As the anti-Bush, anti-American and anti-war protests (prioritized according to the sentiments being expressed) take a break around the world, it is quite puzzling that those who are screaming at the tops of their lungs against oppression, arrogance and force have completely overlooked what French President Jacques Chirac and his minion counterpart of Germany Gerhard Schroeder are trying to do across Europe.

In one statement, or perhaps it was a slip of the tongue, Chirac explained his agenda to the world. When Romania and Bulgaria expressed their support for the United States and Britain, Chirac was very quick to show his true colors when he said that the two prospective European Union member nations "missed a perfect opportunity to be quiet.”

Just as it is the right of the "marching minority” who clogged the streets of some of the larger cities across the world to have the freedom to speak as they believe, accurate in their facts or not, it is similarly the right of those nations who have found newly won freedom from the cold war oppression of the former Soviet Union and the ensuing mini-tyrants (in large part because of the United States and the policies of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush) to have every right to express the opinions of their nations. It is a right that the people of these nations have yearned for too long and they deserve to be able to exercise this right and the freedom that it provides. Yet, French President Chirac wants them to either agree with him and his newfound German ally Gerhard Schroeder or be silent. It has to be a chilling reminder of the nightmare that the people of these Eastern European nations went through before the Berlin Wall fell, minus the executions.

So, why would the President of an established European nation and his lapdog counterpart from Germany make such an incredibly transparent statement? The intricacies of this question may be many but the underlying answer to the question is power fueled by jealousy.

The French government has always wanted to play a major role in the opinion and shape of the European continent. We saw it in the days of Napoleon and we are seeing it again here today albeit in a much more subdued way. With the advent of the European Union Chirac sees an incredible opportunity to advance the singular socialist opinion of France to that of an entire region. The fact that the Eastern European nations stated their intensions to stand beside the U.S. and Britain in the efforts to liberate the people of Iraq is an amazing road block to Chirac’s dream of actually becoming a world leader of importance. The Eastern European stance completely undermines France’s battle for dominance in European affairs especially in the face of an ever-growing European Union.

As is the case with so many who waved American flags on September 12th, 2001 in support of the American people as they faced coping with the mass-murder of thousands of their people, the French government’s attention has turned back to itself and what is good for France. This in itself is not a bad thing but Chirac and his socialist cronies have done it by embracing anti-Americanism and fostering it throughout the reaches of Europe in which they hold sway. France would like nothing else than to view itself as a viable counterweight to American power but with potential members of the European Union not conforming to the French government’s ideas as to how it must all go a political wrench has been thrown into the mix.
Gilles Lepesant, a French expert on European identity and Eastern Europe said, "For France, the European Union is a way for it to remain a big power in the world because it can use Europe to act and to have a certain influence in world affairs that it can't have anymore on its own."

The situation that Chirac, and thus the follower and politically frightened Schroeder, are seeking to construct is in actuality the same situation that they accuse the United States of having with regards to the United Nations. They accuse the U.S. of having an arrogant stranglehold on the United Nations and the Security Council being able to control them at its will. As we have seen over the last few months, that is anything but the truth. Yet, the French government while decrying the evils of the United States for wielding undo influence over the United Nations out of one side of their mouth is trying to exact the same arrogant power that they oppose for themselves through the European Union. The hypocrisy is astounding.

To take the amazement a bit further one only has to realize that through his suggestion that opposing France and Germany could hurt candidates for European Union membership, Chirac is blackmailing his potential partners within the European Union. To prove that beyond a doubt I cast a light on the fact that Chirac further warned Romania and Bulgaria, the poorest of the candidates for entry into the E.U., that they "could hardly find a better way" of reducing their chances for membership by speaking up against France.

Blackmail; unbridled arrogance; media manipulation; hypocrisy; political arm-twisting; all topped off with the most astounding voice of anti-Americanism to be seen in decades, all of this regurgitating from a nation we have called a European ally since World War II. It tends to epitomize that phrase, "with friends like these who needs enemies?”

Still, I can’t figure out why all of the self-righteous anti-war protestors, the protestors who demand an end to tyranny and fascism, the activists who demand a voice for all and an end to political coercion, I still wonder why they aren’t screaming about Chirac and his puppet Schroeder? Oh wait, that’s right, they are too busy extolling the evils of the United States and President Bush for wanting to liberate the people of Iraq from that Hussein fellow. You do remember him right? He’s the guy who gases unarmed Kurds and their children when there isn’t a "no-fly” zone enforced…but he doesn’t have any weapons of mass destruction so why should they care?

Frank Salvato is a political media consultant and the managing editor for The New Media Journal.us. He is a contributing writer for The Washington Dispatch, GOPUSA, OpinionEditorials, Men’s News Daily, Canada Free Press & AmericanDaily. His pieces are regularly featured in Townhall.com. He has appeared as a guest on The O’Reilly Factor, The Kevin Matthews Radio Show (Chicago) and The Brad Messer Radio Show (San Antonio). His pieces have been recognized by the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention and are occasionally featured in The Washington Times and The London Morning Paper as well as other national and international publications.