Posted on 06/07/2004 3:34:37 PM PDT by quidnunc
The president of the United States is coming to Paris today. This should be a moment of joy, pride and friendship in these extraordinary days. The president, a wartime commander in chief, is in France to commemorate a sacrifice, to pay his respects to thousands of dead American teenagers who came to our deadly shores to save Europe from Adolf Hitler.
I'm French, and I love my country. At the same time, with all my heart, I love the United States of America, and I strongly support its president. When someone dies to save your family, this act of pure courage makes him part of the family.
When I visited the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer for the first time, 20 years ago, I felt immediately at home. This was like a family reunion. Those kids were my brothers. They jumped out of crowded boats, under heavy fire, to rescue us, the unborn, the kids of the future. It's as simple as that. I love America because I have thousands of American brothers.
And 40 years from now, I'm sure, Iraqi teenagers will visit the military cemetery at Arlington with tears in their eyes, and they will thank American teenagers who died at the beginning of the century to bring them freedom and hope. This is why I support and respect President George Walker Bush with all my heart. It's as simple as that.
Yet the streets of Paris are not filled with the Stars and Stripes on the occasion of Mr. Bush's visit. French magazines print headlines along the lines of "The President who spoiled the year," and "The stupidest American President." They worship the mistake-prone filmmaker Michael Moore, and they despise the man who spent blood and treasure to change a totalitarian regime.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
I'm speechless that a frenchman would realize this and then actually say it. I hope this brave young screenwriter still has a career in France after this.
Fred Gion, a Frenchman who has a wonderful essay appreciating America and its current president in today's Dallas Morning News, writes from Paris about Mr. Reagan's passing:
The next week will certainly be filled with sadness, which is not Reaganesque at all! Oddly, this week could be the least Reaganesque week of the last 24 years. Then everything will be quiet again and we will remember the fighting spirit, the moral clarity, the optimism and the jokes. "Reagan dead" is an oxymoron.
Posted at 07:15 PM
I, too, have spent some time in that country. And I know there are more than a few good people there, most of them in the south. But I can never forgive france for what it did to us. The Spanish simply faltered in their courage. That I can understand and I expect to someday ease up on them. But the ruling elite that the french consistently vote into power has gone out of its way to insult and betray us, not once, but continuously throughout the past 2 years. The french must be taught to be more discriminating in their choice of leadership.
The French actively betrayed us over the past two years. But the French have been undermining us to the best of their ability every since the days of de Gaulle. De Gaulle undermined us even during the Second World War. So perhaps we should not be too surprised at Chirac's betrayal. It's just that France never had such a good chance to betray us earlier.
When france grovels at our feet, begging our forgiveness and asking what they can do to make things right, I might relent in about 1,000 years. IOW, they is nothing they can do to placate me. They'll have to pick a future generation for that.
They french have had contempt for us for the past 300 years and I've finally just had it with them.
Not the time to betray....
... comes at least 18 months too late.
Yep, ironically, only USophile French people liked Clinton. The 70% rest of them thought Clinton was most hypocritical about sex and not admiting it, and very stupid, also for being with an ugly like Monica.... they could not understand why he could not get other lower profile girls in there.... oh and whatever CNN is saying, the FRENCH HATE CNN WITH THEIR GUTS... so much for CNN saying the French are their friends...
BTTT
Not the Time to Betray our American Brothers Again
Here is an email address for the writer of this article.
fred.gion@laposte.net
Thanks, tf!
"The French actively betrayed us over the past two years."
Nicely documented in:
"The French Betrayal of America"
by Kenneth Timmerman
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1400053668/qid=1086664224/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-1571648-9959241?v=glance&s=books
Thankyou, VOA. I'm not surprised that they fear expressing themselves in france. Even moderate conservatives are brutally suppressed over there. They can lose their jobs, fail to get their book published or distributed as agreed, all sorts of reprisals await them. It's very similar to what happens to conservative candidates for professorships over here.
" Is the country of les droits de l'homme (the rights of man) really enamored of freedom and democracy? I don't know anymore. "
" Why did President Jacques Chirac oppose America at the United Nations with such fierceness? Did he know there were no weapons of mass destruction, and no way of rebuilding Iraq."
" Not at all. The prewar consensus within the European intelligence community supported the WMD argument, and Iraq will eventually be rebuilt. All human beings are created equal, so democracy can and will flourish everywhere. "
" It's something else: a country-club mentality. European democracies feel like they belong to some sort of aristocracy, a small club of enlightened nations. They love the coziness of the status quo. They call Mr. Bush a reckless, brainless, mannerless cowboy. "
"Well, I like this cowboy very much. And I like the way he is trying to radically improve this world. "
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