I have a subscription to military.com, a civilian service that sends out newsletters on topics of interest to the uniformed services, retirees, and their dependents. Sometimes you find helpful discussions and announcements about topics, and sometimes the news is depressing (VA benefit cuts, for instance.) Occasionally, the articles are downright uplifting.

There was a corker in the latest newsletter, and I intend to reprint every bit of it under the FAIR USE thingy. It’s well-written, and I just like the content.

Bruce Fleming is a professor of English at the US Naval Academy and the author of Annapolis Autumn: Life, Death, and Literature at the U.S. Naval Academy, and Why Liberals and Conservatives Clash. His latest book [is titled] Disappointment.

Vive la France!

I'm saying this not just because I recently had a wonderful time, yet again, in Paris. I say it as someone deeply committed to good leadership and a rational military, and as a teacher of young people whose lives are precious. Everyone in uniform and everyone who has to do with those in uniform ought to be saying it as well.

Here's why we should all be flying the tricolore, the French flag. To begin on a local note: here at Navy (as we say at the Naval Academy, as if there were not a fleet out there for which most of our graduates are destined), we are oh-so-clearly indebted to France. Our central shrine, the imposing tomb of John Paul Jones under the altar of our Chapel, all dark marble and metal dolphins, is a gift from France, where Jones was buried. His glorious time was fighting against the British, of course, but for the French-his Bonhomme Richard, as he re-baptized it after "Poor Richard" (Benjamin Franklin), was a French ship. (Later Jones fought for Russia, but we don't talk about that.) Even the architecture of our buildings is what's called Beaux-Arts, after the style of the school in Paris that created it. So no France, no John Paul Jones, not to mention no Naval Academy as we know it.

More to the point: no France, no United States. Remember Lafayette? Washington's strategy was to string along the British until the French were willing to intervene. Finally they were. Vive la France!

Yet only a few years ago, enraged right-wingers screamed because the French dared say "no" to the then all-powerful 43rd President, demanding that there be some actual proof that Saddam did in fact possess weapons of mass destruction before they'd sign on to an attack. People posing as patriots (but in fact idiots) poured French wine into the gutters-this was reported gleefully on Fox News, and played for sensational effect on the French news networks-to show their fury that anyone could dare to question El Presidente. For that matter, fury was in the air, anyone who questioned or warned was a traitor or a coward. Far too many people were all too ready to support roaring into battle, being convinced that action- any action - was the way to take their revenge.

Now it's the morning after. Oh, our aching head! And surprise! The French were right. Increasingly the evidence suggests that the CIA gave in to political pressure to front-and-center the claims of questionable sources to justify a war that was already decided on. Rationality was forgotten.

But rationality should never be forgotten. My whole professional life here at the Academy consists in getting my students to question their assertions: they may think X is the only way, the only thing, the only belief. But is this true? If you consider alternatives you may find that one of them is a more effective course of action. In fact, you should never go with course X until you can justify it as better than Y or Z. And that means, you must seek out people who espouse Y and Z, and then take them seriously when they talk.

The current administration has offered at every turn a horrifying lesson in how not to lead. Its MO has been this: suppress dissent (rather than encourage it), surround yourself by sycophantic yes-men (rather than objective views), bring in personal loyalists for key positions (rather than people who actually know what they're doing), vilify those who disagree or propose a better way. And oh yes: accuse even long-term like-minded allies of cowardice and treachery if they don't kiss your ass 24/7. No term of opprobrium is too low for somebody who refuses to bow to your will: that's the way to lead the Free World. (Not.)

In the Concorde metro station I sat reading the inspirational words of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man," based on our own "Declaration of Independence," in the wall tiles. Yes, there have been some rough times since then in France: the Revolution turned ugly, then they got Napoleon and various monarchs, before a return to a Republic. (I still have students who think it's funny to tell me that "Sir, when you type in 'French victories' on Google, it says, 'do you mean French defeats?'" Guess they missed the bit about Napoleon.) But when the French make a stink about Guantanamo, they're only demanding that we in fact be true to the principles we, and they, cherish. We particularly need the point of view of France, which has much more experience than we do with the colonial and post-colonial migraine and adventures in the Middle East (Lebanon was a French colony, among other things). The French tortured in Algeria, too: this has continued to haunt them for decades. Did we listen with open ears when they expressed dismay? No. The current administration treated them with contempt. Hardly the smart thing to do-for us, I mean.

Now that we're no longer riding high on the lust to strike out at somebody, anybody as pay-backs for 9/11, it would be justice for the French to tell America to go shove it. But they're not doing that. They're not gloating, not saying "we told you so." They seem to be taking the attitude that late is better than not at all-aside from the fact that you just don't tell the one remaining superpower to shove it. Besides, the French continue to like us, if not our current politicians: they like our popular culture (most movies playing in Paris are American) and our high culture too (the Louvre had invited Toni Morrison and William Forsythe, two Americans, one the Nobel-Prize-winning author and the other a famous choreographer). More to the point here, the French like our democracy. French friends said that the Baker commission would be unthinkable in France. When our democracy works, it works (arguably) better than theirs.

Of course, the French aren't perfect, and we don't have to go with everything they say. They're in an uncomfortable position in the world, having negotiated less smoothly than the English the transition from world power to mid-level European nation. The loss of their own world power status makes them defensive, and being defensive frequently makes them a pain in the butt. Lots of times, as they learned to do under de Gaulle, they contradict the "Anglo-Saxons" (as they amusingly call the Anglo-Americans) just for the heck of it.

The US has paid a terrible price in loss of international esteem for the repeated, apparently willful blunders of the current administration. But perhaps we can repair the mistakes of our bad leadership. We need to stop demanding things and start appreciating allies who are candid-for our own sake.

Vive la France!

I also like the comments, both pro and con. My favorite is probably the commenter who was so incensed he is referring the matter to Bill O’Reilly.