Faux Amis: Book Review of "Our Oldest Enemy" by John J. Miller and Mark Molesky

Ah, the French. How to think of them? There is an easy default answer: kindly and gratefully. After all, they helped us in the Revolutionary War, gave us Alexis de Tocqueville and the Statue of Liberty, and to this day feel a keen republican spirit in harmony with America's own. Sure, we have had our spats. But when the chips are down, you can count on France to be on our side, more or less, and to supply some great wine if it is needed.

...Before 9/11, 77% of Americans held a favorable opinion of France. By March 2003, only 34% did.

That's quite a shift, and little wonder. In the weeks leading up to the Iraq war, when French support might have helped win the approval of the United Nations, the French poured contempt on the U.S. for its "unilateralism." In those crucial days Dominique de Villepin, the French foreign minister, scolded the U.S. with particular condescension, declaring that "nothing justifies envisaging military action." The chips were down, and France was most assuredly not on our side....

It is positively amusing to hear John Kerry argue that George W. Bush single-handedly spoiled our relations with "Old Europe." The relations were never smooth in the first place.... Mark Twain bridled over French claims of superiority.... FDR told Churchill in 1943 that de Gaulle had proved to be "unreliable, uncooperative, and disloyal to both governments." Truman would later call de Gaulle a "psychopath."

...French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau contended that "America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization."....

"Our Oldest Enemy" is a terrific read, although it must be said that Messrs. Miller and Molesky do get a bit carried away at times....

France repeatedly terrorized early Americans with kidnappings.

FLASHBACK as EXAMPLE:

"On February 29, 1704, a party of French and Indian raiders
descended on the Massachusetts village of Deerfield, killing fifty residents and
capturing more than a hundred others. A force of more
than two hundred Frenchmen, Abenakis, Hurons, Kahnawake Mohawks,
Pennacooks, and Iroquois of the Mountain overran
the northwesternmost village of the New England frontier.
The attackers took 112 men, women, and children captive.
The book Captors and Captives: The 1704 French and Indian Raid on Deerfield (Native
Americans of the Northeast) by Evan Haefeli, Kevin Sweeney
follows the raiders and their prisoners on the harsh
three-hundred-mile trek back to Canada and into French and Native communities."

=========== French missiles given to Iraq to be USED Against US and Coalition Heroes =========

French missiles found by the Poles, and to protect France, blown up.

Froggies said they did not say "2003". LOL. Decide for yourself.

The French saw a re-armed and sanction-free Iraq under Saddam as a strong ally in the ME and as the lynch-pin of their new anti-US axis. The French keenly feel the need for a counter-balance for US power in the world, and would very much like to take on that role. Iraq as a French ally would provide them with a lucrative trading partner and with crucial leverage in a volitile region.

Then that simpleton cowboy George W. Bush went and blew their best laid plans all to Hell. Is it any wonder they oppose us?

I was surprised and saddened that Jeff Gedmin, head of the Berlin branch of the Aspen Institute, ostensibly chartered with fostering international dialogue, should lend credence in an October 14 Wall Street Journal review to the biased and incendiary book "Our oldest enemy", which apparently seeks to paint France in the worst possible light.

Among other strange claims, Mr. Gedmin faults France for "reluctantly" helping the rebellious states during the Revolutionay War. For the record, and odds are Mr. Gedmin knows this, France veered towards bankruptcy and revolution from providing this "reluctant" help to the thirteen fledgling colonies. Putting the shoe on the other foot, would Mr. Gedmin suggest that the French demonize the US for "reluctantly" saving France in WWI and WWII (the US entered both wars over two years after France and Britain)? No one in France would buy such nonsense. Ever since their supreme sacrifice far from home and loved ones, France feels, as it certainly should, immense gratitude for the Americans who saved them, despite claims to the contrary from polemicists at Fox News and the Wall Street Journal.

Overall, Mr Gedmin's seeming endorsement of what feels at times (to this reader at least) like ethnic baiting must aid and abet ideologues on both continents who relish, for reasons of their own, the prospect of a permanent estrangement between the United States and parts of Europe.

Being dual cultural (American and French), I appreciate the strengths and foibles of both my cultures. Let me be clear: I believe that France has a lot more to learn from the United States than vice versa. When my ancestors came to Massachusetts from England in the 1630s, they helped create a society based on higher moral and practical values than that of the Europe they left behind. And that's what has distinguished America to the world since then, its power to show a path of hope to those who have none.

Mr Gedmin's book review is in a darker, non-American tradition. His sophomoric endorsement of prejudices that would repel if applied to other ethnic groups or nationalities (try his summation "the French make great villains" with "Chinese," "Jews," or "Irish" instead) is sharply at odds with the Aspen Institute's stated mission: "...the Institute and its international partners seek to promote the pursuit of common ground and deeper understanding in a nonpartisan and non-ideological setting."

Great Americans can do better than that. So can the Aspen Institute's representatives.

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