I notice you're French . . . well, well, well.
I won't go thru the exercise of telling you about all the relatives of mine who ate Normandy mud on D-Day or any of that. I suspect you've heard it enough. I suspect you wouldn't be a FReeper if you didn't already understand that argument and why it upsets us so.
What I will tell you is this . . . me and millions and millions of my countrymen will never forgive Jacques ChIRAQ for stabbing us in the back the way he did. Had France and Germany had the guts to back up ANY of the UN mandates directed at Iraq after the First Gulf War . . . Americans wouldn't be dying in Iraq right now.
I suspect we'll find French hands in the Oil for Food cookie jar and that'll explain part of it . . . but ChIRAQ has also made it damn plain that his MAJOR foreign policy is to simply pick the opposing view of what America wants to do. His pious and pompous preaching to us is beyond contempt. His and Schroeder's anti-U.S. stances were calculated to try to defeat President Bush in November . . . but the American people gave ChIRAQ the respect he deserves -- WE TOLD HIM TO KISS OUR RED, WHITE, AND BLUE AMERICAN ASSES!
I have a beloved nephew fighting in Iraq. He wouldn't be there if ANY French leader did more than posture for TV cameras.
Maybe you don't consider the weasel-crap your leaders have tried to shovel on us to be an "onslaught." I suspect you'll be in the minority here on Free Republic.
You wrote . . . "Man, you make it sound like German U-boote and French naval commandos attacked US ships and coastline little towns." Oh were it so . . . God how much simpler it would make it were that so. But ChIRAQ and Schroeder are all bluster . . . even they have enough sense not to attempt such foolishness.
Are we arrogant? Perhaps . . . but it ain't braggin' if you can back it up. Can anyone say the same about ChIRAQ? Your problems in the Ivory Coast have him completely buffaloed. All he's thinking about is an "exit" strategy. How to save face. THAT is not a leader ANY warrior will follow into battle.
One would think that with all the Islamic strife going on in Europe that someone over there would grow a backbone . . . but, alas, it doesn't appear to be so. While the terrorists kill your movie directors, while they try to terrorize your Jews and Christians, while they flock to your shores like locusts . . . European leaders simply sit on their hands.
Here's news for you, pal . . . don't call us for help. Not this time. Not so long as ChIRAQ and his policies live. We've had it with the Axis of Weasels.
And that's sad. My father told me some of the kindest and bravest souls he'd ever met in his life were the French country folks he met in early-June 1944. They had barely enough to eat themselves YET they fed my father and his squad scrambled eggs for breakfast. They, according to my father, provided the absolute best intelligence on German positions and strengths.
But, alas, it appears the panty-waist liberals run the show now in France. I suspect you don't agree with their policies or you wouldn't have joined Free Republic. I suspect your ancestors were probably the "country-folks" my father described. And I hope and pray that is so . . . for your sake. If it is, none of this is directed at your personally . . . but France is ruled by wimps and cut-throats so we have no choice but to react accordingly.
There's TWO BIG differences between France and the U.S. -- we've managed to beat back the hordes of liberals AND we still have the cojones to fight for what we believe in. The French leaders do nothing but talk and posture for TV cameras while the Islamic Wolves creep ever closer to their dens.
We have long, long memories here. I'm afraid ChIRAQ and Schroeder have ruined relations between the French-German pacifist-backstabbers and us Americans for a helluva long time. So long as we manned the frontlines between y'all and the Soviet Union, we were considered allies. But once we won the Cold War French and German hubris rose to the surface and we damn sure don't appreciate it.
FOR GOD'S SAKE, CHIRAQ SENT DEVILLEPIN ON A WORLD-WIDE TOUR TO CAMPAIGN AGAINST US BEFORE WE ATTACKED IRAQ!!!
So, yes, IMO, the anti-Americanism exhibited by your leaders was IN FACT an onslaught against us. An onslaught we will repay ten-fold.
Man, spare me nothing.
You'd be surprised at how little I have people talking about their relatives dying on a Normandy beach - usually I get comments about my supposed lack of hygiene and my supposed anti-semitism. So, to avoid any misunderstanding here, let me stress out that I respect and honor those who fought to snatch a whole continent from the Nazi fangs. The 300,000 US soldiers who died from Italy to France to Germany deserve every mark of respect, since what they accomplished was truly astounding in terms of personal sacrifices.
I'll just say that the 250,000 French soldiers who died fighting the same enemy might be extended the same courtesy, along with each and every Allied soldier and sailor. From 1940 onward, one French citizen was killed by the Germans every two hours for acts of sabotage, either shot in a road ditch or burnt in an extermination camp, and I'd like them to get the respect their killers almost never paid them.
As for de Villepin, I'd be glad to see him ousted of public office, rolled in tar and feathers, and sent packing for the country of his choice. He's exactly what I despise on politicians in general and ours in particular. He was so dismal a Foreign Minister that I'd gladly charge him of "intelligence with the enemy" - but it would be the first time he'd be accused of intelligence.
I particularly hold him responsible not only for widening the transatlantic rift, but for causing the death of French soldiers and Ivorian civilians when he botched up the situation there beyond all recognition.
The Oil for Food scam : I won't comment on it, since I don't know much about it yet, except the names of the two French politicans that were on the list of Saddam's "special donations". I am glad neither of them is a Government member, but I have as little respect for them as I have to good ol' Dominique, and I'd like nothing more than to see them extradited to Iraq to face some serious charges.
You see, I don't believe in forgetting crimes and forgiving criminals, so you won't see them picket in front of the US embassy asking for some clemency. Either they've done it, and they get whatever sentence is relevant (on top of being stripped of their mandates here), or they didn't do it, and their innocence must be publicly acknowledged as befits a normal justicial system.
As for following Chirac into battle, I'll just say that should it come to that, I would do it. I would do it as I would follow any democratically elected President in times of war, regardless of my personal opinions of the man. In times of war, the President is the commander-in-chief, and it stops at that. Following him in times of peace, though, is an entirely different matter, and I wholeheartedly wish he'll be trodden under by Sarkozy in 2007, with all judicial consequences to him and his wife.
So believe me, if I had it my way, neither you nor your leaders wouldn't have much left to do to Chirac and especially to de Villepin.