Sociology Books

Can we trust France? Apparently not. After more than 200 years of shared history and interests, the U.S.-France marriage looks as if it's ending in an acrimonious divorce. Here is the shocking insider account.In the wake of French behavior at the United Nations, where Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin systematically undermined the efforts of Secretary of State Colin Powell to convince the Security Council to authorize force against Iraq, Americans have at best come to suspect our ally of double dealing, and at worst come to view them as the enemy. Almost daily over the past year, new stories have emerged of how the government of French President Jacques Chirac has sought to undermine the U.S. war on terror, publicly sniping at America and inciting other countries to do the same. What's wrong with France? What's behind their recent perfidy? According to bestselling author Kenneth R. Timmerman, the American public doesn't know half the story. After they read The French Betrayal of America , American anger at France will turn to outrage.Timmerman, who worked as a journalist in France for eighteen years and knows the players on both sides, lifts the veil of Jacques Chirac's scandalous love affair with Saddam Hussein, beginning in 1975, when he took him on a tour of top-secret French nuclear facilities. The French attitude toward the dictator, which seemed to baffle American politicians, was in fact entirely predictable. Put bluntly, it was all about money, oil, and guns. Chirac needed Saddam's oil and Saddam's money, and Saddam needed French weapons and French nuclear technology.Despite this, the relationship between France and America was not only amicable but at times very mutually beneficial. That was until the most recent war on Iraq, where France turned the tables, engaging in dirty diplomacy and helping to sway other European countries to their side. French war coverage was not merely It was viciously inaccurate, skewed, and openly anti-American. Timmerman also presents incredible new evidence of France's duplicity, including the fact that the French stood to gain $100 billion from secret oil contracts they had concluded with Saddam Hussein.The French Betrayal of America raises questions of whether the nuclear cooperation agreements still in force with the French today should be canceled in light of France's behavior. Our security interests no longer converge, and our economic systems increasingly appear to be at loggerheads. The war in Iraq harshly exposed French treachery and their desire to do business with the worst of international tyrants, putting their economy, their international standing, and their relationship with a 200-year-old friend in severe jeopardy.Shocking new revelations in The French Betrayal of AmericaThe French president lied to Bush and to the public about the war in Iraq.President Jacques Chirac had personally told President George W. Bush well ahead of time that France would be at America's side.France urged Saddam to commit genocide.Saddam launched his genocidal campaign against the Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq to make their region "safe" for French oil engineers.France helped build Saddam's long-range missiles and nukes.Based on exclusive access to new documents, provided by Iraq to the United Nations -- that French defense companies were key partners in helping Saddam Hussein perfect the long-range missiles that killed U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia in 1991 and rained terror onto Israel.Chirac has blocked cooperation on a high-profile terrorism case.France's top counter-terrorism judge was ordered to stop cooperating with the United States in the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui despite mounds of documents that would have helped the United States to convict Moussaoui of conspiracy to commit mass murder.France illegally sold U.S. military secrets to Saddam Hussein.A prominent French defense company shipped U.S.-designed laser designator pods to Iraq in the 1980s that compromised the most high-tech weapons in the U.S. arsenal.President Mitterrand, a Socialist, became Ronald Reagan's best ally in Europe.The French Betrayal of America reveals the extent of French strategic and intelligence cooperation with the United States at the peak of the Cold War, in areas that will surprise readers on both sides of the Atlantic. The French ran a key agent inside the KGB, whose "cosmic" reach -- right up to the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union -- hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union.President Chirac almost went to jail for corruption.Chirac was on the verge of getting indicted on corruption charges in 1999 until he cooked up an immunity deal with the head of the French Supreme Court, former Socialist foreign minister Roland Dumas. While the French corruption scandals are well known in France, they have rarely been reported in the United States and will alternately shock and amuse American readers.The Bush administration is now offering France the secrets of our national missile defense.The French Betrayal of America reveals the hitherto top secret missile defense cooperation between the United States and France that has taken off at precisely the same time the Chirac government was undermining the United States on Iraq. Meanwhile, United States and French nuclear weapons designers continue to meet to exchange secrets of maintaining our respective nuclear arsenals.