Has France become our enemy?

OUR WAR WITH FRANCE

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Brightnorm
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Re: \"Our War With France\"

Try using this link instead. It is free from the New York Times usual registration requirements. Isn't the Google search engine great? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Interesting article, by the way.

Re: \"Our War With France\"

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X-CalBR8 said:
Try using this link instead. It is free from the New York Times usual registration requirements. Isn't the Google search engine great? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Interesting article, by the way.

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Good idea thanks! Sometimes it's better than the Times' own engine. I think this is an important column, I'll change the title to try to attract more interest.

Brightnorm

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No problem. Glad I could be of assistance. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif I learned that little trick a while back from reading articles quoted from the New York Times on www.slashdot.com That's a great tech news sight, by the way. If you ever want to know why so many people hate Microsoft, that would be a good place to start your research. LOL.

Thanks again for posting this article. It made for an interesting, yet disturbing read. Most people in the U.S. still just don't seem to realize the extent of our foreign relation problems since Bush took office. This article might help some skeptics to realize the serious extent of the current situation.

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France seems less willing to sacrifice, more willing to criticize and interfere, and in general, more cowardly than most nations on the earth today. I think more highly of them than nations that harbour terrorists, but not much more highly, as they seem content to pursue a course of action that does nothing to discourage the kind of problems the US is trying to deal with in the world. Fortunately, we are not alone, but it is a huge disappointment that France has no sense of responsiblity to try to advance world peace, but would rather stir the pot, creating more trouble than if they left things alone. They have very little gratitude for the precious blood of American and English soldiers that was spilled in their land to liberate them from tyrrany. They are long on criticism and short in memory. If such a trouble comes to France again, who will stand with them next time?

David <><

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X-CalBR8 said:
... Most people in the U.S. still just don't seem to realize the extent of our foreign relation problems since Bush took office. This article might help some skeptics to realize the serious extent of the current situation.

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I think that France's attitude goes beyond US party politics and is a calculated and cynical series of actions that may well come back to haunt them, as David suggests.

Brightnoem

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Although it isn't right to not want Iraq to succeed (because if it doesn't, EVERYONE is screwed), France has its own right to do what it's doing. After all, isn't this EXACTLY what we did to them before the war? I do recall we renamed all of our food, boycotted their wine, called them chesse eating surrender monkeys, and the like. What exactly did they do? They refused to go to war with us. What is wrong with that? Many other countries felt the same way, but just simply were not as outspken as they were. So if a country doesn't do what we want, they lack gratitude, and thus should become our enemy?

And I get tired when people keep mentioning how we saved them in WWII. Saving them was just a by-product of the fact that we had to enter through France, because that was our strategy to knock out the Third Reich. Hitler invaded a BUNCH of countries, and thus, didn't we "save" all of the ones we entered (including Germany!)? So now they owe us something and should do whatever the heck we ask?

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Hawkhkg11--I believe that "chesse eating surrender monkeys" is hyphenated /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

I think that they have a right to do what they want and think what they want as a soverign nation...
it's just that some of the ways they went about it seemed very chilidish. Oh, and that goes for the French as well our US govt leaders

-Jason

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RevDavid said: France ...long on criticism and short in memory.

Yeah. Darn French. They've even forgotten how they supported us in Afganistan. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

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Our country has been traumatized by the single most horrendous peacetime attack upon a civilian population in recorded history and the single most destructive attack upon this country in its history. I don't think that non-Americans can fully appreciate the extent of our shock, rage, fear and desire for vengeance. Even some Americans who live physically far from Ground Zero may have trouble emotionally understanding the enormity of this act.

I would ask that our European allies try to remember what provoked our actions in the first place, and to understand that an extraordinary act of mass murder unique in human history will inevitably trigger a response that some may consider inappropriate.

For those that will quote Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden, please remember that these occurred during wartime and were responses to attacks launched upon the US and our allies and that their purpose was to defeat the enemy and end the war.

Brightnorm

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Except Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11...

I really don't want to get into this, but do you know how many dictators we have supported and terror we have sponsored to serve our own interests? We killed like 3 million civilians in Vietnam alone...

Just because some of our acts don't happen in "peacetime" doesn't mean we weren't wrong (Remember that we start wars by invading countries, and so therefore we aren't committing terrorist acts because its "wartime?") Some people may go as far to say as we are greater terrorists than Al Qaeda can ever be, because our terrorism is state sponsored, and we bend the definition so whatever we do doesn't fall under the "definition of terrorism" (Watch Chomsky's "Distorted Morality"). Remember, we gave Saddam, Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban millions of dollars in money and weapons, because they were our friends at the "time". I find it fascinating how our history books are very selective in describing U.S. past actions.

Some people have said I always want to blame the U.S. for everything. No, I say I try to find the unbaised truth, whereas you deny it.

