State-Sponsered Gangsterism: Obama's French Connection

US-France's New Terror Tango

by Finian Cunningham - PressTV

France is emerging as the new partner-in-crime in support of America's imperialist machinations across the globe.

Up until recently, that thuggish role was filled by British in what was euphemistically referred to as the "special Anglo-American relation". Now the French are taking over from the British as the "oldest ally."

French leader Francois Hollande is currently on a three-day visit to the US, greeted by President Barack Obama with full military honors and a 21-gun salute. "France and US enjoy renewed alliance," reports the Washington Post.

The American president has gone out of his way to emphasize historical links between the two countries, with the opening visit for the two leaders taking place at Thomas Jefferson's estate in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Jefferson was the US envoy to France leading up to the French revolution in 1795, before he went on to become the third president of the US following its war of independence from the British Crown.

To mark the beginning of Hollande's trip, the two presidents penned an op-ed piece in the Washington Post in which they boasted of their prominent role in "global security."

"More nations must step forward and share [our] burden and costs of leadership. More nations must meet their responsibilities for upholding global security and peace and advancing freedom and human rights," wrote Obama and Hollande.

In other words, Obama and Hollande are exhorting other nations to similarly trash international law and embrace their style of state-sponsored gangsterism.

Of course, such self-congratulatory nonsense is to be expected coming from the world's leading terrorist states. The US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which killed more than one million people are still festering like open wounds, while the French have lately emerged as the new warmonger in Africa with four illegal interventions on that continent in the past four years - Cote d'Ivoire, Libya, Mali and currently the Central African Republic.

The portrayal of criminal wars of aggression inflicted on foreign countries as some kind of noble role of leadership upholding global security and peace" is truly sickening. It is a disturbing sign of the blatant lawlessness gripping the world - a reckless climate fostered by the very international conduct of Washington and Paris.

Obama and Hollande take perverse credit by claiming their countries' threats of all-out war on Syria last August-September resulted in the Syrian government decommissioning its stockpile of chemical weapons.

The reality is that the US and France were on the brink of perpetrating yet another war crime based on a propaganda stunt carried out by Western-backed mercenaries - a stunt which killed hundreds of women and children.

It was only outraged public opinion around the world, as well as deft Russian diplomacy, that forced Washington and Paris to back down from their contrived aggression against Syria. This false-flag incident needs to be followed up with prosecution of American and French warmongers, not self-congratulatory op-ed pieces in the servile and equally complicit Western media.

This rogues' gallery is why the Americans are pulling out all the sycophantic stops for their French guest this week. The French are providing the Americans with crucial political and moral cover for their imperialist wrecking-ball conduct around the world. Without the French, the Americans would appear isolated as the world's biggest rogue terror state, or as it vainly refers to itself, "superpower."

This French cover for naked American state terrorism is seen with regard to Syria, as noted above. It is also true for Iran. The French are lending credibility to the US claims that the delicate negotiations between the P5+1 and Tehran are all about "preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons." This is a ludicrous charade that hardly anyone believes anymore, which is being used to justify barbaric sanctions and bullying against the Iranian people. It is a shame on the French that they are dignifying this repugnant American policy towards Iran.

The pay-off for this pair of rogue states is in their mutual carve-up of Africa. As Obama and Hollande state:

"Perhaps nowhere is our new partnership on more vivid display than in Africa."

The two leaders claim that France "with US logistical and information support" is pushing back "Al Qaeda terrorists in Mali" and "stemming violence" between communities in Central Africa. These are utter lies, easily proven, as can be read in previous editions of this column.

French illegal intervention in Africa has led to more instability and violence for the ulterior purpose of gaining a neo-imperialist foothold on the world's richest continent for natural resources. Under the cynical guise of "upholding security and humanitarian peace", the real motive is securing rich natural resources for Western capital, while trying to block China's legitimate economic advances gained right across Africa over the past decade.

As the main former colonial power in Africa, with advantages conferred by language and historical contacts, the Americans need the French to spearhead the new military re-conquest of that continent.

A case in point is Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. This former French colony with its Francophone administration serves as a military base for some 4,000 American troops based at Camp Lemmonier, adjacent to the main civilian airport. From the base in Djibouti, the Americans operate drones, attack helicopters and troop transport planes to support the newly formed US East Africa Response Force that reaches into Somalia, Sudan and Kenya, among other countries.

That is why Obama is extending a welcoming hand to Hollande this week. Despite the florid, grandiloquent language, the Americans and the French are emerging as the world's new terrorist tango team, and both of them know it.

Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in journalism.