As A Wise Man, Umm, Guy, Once Said

I think that you find Francophobia generally in the USA -also France is the only larger (European) nation, the USA have never fought a war against.

Germany was (is?) together with France 'Old Europe', while the UK and Poland is 'New Europe'. (Poland, that's the country whose foreign minister recently said: "You know that the Polish-US alliance isn't worth anything.It is downright harmful, because it creates a false sense of security ... Complete bullshit. We'll get in conflict with the Germans, Russians and we'll think that everything is super, because we gave the Americans a blow job. Losers. Complete losers.")

Well, there was the Quasi-war of 1797--but the cheese-eating surrender monkeys kept farting when the two fleets were becalmed, so the U. S.Navy eventually withdrew out of compassion for the sailors and Marines.

England and France have been fighting each other for the best part of a thousand years. What's America's excuse?

I agree that the Bushists' anti-French campaign built upon an old prejudice. It made it more effective, but not one bit more truthful.

Rather than addressing any of my assertions, you merely state that they are unsupported and irrational without actually refuting them. Stating that my assertions are unsupported and irrational without refuting them is no argument at all and must be taken to mean that you cannot refute them. You've demonstrated that you know a few adjectives. When you're able to argue the subject, come look me up.


As for picking and chosing Chirac's words, I have quoted the translation of a statement he made to the effect that Iraq might have WMD. His statement demonstrates that that was what he thought. You cannot act as though he didn't say what he actually did say. The only counter-argument you can make is to quote other things he said at about the same time which express an opposite opinion. I note that you refer to "an ocean of evidence" without giving any of it. Okay, I'm not an expert on Chirac. I'm willing to accept the possibility that he said that Iraq's possible WMD programs were a threat and also, at about the same time, said that they weren't if you can give me a quote contradicting one I have provided, but so far you haven't.


As described above, merely stating that my opinion is lunacy without actually refuting any of my assertions is not an argument. If you cannot actually refute anything I said specifically, then the only possible interpretation is that I win the argument.

We now know he didn't have WMD development programs only because we invaded. What we knew then was that he had once had the programs and wasn't cooperating with the UN's efforts to verify that they were gone. The UN inspectors had failed to verify that the WMD programs had been terminated after 12 long years of trying. Saddam Hussein could have been merely stalling for enough time to complete development. Given the stakes - the possession of nuclear and/or biological weapons by an evil dictator with a history of invading neighbors - we had to find out absolutely if the development programs still existed and stop them if they did.

You have simply run away from all of the specific points I made in my last post to you. If you cannot disprove or even address any of my assertions, then you lose.

I argued that a belief that WMD programs couldn't be hidden was naive. I gave a specific example - North Korea. We were never sure that they had the weapons until they announced them. I argued that the stakes are very high and supported this assessment by giving possible scenarios of use of WMD by Iraq if it had them, and I am referring specifically to nuclear or biological weapons. What I said was:



I have asked you repeatedly what you will do the next time that there are indication that an evil dictator is trying to develop WMD, but he denies it. No answer from you.

You have failed to address any of these points and have certainly failed to refute them. I will take this to mean that you cannot. Certainly in any formal debate it would mean that you lose.

You have stated that my arguments are more like a science fiction film than like reality, and yet you have not backed this up by providing any counter-arguments. You state that information which would refute what I've said is freely available, and yet, oddly, have not given any of it or demonstrated how any of this information refutes anything I said. Your argument in general seems to be this:

"I have more experience and knowledge than you do and am, therefore, right."

This is not an argument. If you were actually correct, you could address what I have said and show that it is wrong. In fact, you haven't addressed any point I made. Since you haven't made a successful counter argument to anything I said, then my arguments stand and you lose.


A coy hint that you have a successful argument somewhere off stage is not an argument. If you have an argument, make it. Otherwise, it's just hot air.

Except that the Germans conquered Paris and the Americans liberated it.

In addition, the Finn of 1971 was not the Finn of 2014.

First of all I was 17 and had hair down to my waist. I dressed in all the required hippie regalia and actually could speak some French.

Secondly, I arrived in Paris as close to a left-wing radical as a kid just out of HS could be. I had joined my older brother and his friends at the 1969 anti-war demonstration in Washington D.C. and got suspended for publishing "subversive" articles in the school newspaper.

Thirdly I arrived alone and not part of an American tourist group or any group. I was not walking around speaking English loudly, making fun of French customs, or doing anything to attract attention, let alone anything that might offend anyone.

I was spit on by a very well dressed women to whom I said "Pardon" because she acted like I had bumped into her (I did not).

I had trash thrown at me by construction workers (at least they were probably just doing what they did to any kid with long hair).

I was treated rudely and insulted constantly, particularly when I spoke to anyone in French. (Ironically, my idiot HS French teacher who urged me to make the trip assured me that not only did everyone speak English in Paris, they loved it when foreigners at least tried to speak French)

The discussion with the three French college kids at a party began with us all bemoaning the faciist state of our respective governments, and agreeing that the Vietnam War was a terrible mistake engineered by LBJ, it ended in a fight when I expressed how I felt bad for the American kids who had been drafted and were fighting there; noting that I knew a few of them, a relative and a couple of my brother's friends and they loudly insisted that I was full of ****, that all the American soldier there were war criminals and "baby-killers." The fight got physical when I told them there problem was that America had pulled their asses out of two World Wars and they didn't know how to show gratitude. Not the smartest thing to say under the circumstances, but it felt very good.I taken enough **** by then.

Now, if you think that's an understandable way to treat a guest in your country who traveled alone all that way because he wanted to see Paris and meet French people, then we have different understandings of hospitality and common courtesy.

