Frensh bashing
Bertrand Klein
Le Monde, April, 3rd, 2003
Without France, the United States would not exist.
The wise firmness of France, can open the prospect for a world order founded
on
the right. The United States seems to want to be unaware of it. The
ridiculous francophobia developed by the most ignited North-American
patriotards proves especially that the super power would sometimes
deserve to be called "the United States of Amnesia". Because one can
affirm it: without France, the United States would not exist. Without
the support of French monarchy, it is probable that Washington and its
men would not have gained the war of Independence. It is certain, in
any case, that they gained it thanks to the powerful support that
France brought them. In 1776, Benjamin Franklin presented himself in
the capacity of ambassador of the revolution at the court of France
(while pointing out himself by the republican simplicity of his setting
and the speed, the brilliance of his intelligence). This same year, Louis
XVI authorized
the free delivery of ammunition for a value of 1 million pounds to the
armies of George Washington.
The French assistance saved Washington during the cruel winter of 1777:
the revolutionary forces, besieged in Morristown and weakened by the
desertions, were saved by the assistance of France. In 1778, was
signed the treaty of friendship and trade between France and the
rebellious colony of North America. It included a clause of
the most favoured nation and obliged France to guarantee the
independence of the United States of America. Logical consequence of
this treaty ratified in February, the war burst between England and
France in June.
Many French officers intervened directly to support
Washington and his rebels.First french fleet, ordered by Charles Hector of
Estaing (a name which was to illustrate former president Valéry Giscard
d'Estaing), was
sent to block the English in the port of New York in 1778. The
Marquis de la Fayette, being financed on his personal goods,
joined the revolutionary forces and was named in 1777 (as nearly two
centuries later, in Cuba, Argentinian Ernesto "Che" Guevara) at the
command of the revolution. Since 1776, he had convinced Louis XVI to
send a task force of 6 000 men to fight at the sides of Washington.
The end of the war of the Independence of the United States would not
have been conceivable without the decisive intervention of the French
weapons. In 1780, the French fleet of the admiral de Grasse blocked
the English army in Virginia by removing to him any possibility of
escape by the sea. In same time, always in Virginia, the count de Rochambeau
and his forces faced the English General Cornwallis. The surround carried
out by the French fleet and the
military support brought to the revolutionary army of George
Washington sealed the destiny of England in its thirteen colonies.
Cornwallis had to capitulate in October 1780, the independence of the
United States was thus definitively acquired. The General John
Pershing, commander-in-chief of the American task force of the First
World War, hastened to go to incline himself in front of the tomb of
the French hero of the American revolution by pronouncing these words:
"La Fayette, here we are !"
But the General Pershing had a direction of the military honours and
national recognition of which completely misses the colérique one and
sanguinary secretary of defense of the Bush government,
Donald Rumsfeld. That it is Rumsfeld who, the first, sealed the alliance
of the United States with Saddam Hussein in 1983, by providing him the
weapons of massive destruction which, today, give nightmares to the
draculas of the Pentagon, is a proof among others of a double truth.
The United States is Dr. Frankenstein of the modern world, experts to
create their own monsters which, then, are turned over against their
creators. Saddam in Iraq, Ben Laden in Afghanistan are the children
of the foreign politics blunt, mercenary and contradictory of a nation
which can however be, when she wants it, at the same time
clear-sighted and pragmatic. Let us imagine what would be the world
today if Bill Clinton were always at the White House or if Al Gore had
gained the last elections (which he gained, actually, by the popular vote).
Bill Clinton
fulfilled his inevitable obligations of chief of the super power with
a discretion, a capacity of negotiation and incentive to completely
foreign alliances with the noisy demonstrations of Manicheism ("With
us or against us", "the axis of the Evil") of the barded evangelist
of guns who succeeded to him the White House. Clinton and Gore, I am
convinced by it, would have concentrated the efforts of their nation,
after September 11, 2001, on the combat against terrorism, an enemy
who is not conventional and cannot thus be fought conventionally,
instead of diverting his forces on the war against Iraq, by
sacrificing world solidarity.
Bush and Co, by their atrabilious and destroying actions of the
international order, will transform the world into a seedbed of
terrorists. Does Ben Laden have today, thanks to the blindness of the
current government of the United States, an army of potential
terrorists who, ô irony! will not have any more to worry about
antifondamentalist repression of Saddam Hussein.
