[ggekko]

Ike did make a mistake with the Suez crisis but this is about the only thing the French can gripe about during the post-WWII period.

In 1947 we help the French re-float a collasping French Franc; a little while later the Marshall Plan aid started. We allowed the French to manage a dignified exit from Viet Nam after their disastrous military collapse. We have tended to turn a blind eye toward French neo-colonial military episodes in Francophone Africa. The CIA helped De Gaulle during the Algerian crisis.

We have bent over backwards to help the French and our reward has been a lack of cooperation on any number of military and trade issues. To add insult to injury France has been the driving force behind the attempt to turn the EU into "Fortress Europe" with a particularly anti-American slant.

The bottom line is that the French have been rotten friends.

[Burkeman1]

No- we have been idiots. Gratitude is a dog's disease. France acts in her interests. It would have been nice if we had done the same in most of the instances that you mentioned in which we helped France. That we didn't is our fault - not theirs. Nations don't have friends. And we as a country (not a nation mind you) better understand this and stop this juevenile idiocy about "cowards" and "ingrates" when it comes to our allies.