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Anti-American sentiment in Europe
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Anti-American sentiment is on the rise in Europe as protests against a possible war in Iraq denounce the Bush administration's foreign policy. What is contributing to the European animosity toward the United States? Martin Walker, UPI's chief international correspondent, and Stephen Hayes, a staff writer at The Weekly Standard, stepped into the "Crossfire" on Tuesday with hosts Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson to discuss the U.S. rift with its allies. CARLSON: Martin Walker, a lot of Americans have been amused by France for a long time. But a lot of them are coming to the conclusion that, who needs France? I'll give you two quick examples. Sen. Kit Bond was just on here. In the commercial break, [the Missouri Republican] said, "Going to the war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion." Who cares? The second example comes from Pete King, a Republican congressman from New York. In an Associated Press quote, he said [Tuesday], "We may have to restructure NATO, form a new alliance, which the French will not be part of. We cannot allow a second-rate country to have veto power or obstructionist power over American foreign policy." So tell me why that's not true. France is a second-rate country. Why should they have veto power over our foreign policy? WALKER: Well, I guess George Washington wouldn't have agreed with you about the fighting qualities of the French. He was pretty grateful for Gen. Lafayette, as I recall. CARLSON: Yes, [that was] a long time ago though. WALKER: Long time ago, but then again, don't forget you've been allied with France twice. In the first World War and the second World War. I'm glad you've actually asked a Brit to talk about this. We're the experts. We've beaten them more than anybody else around. But the fact is I think that [French President Jacques] Chirac ... is now representing European public opinion, according to all of the polls I've seen, rather more, I'm afraid, than Tony Blair is. And I think the real important difference is this is not the Warsaw Pact -- a group of yes men. This is NATO, an alliance of free states, who are allowed to have free opinions. And if they've got an argument to say, "Let's go one extra mile to try and avoid war and contain Saddam," let's listen to them. They've been allies. BEGALA: Well, in fact, Stephen, hasn't that been part of our problem? After 9/11, the entire world was on our side. Jacques Chirac of France was the first head of state to come here. Even the thugs in Syria and Libya were at least saying the right things -- probably never would have done the right thing. But how did our president blow it? HAYES: The president didn't blow it. It was nice that Jacques Chirac was the first one over here, [but] we have to go back further and look at 1999. France, when it came to the question of even reconstituting an inspection regime, didn't want to do that. They didn't vote yes in favor of reconstituting the regime. So now they're in favor of putting more inspectors in regional offices. I mean they want to do all of these new things that are inspector-focused. Three years ago, they didn't even want inspectors in. So is France an ally? I don't think so. CARLSON: But actually, Martin, I think Stephen Hayes makes a great point. France and Germany are not serious about disarming Saddam Hussein. Moreover, I think they have a pretty weak moral case to make. I'll give you one of among many examples. Saddam's [former] bomb maker Khidir Hamza was on our show the other day. In The Wall Street Journal, he says, "France, Germany and to a degree Russia are opposed to U.S. military action in Iraq mainly because they maintain lucrative trade deals with Baghdad, many of which are arms-related." Again, why should we listen to countries that are profiting from someone that we want to depose? WALKER: Well, you're listening to Saudi Arabia, you're listening to Turkey, you're listening to other countries [that] we all know have been sidestepping the sanctions regime. I mean that's a fact of life. I think the real weakness of the Bush administration's case is that last week Colin Powell answered the wrong question. The question he answered at the U.N. was, "Is Iraq cheating?" Yes, we all know they'll cheat as far as they can get away with it. What he didn't answer was the question, "Is war now the only option, or is there something short of war that can contain, constrain Saddam Hussein?" We've got some more weeks to go. Let's give it a shot and see just how far we can. HAYES: You might think that was the question that Colin Powell was answering, and you might think that Iraq is indeed cheating. What's unclear is whether Jacques Chirac thinks Iraq is cheating. He said [Monday that] "we don't even know that those weapons exist." I mean that's a mind-blowing thing to say. WALKER: Anymore, anymore. HAYES: Anymore? You have to believe then that Saddam unilaterally disarmed after inspectors left and then forgot to tell the international community. Oh yes, slipped my mind. WALKER: I'm not going to try and defend Saddam Hussein. ... HAYES: Try and defend Jacques Chirac. That's almost as difficult. WALKER: I certainly can. The defense about Jacques Chirac is simply saying, let's give this a bit more time to play out. There ought to be something short of a war that's going to kill thousands of people, and it's probably the kind of war that is exactly what Osama bin Laden wants us to do. I can't think of a better wet dream for Osama bin Laden than to have several thousand, plump Western American-British military targets in there ready for the knives, the snipers, the guerrilla attacks on just about every person al Qaeda's got. It's just what Osama bin Laden wants us to do. Let's think about this. Let's push it further and let's try and bring the international community with us.
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