Will Scott Peterson becme the latest OJ.....

[nicky g]

No kids. I'm sorry for your bad experience but one idiot French person does not a whole nation make. In my time I've been threatened, shoved and insulted by Americans, mugged by English people and Belgians, punched by a Morrocan and ripped off by a Serb. I don't hold those things against the entire nations.

[Dr Wogga]

.....but its not about 1 vile french woman - its the non-stop anti-American crap coming out of france. If you really believe the average french man & woman on the street doesn't despise the USA, or that the french gove't are bona-fide American allies, or "Pro-American" as some cyber-sniper posted, you guys are nuts.

[Cyrus]

[MMMMMM]

so then what do you think of De Gaulle's doctrine of playing the USA and the USSR against each other? But that is, of course, old stuff by now.

Yes, France has historically been a pretty staunch supporter of the USA when the chips were really down, BUT they have been morphing recently. Their most recent actions--and not just re. the Iraq affair--indicate a goal of opposing the U.S. on general principle. France longs for its long-lost glory days when it really was one of the biggest players. Now it sees U.S. emergence as the greatest power as something to be actively thwarted. France wants a European Army--apparently, primarily as a counterweight to the U.S. military. France wants to lead the E.U.--but there is no good reason why it should lead the E.U. today. In short, Chirac wants a strong E.U. specifically to provide a counterweight to the USA, and he wants to lead it. But there's more to it than that, and the 'more" runs deeper and is more insidious.

France, some time ago, began to side with the Arab world imany ways. It is no coincidence that the French population is over 10% Muslim today--and growing. France recently allowed that the possibility exists that some regions oFrance may eventually be governed by Shariah. France, in short--for economic gain initially--has become allied in many ways with the Arab world. The French have also not seen fit to sufficiently address the rise in violent street crime in Muslim-dominated areas of France. Among the most disgusting and violent practices which have been gaining popularity in these areas is the notorious tourante--which means 'taking turns'--a practice in which gangs of young Muslim youths rape young women who are not dressed according to Islamic requirements of modesty.

In short, the French are allowing their cultural principles to be increasingly violated by the import of unacceptable customs: the inherent "anti-freedoms" of Islamic tradition. Along with their embrace of the import of backward cultural customs, the French are growing increasingly anti-American. They not only opposed the USA re. the war in Iraq, they
actively lobbied the world against us.

Well...as the violence in Muslim-dominated areas of France continues to increase--as it likely will IMO--and as radical Muslims support for terrorism in France may grow--and as Muslims in France call for being allowed to impose Shari'ah--France will one day wake up to find that it has bred itself quite a problem with no easy solution. And all for short-term gain.

[John Ho]

So you're translating the spitting action of one person on a family member into a hatred of an entire nation.

Hmm...not too logical. It's a wonder the world isn't constantly at war with people like you in existence.

Either that or you hate the French because they never support our wars. I guess that makes them terrible people.

[Cyrus]

"Then what do you think of De Gaulle's doctrine of playing the USA and the USSR against each other?"

Not an accurate description of what De Gaulle was about. De Gaulle was a staunch anti-communist, maybe the most anti-communist European leader, of the 50s and 60s. (His famous putdown is still relevant : "France will never be socialist. How can a country with 212 types of cheese be socialist?")

De Gaulle was for a united Europe, and, therefore, far ahead of his time when he was pressing aggressively for a more European-focused NATO, instead of an American-led NATO. This is why he took out France from the military organisation in the early 60s but kept it in the political structure of NATO. And this is why he opposed the British (not the Americans, per se) because he knew that the British policy of the last 500 years, i.e. to oppose any attempt at European unification, would be still operative for decades to come.

He was proven right.

"France wants a European Army--apparently, primarily as a counterweight to the U.S. military.Chirac wants a strong E.U. specifically to provide a counterweight to the USA."

All perfectly legitimate objectives. And , given the absence of any extrenal military threat whatsoever, now that the Cold War is over, they will be achieved without a doubt, sooner or later. The U.S. should learn to live with the new reality.

"France wants to lead the E.U.--but there is no good reason why it should lead the E.U. today."

On the contrary, France has been "leading" the E.U. for the past decades, in more ways than one, and it has been "leading" it quite successfully too. "Leading" the E.U. in the sense that France has facilitated and pushed through measures of integration that have transformed permanently deep-rooted notions in the Old World.

However, there is no single country in Europe that "leads" it today. Just the way it should be. No supreme countries, but an organisation that works by consensus. Slow yes, bureaucratic yes, frustrating sometimes yes -- all preferable to the "speed" and "efficiency" of any autocratic alternative, such as a Europe "led" by a single country.

