Republican myth-makers like Judith Miller, Newt Gingrich, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Ben Shapiro, and other ideologues, along with the GOP presidential candidates from Donald Trump to Marco Rubio, couldn’t wait [to unleash] a stream of hateful statements about the Paris attacks that serve their dual objectives of trashing President Obama and calling for their own form of jihad against their perceived enemies around the globe…. Not long ago, in the run up to George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, these same right-wing Republicans were screaming epithets at France because the country that today the corporate media remind us is “our oldest ally” tried to stop the war before it began.
Remember “freedom fries?” How about “cheese-eating surrender monkeys?” There were a plethora of other French-themed epithets aimed at the home of the City of Light by the American Far Right, who in 2003 were so amped up about the unquestioned righteousness of invading Iraq that competing views were refused as heretical and cowardly. The French government dared to put forward an opinion that didn’t express unfailing support for the Far Right’s dominant narrative…and for that, all things French were deemed to representative of cowardice and appeasement.
Fast forward 12 years, and the French view- that an invasion would lead to a fracturing of Iraq and would inevitably result in more terrorism- has long since been validated as spot on. As has been proven time and time again, the Far doesn’t deal well with those who don’t slavishly fall into lockstep with the dominant narrative. Reaction and decisive action is favored over sober reflection based on facts on the ground. Being American means “doing something” and showing the resolve to act that makes this country great.
Except that action absent reflection and consideration is the textbook definition of petulance, and more often than nood leads to proving the wisdom and accuracy of the Law of Unintended Consequences. A dozen years on, and the gift given the world by George W. Bush- ISIS and a Middle East even more unstable and fractured than when he left office- keeps on giving. Yet no one in the media has connected the dots and laid responsibility where it belongs. No one has named Captain Codpiece © as the person most responsible for the presence and virulence of ISIS.
Now, of course, everyone- particularly on the Far Right- LOVES Paris. Je suis un Parisien, non?? We stand solidly behind the French, the Tricolor is everywhere, and while that’s certainly a good thing, no one seem willing to address the elephant in the room. The truth can be SO messy and inconvenient sometimes, no?
They’re incapable of seeing that by politically exploiting this most recent atrocity, as they do with every other jihadist attack, to push their authoritarian and militaristic agenda they are exposing themselves as being every bit as nihilistic as the terrorists themselves….
Like a good friend who tried to take away the car keys from a power drunk U.S. administration before it got behind the wheel, France had the wisdom and forethought to try to stop the United States from its biggest foreign policy catastrophe since the Vietnam War.
When the French counseled silencing the drums of war and engaging in sober reflection and consideration prior to marching off to war, the Far Right would have none of it. For failing to toe the line, the French were vilified and the most juvenile form of culinary warfare was declared against them. The House of Representatives stopped selling French Fries (whose origin is Belgian, BTW) in its cafeteria, changing the name to “Freedom Fries.” The French, home to “cheese-eating surrender monkeys,” were held to be amply deserving of being ridiculed and punished for their cowardly refusal to strike while the iron was hot.
Now the City of Light has suffered its own horrific encounter with terrorism, and the Far Right has embraced Paris asa city of culture attacked by blood-thirsty barbarians. Those who agreed with the French in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq were ridiculed as cowards- soft on terror and incapable of taking the decisive action necessary to protect the Homeland. Now they’re one of closest allies and worthy only of compassion and complete, unquestioned support.
During George W. Bush’s vicious 2004 re-election campaign against John Kerry Bush’s Secretary of Commerce, Donald Evans, repeatedly said that Kerry “looks French.”
The Republican House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay of Texas, began many of his Bush campaign speeches: “As John Kerry would say, bonjour.”
At the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City “Democratic” Senator Zell Miller of Georgia received thunderous applause when he trashed John Kerry in his keynote address saying, “Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending!”
The same right-wingers that today are using the Paris attacks to further their shrill Manichean worldview denigrated “our oldest ally” for showing the good sense of not going along with Bush’s war in Iraq.
That Republicans are engaging in what can only fairly be called “situational demagoguery” is to understate the fact of the matter. If there’s any doubt about how extreme, self-interested, and heartless the Far Right is, their reaction to events in Paris offers more than sufficient clarification. It’s not about compassion or supporting an ally in their time of need; it’s about manipulating events for propaganda value in the brazen effort to maintain power and control.
The Far Right despised the French in 2003, offering only deeply offensive partisan ridicule for having the temerity to think for themselves and not blindly follow the accepted groupthink and demand for war. They love them in 2015, which only goes to show that the only thing the Far Right cares about is their agenda, which as always revolves getting and keeping political power.
Oh…and don’t get me started on how this is all Barack Obama’s fault….