I met maybe 10 people who were actually friendly towards me (and I don't include the three guys at the party). Five were the members of the British band I left Paris to go to London with, and two were very cute French girls. I'm sure there had to be some other decent Parisians somewhere in the city, but you couldn't convince me of that at the the time or for many years latter. Frankly I'm not sure I actually believe it now.

Jackanory, Jackanory.

Hans Blix wasn't stalling. He should have been allowed to do his job, end of.

You can look at it how who want to, but Blix's statements about the Iraq WMD program were contradicting the claims of the George W. Bush administration:
Hans Blix's briefing to the security council
versus
Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs

Apart from being profoundly ignorant of even your own nation's history, you're just a little bag of bile, resentments and hatreds, huh?

Americans, in addition to imbibing the prejudices of the mother country, fought the French in King William's War, the North American offshoot of the Nine Years War; in Queen Anne's War, the North American offshoot of the War of the Spanish Succession; in King George's War, the North American offshoot of the War of the Austrian Succession; and, finally, they fought them in the French and Indian war, which began a few years before the Seven Years War in Europe. The French also continually egged on the Migma and other aboriginal tribes to attack the English, as they thought of them, in New England and New York. In the French and Indian War (unsurprisingly, given the name they gave to the war), aboriganal tribes attacked them from New England to Georgia on the south coast.

I fully expect you to produce some hysterical and completely uniformed rant, full of you typical waspish hatred of the United States and all things American.

From yesterday's Independent:
Historians reveal secrets of UK gun-running which lengthened the American civil war by two years

That doesn't surprise me. Palmerston absolutely loathed the United States in general (he had never been able to bully them) and Lincoln in particular--who largely ignored him. I do however, find the claim about lengthening the war by two years rather suspect. Lincoln's interference with the United States Army had more to do with it than anything else--the Navy simply ignored him when he attempted to interfere in their offier selection.

The Confederates were busy doing everything they could to destroy their own military prospects, and past a certain point, the spectacular stupidity of Confederate policy combined with incompetence in high places ground them down inexorably.

By the way, the agent they mention, James Bulloch, has another connection to American history. His sister, Martha, married Theodore Roosevelt of New York, and their son, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., would one day be President. After the war, James and his brother stayed in Liverpool, where the boy visited them on several occasions, He seems to have been somewhat dazzled by hero-worship at that time.

Ok so you had a brawl with some French college kids in the 70s... Unfortunately, I haven't kept note of all the Americans who behaved rude to me at one point or another, so I can't fire back...

Honestly Finn, I could

I thought the French helped us against the English (sorry izzythepush) during the American Revolution? I am not hundred percent sure, but reasonably sure, that is when my ancestors came over here and ended up settling in KY. (Would have to ask someone in my family who researched it, to know the exact details, but I know it's something like that.)

Yes, well, this discussion (which was never entirely serious on my part) started from a question about why Americans would dislike the French. Although i was not serious, the historical core of what i wrote is sound. There was a Sir John Cornewaille who was the tournament champion of Europe, and who fought at the battle of Azincourt. We did fight the "Quasi-war" with France in 1797. We did fight those other wars with France in the 17th and 18th century while still a part of the Empire.

France helped us after 1778, once they were fairly certain that the United States could survive (we had just beaten Burgoyne at Saratoga, and captured the remnants of his army--it's kind of like a big loan at the bank: you can only have the money if you don't really need it). It was a matter of policy. They were opposing the ancient enemy. Policies change--George III would nominally form a coalition to defeat France because they had cut off the head of their king, George's erstwhile enemy. Not long afterward, the United States was making good money as just about the only neutral nation still trading at sea, when both the Royal Navy and the French (whose navy was not much more than a thorn in the side of the Royal Navy) tried to interfere. Napoleon figured it out pretty quickly and rescinded his decree. The pigheads in London took longer for the penny to drop, and by that time, they were at war with the United States. (Then the U. S. Navy got to make the Royal Navy look like a pack of monkeys afloat.)

Izzy's comment about France and England being enemies for a thousand years is bullshit. I won't take the time to pick it apart, but will note that the English and the French were allies in 1672 when France was attacking Holland; they were allies in 1854 in fighting the Russians; they were allies in 1914 and 1939 in fighting the Germans. History is far more complex and subtle than the comic book version so many people seem to prefer.

Pot, Kettle, Black.

You really have a real brass neck accusing anyone else of being full of bile.

You tried to excuse American francophobia as something caught from England by quoting someone who fought the French at Agincourt. People on the battlefield don't tend to speak of the enemy in glowing terms. Just look at the way Germans were described by the British and Americans during WW2.

All the engagements you mention were when the American colonies were under the control of the British, so it was the British fighting not the Americans. The French won the American Revolution for you, and gave you the statue of liberty.

This most recent display of francophobia was completely American. In the UK the vast majority of us opposed the illegal Iraq war, and appreciated Chirac's stance. Your use of a quotation from the Agincourt shows how desperate you were to ameliorate America's unwarranted prejudice.

You get more like Hawkeye everyday.

I am neither a francophobe, nor an anglophobe. Your hysterical response to criticism is pathetically predictable. Those were wry remarks, humor, something you usually don't recognize. I note that Olive Tree took them at their true value.

"The best thing I know between France and England is - the sea." (English playwright, journalist, and humorist Douglas William Jerrold, 1803-57.)

The English are suspicious of all "foreigners", but reserve a particular animosity for their "nearest continental neighbours".
Even when France and Britain were allied against the Russians during the Crimean war, British generals persisted in calling enemy troops "the French". (Source: footnote in: Dodd, L. A. and Knapp, A. (How many Frenchmen did you kill? British bombing policy towards France (1940-1945). French History, 2008)

And a couple of years earlier, Nelson said to young officers: "You must hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil."

The Scots have a long history of friendship with the French.