But, obviously, there is even more serious: it is the dedication by the
White House of the
principle of the preventive war. If the cold war did not become hot,
it is because dissuasion and the application prevailed. These
principles being replaced by the discretional use of the force,
any nation opposed to another can from now on feel authorized to
thump the first blow. The strongest example, in the past, is
the attack of Pearl Harbor by Japan, December 7, 1941. "One day which
will remain in annals of the infamy", said then the greatest american
president of the XXe century, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Will the attack against Iraq remain like another "infamous day?" I do
not know anything of it. But, infamous or not, it is and will
remain a most dangerous day. If the international community does not
combine its efforts to create a legal, political and vigorous order for the
XXIe century, we will go from crisis to crisis towards an
abyss which has a name : nuclear apocalypse.
For this reason the wise firmness of France, its president Jacques Chirac
and his
Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, is not only one chance for the
world. It is it also for the United States of America themselves, by
opening the prospect for a world order founded on the right. Without
memory and brain, ignoramus, the current american government does not
understand these reasons. Do the extremists of North believe
that they ridiculously offend France by changing the name of "fried"
potatoes, french fries, out of "free" potatoes, freedom fries ?
Perhaps they will cease drinking water of Evian during a certain time
and champagne during less longer. But, from the entry of bay of New York
where it is raised, the statue of Liberty, gift of France to the
United States, recalls the Americans that, if they believe to have
saved France in two world wars, France did not only save, but helped
in a decisive way to create the United States of America.
GW
having too much fun bashing the French. It's a shame but there must be some
pleasure in it. The French believe the US has no business overthrowing
Saddam, no matter how wicked he is. That's a responsible point of view, but
it won't matter much once he's overthrown.
Just about everything I read is "manichean" so the term is becoming useless.
"Bertrand Klein" <bertran...@noos.fr> wrote in message
news:3e8c6572$0$26709$79c1...@nan-newsreader-01.noos.net...
Bertrand Klein
"GW" <gwal...@columbus.rr.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
_KZia.42039$0X.85...@twister.columbus.rr.com...
GW
pains me very much to see French and Americans lobbing vicious rhetoric at
each other. I also believe that the U.S. repaid all French favors in the
20th century. Certainly there are more Americans buried in France from
efforts to eject Germans than there are French buried in America.
"Bertrand Klein" <bertran...@noos.fr> wrote in message
news:3e8c6b1c$0$25935$79c1...@nan-newsreader-03.noos.net...
Pete Oppel
gwal...@columbus.rr.com writes:
> The French are having too much fun bashing Americans and the Americans are
> having too much fun bashing the French. It's a shame but there must be
> some
> pleasure in it.
I love my girlfriend even though I don't always agree with everything
she says and/or does. Why do we think the French have become "anti-American"
simply because its government view on Iraq doesn't agree with our
government's view?
================================================
"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror,
murder, bloodshed - but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and
the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of
democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
--Harry Lime (Orson Welles), "The Third Man"
Patrick McGovern
-George Steinbrenner
"Bertrand Klein" <bertran...@noos.fr> wrote in message
news:3e8c6572$0$26709$79c1...@nan-newsreader-01.noos.net...
PHyatt1962
Yeah, but July is coming and so is Lance!!
PH
Bertrand Klein
"Patrick McGovern" <patrick....@unisys.com> a écrit dans le message de
news: b6ica8$nu7$1...@trsvr.tr.unisys.com...
Bertrand Klein
-George Steinbrenner
"Patrick McGovern" <patrick....@unisys.com> a écrit dans le message de
news: b6ica8$nu7$1...@trsvr.tr.unisys.com...
BlindWillieCanSmell
> "Owning the Yankees is like owning the Mona Lisa."
No it's not. The French don't own the Yankees. If they did, they wouldn't
be able to play because you need BALLS before you can take the field.
The Wisdom Of Bill Goldman:
"......a brain surgeon with no imagination is a pretty frightening thought;
so if I stirred, say, under the anaesthetic, said brain surgeon wouldn't
have the imagination to realise I might be coming round, and would just
continue to cut up my brain by the book?"
Mr. Goldman,
"You are not in a position to complain about anyone insulting anyone or
anyone else here being arrogant. In the past two hours alone, you have
posted 11 times (8 times after saying you were gone) and 64 percent of your
posts contained rather blatant insults. The arrogance goes without saying.
In fact, since your return to this group a couple of weeks ago, your rather
unfortunate posting history has been one of insults and arrogance from the
start. Perhaps you should consider getting a life." (Peter Stone Brown)
Bertrand Klein
"BlindWillieCanSmell" <ho...@duluth.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
b6kk00$nl1$2...@slb9.atl.mindspring.net...
BlindWillieCanSmell
> Shut up King Kong, find yourself a brain.
Compare that juvenile comeback to my brilliant one. I think my brain has
beaten yours by a mile.
BlindWillieTheTroll
> > Shut up King Kong, find yourself a brain.
>
> Compare that juvenile comeback to my brilliant one. I think my brain has
> beaten yours by a mile.
Then again, BlindWillie is an idiot.