Please don't ban me. I'm not anti-American or else I wouldn't be living here. I'm glad that living in this country allows me to find the truth without being tortured or jailed. I am just so sad that so many people don't dig deeper to find this truth, and just believe what their leaders and their media tells them.

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ALL major governments in the world are corrupt. I can show you many instances where france...russia...germany...United States...etc.. have done experiments on the civilian population without their knowledge and have commited great attrocities due to political and racial motivations. There are a lot of major governments vying for power. If any one of them were to let loose the hold they have...the balance would tip. All about money and power...

"But now the holy dollar rules everybody's lives
Gotta make a million doesn't matter who dies" ~Queensryche

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Exactly Negeltu. You're right on the money. Except, things such as "patriotism" prevent people from seeing past this in trying to discover REAL history, not just written history. The U.S. has done about as much wrongdoing to other people (other countries, I mean) as the average totalitarian society. Except the difference is, we don't do it to our OWN people, so Americans don't know about it or deny it. Well, except for all the soldiers we've sent to die in unjustified wars we've started or participated in...

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hawkhkg11 said:
...I'm not anti-American or else I wouldn't be living here. I'm glad that living in this country allows me to find the truth without being tortured or jailed. I am just so sad that so many people don't dig deeper to find this truth, and just believe what their leaders and their media tells them.

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Most reasonably well informed Americans are aware that we are not without flaws but are still happy to be Americans, as I believe you are. One of the great strengths of our country is that no matter how skewed the scales of political balance may be at a given moment in history, they eventually and inevitably tilt back toward the other side, passing through and often resting near the center on their way over.

Brightnorm

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Actually.. There is documented proof of our government experimenting on us with biological and chemical agents without our knowledge. In my mind..that IS bad... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

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I just started reading posts in the cafe... I didn't realize there was so much good conversation on here that didn't just pertain to lighting /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Ok, Ok, enough already! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

I get it! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon23.gif

America Bad!

Rest of world good!

Can you talk about something else? And not in other 3+ America Bad! Theads. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jpshakehead.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I don't believe anyone here has tried to imply that America were the bad guys and the rest of the world were the good guys. If that is all that you are reading into this then you are missing the point entirely. That point being that America is no better or worse than most any other so called "free" and democratic country in Europe. Not only that, but there are some countries in Europe that have more free laws than us so we can't say that we have the world's monopoly on freedom either like some people seem to think.

For us to act like we are always in the right and anyone else from any other country is always in the wrong is very arrogant (not to mention wrong). This is true especially when you consider that most people only have the ideas that they have concerning world politics from listening exclusively to the version of the truth that is put out by American broadcasters which are practically all clones of one other in the first place.

Surely I am not the only one here that has noticed that all the major news networks in the U.S. almost always tell the exact same news every night and almost always have nearly the exact same opinion and bias on *everything*. Wake up people, if this does not prove that the government uses our media to shape the minds of the people to be willing to accept whatever they decide to do in the world then I don't know of what better proof I can give.

And no, to everyone here that seems to have the idea that I hate my own country and love the rest of the world, I'm not saying that the U.S. is the only country to use their media as such a tool to control the minds of their people. I'm saying that *all* countries use this tactic and that's why we should not listen exclusively to the media that is put out in our own country. That's why I said earlier to diversify with your news sources. If you see another country that thinks directly opposite of what you have been taught to think, try listening to their news for a while and you might just see that there are two sides to every coin.

A little patriotism and nationalism is a good thing for everyone, but when carried to extremes, it becomes very self-destructive and can lead to xenophobia and the mindless hatred of others.

These recent post that have been labeled as being anti-American, have come mostly in response to the mindless bashing of Europeans with American media rhetoric instead of taking the time to understand why Europeans see things the way they do. If we all start from the assumption that not everything we see on the nightly news is 100% true and accurate, that will make it much easier to see things from someone else's perspective and see both sides of an issue. It will also increase peace and understanding in the world.

Remember to, you don't have to "hate" your own country to admit that it's government has made mistakes and/or admit that it's government has done, or is doing, evil things. In a society that the people can not publicly admit that their government has done something wrong without being accused of hating their country, that makes the people the slave of the government instead of the government being the servant of the people, as it should be.

To set the record straight once and for all, I love my country, but I hate the fact that our government is currently corrupted by the campaign contributions/bribes of the nation's most mega-rich corporations. I believe that the government, as it stands today, puts the needs of the people second and the desires of the campaign contributing corporations first. If you want to know why we are fighting an "oil war" today, it all stems back to this. I don't hate my country, but I hate all that is currently corrupting the country that I love.

opening a debate and trying to use logic to see both sides of an argument doesn't equal to being anti-american. loving one's country also doesn't mean loving its leaders. i love my country, but i don't agree all the time with its leaders. just thought i'd point this out /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif i forsee a flamewar though, so i'll just watch and observe /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif