April 26, 2011 11:22AM # Pass the Freedom Fries! By [Gene Healy](https://www.cato.org/people/gene-healy) --- SHARE Back in 2002-03, when France opposed going to war in Iraq, conservatives spared no venom for the country some called [“Our Oldest Enemy.”](http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/212404/our-oldest-enemy/john-j-miller) In retrospect, though, France was a better friend to us then than she’s been in our ongoing Libyan debacle. As the bombing began last month, the [*LA Times* ran a piece](http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/20/world/la-fg-libya-sarkozy-20110320) showing that French bellicosity (yes) had been instrumental in dragging the US to war: > Earlier in the week, French papers reported that when Sarkozy asked \[Secretary of State\] Clinton to come out more forcefully in favor of action in Libya, she replied, “There are difficulties” and refused to be drawn out further. > > > “Frankly, we are completely puzzled,” a French diplomat told one of his European counterparts. “We are wondering if Libya is a priority for the United States.” It shouldn’t be. Apparently it is now. And that, I argue in [my *Washington Examiner* column this week](http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/04/time-us-get-out-nato#ixzz1KdR1iqCM), shows the dangers of NATO, a 60-year-old entangling alliance that long ago outlived its usefulness. Much of the piece focuses on Bernard Henri-Levy, the French celebrity-philosopher who played [a key role in stoking Sarko’s dreams of military glory](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-22/sarkozy-libya-plan-got-push-from-american-vertigo-author-levy.html): > Credit or blame goes to French celebrity-philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy, who, “in the space of roughly two weeks,” [the *New York Times* reports](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/world/africa/02levy.html?_r=2), got “a fledgling Libyan opposition group a hearing from the president of France and the American secretary of state, a process that led both countries and NATO into waging war.” > > > Who is Bernard Henri-Levy (BHL)? He’s heir to an industrial fortune, and a crusading socialist who favors open-collared shirts, stylishly long locks and “humanitarian” wars. One critic summed up BHL’s persona tartly: “God is dead, but my hair is perfect.” > > > Henri-Levy’s 2006 book, “American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville,” was so condescending about America’s “derangements,” “dysfunctions” and “hyperobesity,” it roused NPR’s Garrison Keillor to a fit of patriotic ire. The normally placid “Prairie Home Companion” host called BHL [“a French writer with a spatter-paint prose style and the grandiosity of a college sophomore.”](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/books/review/29keillor.html) > > > And yet, BHL — clever boy — helped entangle this fat, silly country in a conflict that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates admits “isn’t a vital interest for the U.S.” But if a picture’s worth a thousand words, then this one surely trumps the 600 in my column: \[caption align=“aligncenter”\][![]()](https://www.cato.org/wp-content/uploads/Arielle+Dombasle+Bernard+Henri+Levy+L+Amour+Le14qqrQyHjl2.jpeg)THAT’S the guy who helped sucker us into war!? ARRRRGH!\[/caption\] ##### Related Tags [Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy), [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).