The French PR Machine Crashes

(San Francisco, CA) Even out here in peacenik-land, one senses that patience is wearing thin for the French. After watching the French Foreign Minister Dominque De Villepin on ABC’s This Week, one Democrat friend asked: "Was he trying to win us over or insult us?" My brother, who speaks fluent French, and is a self-avowed Francophile, has cancelled his trip there this summer. Suddenly Evian costs the same as Poland Springs in the grocery stores.

As US authorities continue to pick off top al Qaeda operatives, it’s time we really start to focus on another threat to our national security —the French. Maybe that’s a slight overstatement--but not by much. Day by day we are learning more about how little we have in common with the country whose people were liberated by our soldiers almost 60 years ago. De Villepin, in the much-heralded interview with George Stephanopolous, unwittingly exposed this growing divide, and his country’s feckless, hypocritical stance against a brutal, dangerous Iraqi regime.

After this Q & A (which was more like Q & Q since he failed to answer Any of the important questions about Iraq), there should be no dispute About the following:

* France thinks 1441’s "immediate compliance" mandate means Iraq should cooperate when it feels like it.

* France doesn’t regret its past role in helping Iraq build a nuclear reactor.

Stephanopolous later said he believed De Villepin was attempting to "go over the heads of the US government and speak directly to the American people." Did De Villepin really believe our citizens would suddenly Find the French position credible when he claimed that Iraq was now cooperating "on process and substance"? (Something even Hans Blix does not claim.)

George might as well have been interviewing Tariq Aziz. "You cannot say that a country should disarm and when a country agrees to disarm…that it’s nothing," De Villepin said of Saddam’s last minute decision to destroy his Al Samoud missiles. "He is, we are in the process of being able to disarm," he insisted. So from the warped French perspective, UN weapons inspectors are not only detectives, they are enablers.

Confirming the worst American stereotypes of France’s appeasement mentality, De Villepin warned of "a burst of terrorism" if force is used "prematurely." This illogical thinking would prevent us from ever Acting preemptively, and keep our country locked into a never-ending defensive crouch. It may be the French way, but it’s not the American way.

As exasperating as De Villepin’s answers were, so was Stephanopolous’ failure to press him on his country’s Iraqi oil interests. No matter How many times De Villepin invoked the "world community," we know that France is only concerned with one thing in this debate—France. Its economic interests, its standing in Europe, its ability to stand up to the world’s cowboy superpower—this is what motivates France’s refusal to force Iraq’s disarmament.

What the French may never fully comprehend is that none of that will ultimately matter in a world where weapons proliferation goes unchecked, where dictators are able to manipulate democratic leaders like marionettes. Memo to Jacques: If you want to be considered as a 21st century authority on the perils of war, why not starting spending some money on your own military? But that’s right, De Villepin reiterated that "France is not a pacifist country."

French eateries in San Francisco conspicuously fly large American flags as if to assure prospective customers that "we’re still with you." Yes we remember that after September 11th, France said "We are all Americans." That was a warm and welcome gesture. But today we need more than gestures, we need action and real commitment.

Penitent adj. Feeling or expressing remorse for one's misdeeds or sins. As in-- De Villepin wasn't the slightest bit penitent about France's role in helping Iraq build a nuclear reactor before the last Gulf War.

"CHIRAC IS A WORM"
(The Sun of London finds "le mot juste" for the verminous French leader)

The French are once again doing what they do best.

In the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, near Omaha Beach in France, the bodies of 10,000 Americans are buried beneath crosses and Stars of David. These young men died saving the world from a tyrant named Adolf Hitler, whom nearly all of the French, for their own cowardly and hateful reasons, either passively appeased or actively supported.

The American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, near Omaha Beach in France
(The bodies of 10,000 Americans lie buried beneath crosses and Stars of David)

Landing at Omaha Beach, near Colleville, on D-Day (June 6, 1944)

Medal of Honor winner Lt. Jimmy W. Monteith, Jr., and the thousands who died with him

The French traitors Petain and Laval, the leaders of the collaborationist Vichy regime (June 1940)
(Both were tried as traitors after the war; Laval was shot to death and Petain imprisoned for life)

French Nazis enthusiastically welcomed the German Nazis into France (June 1940)

Hitler in Paris

Petain greets Hitler as the swastika is unfurled over France
The first to use the word "collaboration" as a synonym for his treason, Petain looked forward to a France controlled by Germany in a "new Europe."

The chief French traitors
(In the front row are Petain, Admiral Darlan and Laval)

Petain and Laval

The French worm Chirac had a worthy predecessor in the French frog Laval
(The Vichy traitor is shown courting the Nazis in a cartoon of the period)

An obscene French postcard
(Glorifying Hitler, it was mailed from Strausbourg to Paris in 1943)

French anti-Semitism on display for the world to see
(An exposition of "The Jew and France" at the Palais Berlitz)

"The Jew is behind it"
(More ugly French anti-Semitism blames the Jews for World War II)

Laval "collaborates" with the head of the dreaded SS in France

The French participated enthusiastically in the Holocaust
(The identity card of Berthe Levy Cahan, 37, stamped "Juif" (Jew) by the Lyon gendarmie)

A French Jew holding his identity papers is searched by a French policeman
(The French joyously rounded up and sent 80,000 French Jews to the Nazi death camps)

Unburned bodies at the Buchenwald death camp, to which many French Jews were sent

A dead American on the Normandy beachhead (June 1944)
(He is flanked by a makeshift memorial)

French Nazis prepare to defend Paris from the Americans (June 1944)
(The "brave" French were as effective against the Americans as they were against the Germans)

The Americans liberate Paris (August 1944)

Americans in Paris celebrate victory over Japan (August 1945)

Now, a half-century later, the French are again anxious to appease and support a tyrant. This time, it is Saddam Hussein.

The dead Americans, buried in French soil, have no meaning to the French, 91% of whom are against President Bush's plans to eradicate Hussein from Iraq.

Our brave French "allies" claim to have a 12,000-man contingent in training — equipped with only one amphibious assault vessel.

Yet again, the French seem to be in training to throw up their arms in surrender.

Axis of evil
(Jacques Chirac with Gerhard Schroeder of Germany and Vladimir Putin of Russia)

Like Germany and Russia, France has billions of dollars tied up in deadly Iraqi military investments.

It was the French who built Saddam Hussein's nuclear bomb-making factory at Osirak despite the fact that its name — Tammuz 17, the date of Jerusalem's destruction by the ancient Babylonians — clearly indicated Iraq's genocidal plans for the terrorist facility.

Friends of France (February 20, 2003)
(Chirac greets the tyrants of various African "nations," including Zimbabwe's murderous Robert Mugabe)

Iran's terrorist tyrant Mohammed Khatami gets the red carpet treatment from Chirac (October 1999)

Chirac defiles the American Cemetery with his presence (May 2002)

Q: What do you call a Frenchman on his way to Iran or Iraq?
A: An arms dealer!

An American college student traveling in France was told that if she were to face any threat of violence in France, she should say she is Canadian rather than American. The hatred for Americans runs deep in the French.

If the Americans wish to have the French as allies, all they need do is invade France. The French will lie down like the cowards they are.

Americans are urged to boycott all French products, to refrain from visiting France for business or pleasure and to spread the word that the French are not worth the dust on an American boot.

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VVV!

VETO VICHY VACATIONS!