We don't need European allies

02feb03

SO much for our allies. So much for the coalition against terrorism with France seeking to thwart any attempt to invade Iraq.

So much for Western unity, with Germany saying it will not yet join the fight against the brutal dictatorship threatening world peace.
We have every right to be aggrieved.

This selfish and cynical partnership has much to do with their substantial trading interests in the Middle East and in Third World countries opposed to an armed response to Saddam Hussein's thuggery.

Germans, more than most, should be alert to the folly of giving an unrelenting dictator time to grow in strength and influence. There is no timid antidote for evil. We can forget appeasement.

As for France, twice rescued from invasion and foreign domination at the cost of untold lives, many of them Australian, British and American, its hypocrisy is breathtaking. For France to lecture us on foreign relations is preposterous.

France is a nation with only the faintest regard for the rights of other sovereign powers.

Remember the Rainbow Warrior? Murderous French military agents were despatched to sink the Greenpeace ship because it was drawing unwelcome attention to France's nuclear testing on Australia's doorstep. Those bombs -- exploded as far from mainland French soil as it is possible to get -- were a sample of Gallic arrogance at its haughty worst.

Australia stands on the brink of joining a justified military campaign against the evil of Saddam Hussein, yet the France we supported through its blackest days is doing all it can in the UN and other forums to frustrate initiatives to secure our safe future.

France and Germany pledged to join the war on terrorism that began with the attack on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. They pledged to help unravel the terror networks and root out the regimes that sponsored atrocities of the kind that occurred in New York, Washington and then Bali.

It seems, however, they are not willing to dirty their hands in achieving goals that are good for them and the world. The French cockerel, in particular, will be crowing its dissent from the sidelines when America and its true allies do what must be done. Again.