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News :: International Relations |
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French No Cowards |
Current rating: 0 |
by gord henderson (via jay)
(No verified email address) |
25 Feb 2003
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Canadian article discussing the current American view of the French. |
http://www.canada.com/windsor/story.asp?id=8729BB7B-2838-4957-8F68-361632C16E67
French no cowards
Gord Henderson Star Columnist, Windsor Star
I bet the cheese-eating "surrender monkeys" are quaking in their loafers now that patriotic trailer trash from Waco to Kalamazoo are swearing off French wine and French kisses until Paris, spineless source of all evil, either admits the error of its ways or is reduced to smoking rubble.
Canadians, better known in oxygen-deprived quarters as residents of Soviet Canuckistan, are breathing a sigh of relief now that the blamefest south of the border has switched its focus from the Rideau to the Seine, where the impudent French are being pummeled for failing to fall to their knees and recognize their lowly place in the firmament.
Instead of hosing our maple syrup and rye whisky down the nearest drain, the folks next door are venting their fury on filthy French muck, including Bordeaux, Brie, escargot, garlic, creamy sauces and anything else that smacks of a French connection.
How mad are Americans at the French for failing to fall in line at the UN and join the coalition of the willing and the cowed to bomb Baghdad back to the bronze age? So mad that talk show hosts are proposing to box up the Statue of Liberty and ship the seditious old bat back to France COD.
How mad are they? So mad they're dredging up old jokes about the Italian army in the Second World War, repackaging them in the tri-colour and sending them out with legions of stand-up comics to put the weak-kneed French in their place.
Sample: "How did the French advertise surplus Second World War rifles? Answer: Never fired, only dropped once." Or, as a former U.S. deputy undersecretary of defence put it: "Going to war with the French is like going deer hunting without an accordion; you just leave a lot of useless, noisy baggage behind."
If you have e-mail, you're getting "le frog-bashing" as the French newspaper Liberation described it. And it's working. France's image among Americans, according to a recent poll, has fallen to its lowest point in a decade.
Juvenile ranting
The French, who've never lacked for self-esteem, are shrugging this off as the juvenile ranting of the ill-informed.
"It's a little tiresome," one French diplomat told The Times. "The Americans always throw tantrums like this when they don't get their own way."
I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I read some of this drivel coming from our previously big-hearted neighbours. The French may be insufferable in many ways. Canadians learned that when the late and unlamented Charles De Gaulle violated our hospitality to foment treason.
But "surrender monkeys?" That line got a laugh when it first appeared on The Simpsons. But it has zero connection with reality. If the French are by nature cowards, then the fields of Northern France and Belgium, from the English Channel to the Swiss border, are crammed with the bones of men who lacked moral fibre. So many that they lost count.
Estimates of France's First World War dead range from 1.3 million to 1.7 million. That's more dead than the U.S. has suffered in all its wars. And this in a country with only marginally more people than Canada now boasts. Entire regions of France were stripped of their males. A generation was slaughtered to stop the Germans.
And some have the gall to question the courage of the French in the Second World War -- because they buckled under the blitzkrieg tactics of the most innovative and daring war machine ever created? Denmark capitulated in eight hours after suffering 13 dead. Poland was effectively beaten in two weeks. And nobody would dare call the Poles surrender monkeys. If Fortress Britain hadn't been protected by the English Channel, it too would have been under Nazi rule.
People who live in glass houses should handle stones with care. The French, understanding this, haven't mentioned Vietnam. Nor the speedy withdrawal from Mogadishu, Somalia, after the corpse of an American serviceman was dragged through the streets. They've kept mum about Lebanon, where the U.S. skedaddled in 1983 after 241 marines were blown up. And Rwanda, where the world's only superpower didn't lift a finger to stop genocide, is off-limits.
Enjoy the cheap laughs. But remember one thing. No nation holds a monopoly on courage. Or cowardice.
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See also:
http://www.canada.com/windsor/story.asp?id=8729BB7B-2838-4957-8F68-361632C16E67
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The French Are Big Sissy Mary's |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -1
25 Feb 2003
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Hey, What's the difference between the French and your fingers? Well, you can count on your fingers.
The were, are and will always be the biggest Nancys on the planet. Just because they lost 1.3 million in WWI does not mean they were courageous, but rather, they are lousy fighters. During the Gulf War, we had to find some completely open desert to attack. Despite some initial trouble finding there gonads, they did attack the empty desert and won a stunning Victory.
I know the French will be with us this time too. They will be guarding our right flank which they claim is in France.
Thanks again France,
Jack Ryan |
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Re: French No Cowards |
by joe
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
26 Feb 2003
Modified: 09:08:35 PM |
Let's remember - the Canadians ~aspire~ to be French; how sad is that? About the Somalia thing and the Canadians - some of their special forces (though I suppose the "special" refers to the same thing that makes the special olympic so special) tortured some of the locals and got them in a lot of trouble. This guy seriously needs to shut the fuck up. The only bones in Northern France and Belgium are from the guys who didn't join the Vichy, or who couldn't run fast enough.
And for the record, the word is spelled "fiber".
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