BAGHDAD - American forces are tracking about 50 members of an elite Iranian force who have crossed the border into southern Iraq to train Shiite militia fighters, a top U.S. general said Sunday. The French foreign minister, meanwhile, arrived in Baghdad on a groundbreaking visit after years of icy relations with the United States over Iraq.
In Paris, the foreign ministry said Bernard Kouchner was in "Iraq to express a message of solidarity from France to the Iraqi people and to listen to representatives from all communities."
Merely stepping onto Iraqi soil was a major symbol of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's efforts to end any lingering U.S.-French animosities over the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Kouchner arrived on the fourth anniversary of the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad that killed U.N. special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 19 other people. The two men were friends.
Former French President Jacques Chirac's refusal to back the U.S.-led military effort in Iraq led to a new low in France-U.S. ties. France was also vilified in U.S. public opinion, with some Americans boycotting French wines, and french fries taking on the name "freedom fries" in the House of Representatives cafeteria.
Chirac and President Bush eventually reconciled, but Sarkozy's election in May was a fresh start. Sarkozy, nicknamed "Sarko l'Americain" for his admiration of the United States' go-getter spirit, met with Bush before he was elected and again for a casual get-together a week ago at the seaside vacation home of Bush's parents in Kennebunkport, Maine.
When France voted Sarkozy into power, it was the start of a new era for America and France.
I said then that we had the unique opportunity to learn from the previous mistakes of France.
Now it falls to Sarkozy to turn back the hands of time and fix the damage that has been done by following the liberal roadmap to destruction.Sarkozy will take over from Chirac on May 16, and has promised to act quickly to enact key items of his manifesto..
After legislative elections in June -- in which he will seek a clear majority for the UMP and its allies -- he plans a special National Assembly session to set off his reform drive.
These include the abolition of tax on overtime, swingeing cuts in inheritance tax, a law guaranteeing minimum service in transport strikes, and rules to oblige the unemployed to take up offered work.
On the social front he has pledged minumum jail terms for serial offenders and tougher rules to make it harder for immigrants to bring extended families to France.
In a great analytical piece done by The Telegraph we can see where France went wrong, the disaster it has wrought throughout the country and Sarkozy's plan change the course his country has been heading toward.It rarely happens to a country that a clear opportunity is presented to it to save itself from ruin. Only once since the war has it happened to Britain, in 1979, when the people realised that the end of the road had been reached with the consensus that had prevailed since the Second World War, and it was time to start again on a different basis. Tomorrow, France can choose to have its 1979.
As I go through the article here with you, and show you the path that led to Frances near ruination, please notice the portions I put in bold and compare it to the liberal agenda of our own Democrats and the policies they are pitching to Americans around our country. Remember also that France, of late, has had considerable car burnings that they do not even bother reporting on anymore unless they take over 200 lives. (Captain's Quarters)France's post-war rulers took the view that, to heal the wounds of 1940-44, they had to govern for all the French, not merely for a particular group within France.
What that has effectively meant is that the majority of French are bought off with a lavish welfare state and jobs on the public payroll, financed by a minority who pay high taxes for the privilege of living in France. That deal, however, is almost completely broken. Business has had enough of bankrolling bureaucracy and funding feather-bedding. Well-known French individuals, such as the popular singer and actor Johnny Hallyday, have sundered their ties with the country and gone to live abroad because of the penal wealth tax, which led to Hallyday complaining that he now has to send two thirds of his annual income to the French treasury.
Any of this looking familiar? (Hint: Raising taxes, especially for the rich and those that are responsible for employing hundreds of thousands of workers)Unlike in Britain, small businesses are not engines of growth, because bureaucracy and high taxes make it very hard for them to grow. In some parts of France the signs of decay are becoming ever more obvious: shops boarded up in villages in the Dordogne, property not selling except perhaps to foreigners, and resentment about freeloaders, especially if they are perceived to be immigrants. France has numerous successful multinationals, and every French town has scores of one-man bands (notably retailers), but there is less and less in between.
The other factor that makes it so hard for energetic and enterprising French people to prosper is that they are usually prevented by law from working more than 35 hours a week. This law, brought in under the socialist government of Lionel Jospin, is now widely condemned, even by some supporters of Miss Royal, for the effect it has had on suppressing growth, living standards, wealth creation and productivity.
Are you beginning to see a pattern, the "window", if you will, into our future should we decide to adopt our democrats vision and socialist agenda?The present situation, where 52 per cent of France's GDP is spent in the public sector (against 42 per cent of ours, which itself is too high) is unsustainable. It might well provide an opportunity in 2012 for the FN, who might feed on the greater social and economic problems that a hard five years of corrosive, introspective, un-radical and profligate Left-wing government would bring. But the state France would be in by then, even further detached from economic realities that are now commonplace for the rest of Europe, hardly bears thinking about.
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This could well mean a summer of unrest in France. But as the alternative would appear to be France being left further and further behind the rest of the developed world, perhaps a fight now is preferable to complete ruin later. By tomorrow night we shall know how brave the French are prepared to be.
We now know the French were brave and understood the road to ruin they have been on and elected change.
Read this all again and imagine, in 20 yrs, this story could very well be written and the only change that would be made are the names of the candidates and the country being discussed in the article which would be America.
Relations between France and America are improving now that Sarkozy is in power and hopefully, we Americans are capable of learning from the mistakes of France past so we do not make those same mistakes for Americas future.
More from the AP.
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