What is the matter with France, Germany and Russia?
It would seem logical that our “democratic allies”
in Europe would be backing us in a threat of weapons of
mass destruction, harboring and financing terrorism, and
unbelievable abuses of human rights in Iraq. Americans are
justifiably angry with countries for whom we have done so
much over the past century.
There are many theories for their recent recalcitrant behavior,
many of them very true and most based on these countries’
economic interests in Iraq. After all, France holds the
oil producing concession there, which has to be worth billions.
They also sold Iraq the very nuclear reactors that Israel
had to then bomb to perdition.
Chances are, if we knew all the particulars, Germany and
Russia probably have equally spurious ties that are both
economic and dangerous. Since Germany and France both owe
the very fact of their democracy to the U.S. and Russia
owes the struggling beginnings of democracy to us as well,
even economic interests shouldn’t override their commitment
to secure the interests of Western civilization against
terrorism.
I have a theory of their behavior that no one else has broached.
This behavior is so illogical, so thankless, so reckless,
and so disloyal that it simply can’t be explained
in modern geopolitical terminology.
I refer to the gene pool of the three countries. (Please,
for those readers who tend to over-react to opinion columns,
take this with a grain of salt – it is very tongue-in-cheek.)
You see, if you look at history, each of these countries
has had a systematic purge of its intelligentsia and its
more productive citizens. Some of this has been accidental,
but much was intentional.
France, that proud and arrogant country, should indeed take
pride in being the first European country to kill off virtually
everyone who was not of the very lowest and most ignorant
orders of society. It began with the French Revolution in
1796. In a series of overthrows they first killed off all
the aristocracy (which admittedly needed some reforming,
but perhaps less draconian than the guillotine). Then the
reformers themselves had so little grasp of how to run a
government that they themselves got overthrown and guillotined,
so there went the educated idealists. That pretty much left
the shopkeepers, who still had too much financial health
to please the starving peasants, so they shortly rattled
through the streets in tumbrels and lost their noggins.
At this point, the only people left who could read and write
were all in the military, leaving the country ripe for Napoleon
and his exploits. He is still considered a great hero in
France, although he managed to get virtually the entire
army annihilated before his megalomania cost him his job
and his freedom.
Ever since, the French have been famous for their sophistication,
because they were reduced to a country of people whose entire
lives focus on long meals, decent wines, perfumes to conceal
their lack of hygiene, fairly upscale taste in clothes,
worldly sexuality and terribly boring, plotless movies.
They were able to struggle along indulging their sensory
appetites for almost a hundred years before Germany decided
they wanted their land for themselves. When it came time
to fight for their freedom and democracy however, they caved
in so quickly that the world was aghast. Whatever happened
to the legacy of Napoleon? It got lost in pate and good
sauces. Not once, but twice, and within twenty years, France’s
refusal to look past the noon meal forced England and the
U.S. to pull their fatty little sauces out of the fire.
It’s gene pool damage. They simply haven’t recovered
their intelligence, Darwinianly speaking. There’s
no space for the history of the other two countries, but
we all know of the Stalinist purges and that Germany had
her barely pubescent sons fighting at the end of World War
II. We are simply going to have to wait until some evolutionary
cream rises to the top to ever consider these countries
allies again. As we say here in the South, they can’t
think their way out of a paper bag. DBJ
