Once again Lorne Gunter of the National Post hits the nail on the head. This time with regards to the worldwide reaction of French unilateralism in Ivory Coast. As I have mentioned previously there has been limited MSM attention, at least from CNN.
As Lorne Gunter (sorry can't find a link) puts it:
...All of this was done in the name of protecting French commercial interests in the IC’s lucrative cocoa trade (and timber, mines and oil). So where are the campus radicals, the smug Western intellectuals and the preening pundits with their accusations of blood for chocolate? Where is their accusation that the whole thing has just been a giant conspiracy to ensure French President Jacques Chirac’s buddies in the chocolate industry have all the cheap cocoa butter they want? There has been no media talk of quagmire, even though the French have been involved in the I.C.’s civil war for nearly three years. The French military intervention proceeded for the first 17 months without any UN authorization whatever. And the Chirac government has repeatedly escalated its troop commitment from 500 in 2002, to 2,500 in 2003, to 4,000 earlier this year, to 5,000 today. And the situation only worsens. Where is their outrage at the inability of French forces to secure instantly and perfectly every block of the Ivory Coast’s teeming cities? Where are the BBC interviews with Secretary-General Kofi Annan declaring the French adventure “illegal,” as he did concerning the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq? Where are the letters from Annan to Chirac entreating him not to quell the insurgency or crush the forces fighting French troops for fear of provoking worse from the locals, the way he cautioned the Americans against pacifying Falluja.
...Will Michael Moore now rush to Yamoussoukro, the I.C.’s political capital, to produce a “documentary” on the scandal of French unilateralism and neo-colonialism? Of course not. When it is countries and leaders they favour committing the offences, the international left gives them a free pass.
As Ghost of a Flea has pointed out this weekend we are being lied to. He links to a video which appears to show French troops firing on a crowd. Where is the worldwide outrage?
