Yes, our friends the French:
France's top security official publicly dressed down the United States at the American ambassador's July 4 garden party, denouncing alleged U.S. "espionage" of France and other countries, while the European Parliament voted to open an investigation.And he wants explanations. Other than the obvious that we all spy in each other:
He said that President Francois Hollande's demand for clear and precise explanations about reports of U.S. spying are justified because "such practices, if proven, do not have their place between allies and partners."
Well, there you go. Manuel Valls has the explanation right there: "allies and partners" don't do that to each other.
One, they do. I assume French assets here have been told to keep quiet so nobody gets arrested in the near future. That would be awkward.
Two, how good of an ally and partner has France been for us? The last time they really helped us was in our Revolution--and they did that to screw over the British.
Since then, the French have pulled out of the NATO military command at the height of Soviet threats to NATO; passed strike information to the Serbs in the 1999 Allied Force air offensive against Serbia--even as France participated in the attacks; and checked out of the Iraq War when we needed them, running interference for Saddam Hussein as we approached war. And they desperately want to start selling military technology to China again.
Oh, France will gladly work with us--when they need us. France was happy to have our help against Libya to provide capabilities the Europeans lacked. And the French wanted our help in Mali this year for the same reason. Oh, and after the Soviet threat was defeated, the French rejoined the NATO military command. That's nice. And now France would dearly love American help over Syria.
I'm not sure what the heck the French did in Afghanistan. Mostly they were a drain on our logistics. Like most of our allies there, admittedly.
So I don't want to hear lectures about what allies and partners do and don't do from the French, of all people. The French act according to their interests, and if their interests overlap enough with ours they'll consider us an ally of the moment. I'm grateful the French hated the British more than us in the late 18th century.
I struggle to remember that France is an ally. I do appreciate the use of their base in Djibouti for missions against jihadis. I just hope France continues to want to wage war on jihadis, or that will be yanked away.
But the French leaders seem to have a magic touch in creating friction and saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Seriously? Valls chose our nation's birthday party to complain about us? In our own embassy? When he was our freaking guest of honor to show thanks for what France did to help us win independence?
At moments like this, I remain willing to help France when they are in trouble--but only if it is in our interests to do so.
UPDATE: Whaat??
France's foreign intelligence service intercepts computer and telephone data on a vast scale, like the controversial US Prism programme, according to the French daily Le Monde.
The data is stored on a supercomputer at the headquarters of the DGSE intelligence service, the paper says.
The operation is "outside the law, and beyond any proper supervision", Le Monde says.
Minister Valls was unavailable for comment.
From Perfidious BBC.
