NATO/OTAN Reunion

These are American graves at the cemetery in Normandy (Normandie) France. You know, Omaha and Utah beach, the parachustists of Sainte-Mère-Eglise, the thousands of American lives given up to help free France from Germany in WWII? A few years after WWII NATO was formed as a military alliance to prevent further world wars.

France was a founding member of the NATO alliance in 1949 but it left the military structure in 1966 amid friction with the United States. When Charles de Gaulle called the then President Johnson to inform him of this news and ask that the Americans currently on bases in France leave, President Johnson sarcastically asked if that included all those buried in Normandy as well.

It was a dark time for France who wanted to exert their independence from the overwhelming global power that the U.S. had become, one of the many in the long history of spats between in the U.S. and France. There has always been somewhat of a love-hate relationship between the two nations. Most recently with France not joining the U.S. and Britain in Iraq, something that the French are extremely proud of (and they should be).

Well Tuesday, after 43 years of the cold shoulder, France voted (successfully) to return to NATO/OTAN. But unbelieveably in the same day that the Assemblee Nationale (Senate) voted to approve the re-entry into NATO, the people in France are calling for a vote of no confidence for President Sarzoky and that is not cool. They are saying that the French will once again be under the influence of the Americans. But Sarzoky is righting a wrong. In reality, rejoining NATO’s military command, he argued, will give France a seat at the table for decision-making.

France has advanced military and technological know-how that their allies need and that France will benefit from financially by sharing. It is a win-win situation and it is time that France takes a seat back at the table. If not to improve their economy, than to honor what was sacrificed for them in places like Normandy.

Reminder, don’t forget to take a moment to complete my survey