of prejudice;
I admit it is more work and can be a nuisance.

--
Emmanuel Gustin