--Cyrus

PS : France, historically, deserves all the credit for the E.U. itself, having kick-started it in the 1950s in partnership with West Germany (!), only a few years after the two countries were involved in their third bloody war in 8 decades! Without France and the farsightedness of De Gaulle we might not have a European Union at all. The world, or at the very least Europe, is so much better, safer and peaceful for the E.U.

[nicky g]

I don't really understand what you mean by France allying itself with the Arab world. Most Arab governments' closest ally is the US - all the Gulf States, Egypt, Morroco, Saudi etc. Syria and Libya are exceptions, and Saddam's Iraq is gone. Do you mean the Arab "street"?
Most European countries have large Muslim populations, (though largely sub-continental rather than Arabic in the UK). There are certainly problems resultng from the fact that they tend to be stuck at the bottom of the economic pile, but they aren't particularly different from the sorts of social problems the US has ghettoised Hispanic populations, for example. Poorly managed immigration always causes social ills; and it usually is poorly managed. The idea that it's because they're Muslim is absurd - most of them have little or no interest in religion, in line with most young European people.

France may or may not want to lead the EU, but c'mon; the US wants to lead not only NAFTA but the whole "free" world. The Bush administration openly states that it wants America to remain an unchallenged superpower and to shape the rest of the world in its image. France was pretty far from being the only country to disagree with the US over Iraq; don't you think there's a chance it did it for other reasons, good or bad, than just opposing the US "on principle"?

You know, dear M, one of these days I'm going to convert to Islam just to see what you have to say...

[MMMMMM]

nicky, I agree that many of the social problems are rooted in economics, but not all. The more you learn about Islam, the more you will see how it is inherently intolerant in scripture as well as in practice. There are certain fairly widespread customs in the Islamic/Arab world which are simply unacceptable in civilized Western society: "honor killings," female circumcision, the illegality of leaving Islam for another religion on pain of death, and extreme second-class citizenship for women. When France admits Muslims, France should tell them in no uncertain terms that certain such customs cannot be brought with them...period...as should all Western freedom-loving countries.

As for shaping the world in the U.S. image, is there any document in history more dedicated to the championship of individual rights and liberties, and representative government, than the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights? (not that we always follow it, and I believe we should largely revert to a more Constitutionalist government).

In my opinion it would be literally impossible for you to convert to Islam. I've interacted enough with you on this forum to know that you are too educated, open-minded and tolerant for that.

[Parmenides]

You obviously qualify. Matt Sklansky should delete your French are skum posts. He will delete anyone that correctly observes that you are a bigoted ignoramus.

If you wish to see scum, look in the mirror.

[MMMMMM]

Well first off, I'm far from convinced that the E.U. has been good for the individual European countries, and I don't see why it makes the world any better or much more secure. I'm not against the existence of the E.U per se, I just don't see why it's such a great thing.

Europe seemed to operate fairly well before the E.U., and it doesn't seem to operate a whole lot better now. Additionally, some of the member states haven't been all that crazy about some inherent loss of economic autonomy.

A common currency, too, does increase efficiency of transactions, but aren't there also some drawbacks to a common currency?

France may have led Europe diplomatically in many ways years ago, but today it's economy is not the largest in Europe, and I just don't see any reason it should lead today.

You seem almost obsessed with the idea of bureaucratic consensus. How about damn the bureaucratic consensus in favor of simple natural business and market
efficiencies? There doesn't have to be an autocratic leader as an alternative to ponderous bureaucratic consensus--free enterprise and markets do a pretty good job of sorting out most stuff anyway if left alone. Actually, they do a pretty good job of sorting things out eventually in spite of bureaucratic interferences.

Inefficiency may also be more of a major issue than you might think. I'm not advocating autocracy, but inefficiency harms almost everyone. Removing impediments to natural efficiency is generally a good thing. If the U.S. system works better than other countries' systems, then it should eventually become the dominant world model, whether called "U.S. System" or whether merely adopted over time by others. So I'm sort of saying a lot of this diplomacy stuff is for the birds. The best and most efficient models will eventually spread and dominate--which, by the way, is apparently just what has been happening, albeit slowly. And some are upset that the U.S. was first to get there, instead of realizing that imitation would serve them well too. Growth is for all who choose to remove the impediments to growth.

France appears to be mired in the past, longing for glory-days and holding to a socialistic, bureaucratic view which at most encourages slow growth and stagnation. Add the rise of Islamism in France, and in many ways France is actually marching backwards. Viewing the world as a problem to be solved primarily through diplomacy rather than through innovation, growth, improvement and increased efficiency is misguided IMO. Yes there is a role for diplomacy, but there is an even bigger role for progress.

(And today the French idea of progress seems to be the sport of trying to thwart the U.S. However they will not only reap negative reaction from this, but their energies would be better spent trying to improve their own system and country.)