Posted on 02/12/2003 1:56:45 AM PST by JohnHuang2
France's resistance to U.S. policy on Iraq, capped off by its role in blocking U.S.-backed plans to bolster Turkish defenses against a possible Iraqi missile attack, is resulting in a massive outpouring of U.S. anger against France, evidenced by the 1,124 angry calls received by the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., in just one day.
Coming in the wake of Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the U.N. on Iraq, the embassy felt under siege, reports the Scotsman newspaper. "It never stopped. It was crazy. Unbelievable," said one French diplomat.
Although the embassy's Nathalie Loiseau notes that some letters and e-mail are supportive of Paris' position, she admits in a Financial Times report that some "would like to boycott France and French products."
With some U.S. talk radio shows openly calling for repatriation of America’s war dead, noted the Scotsman, the phrase "if it weren't for us you'd be speaking German" has become a popular refrain.
"The French attitude is self-defeating," says Gary Schmitt of the Project for a New American Century, said the report. "They are undermining the credibility of the U.N. and now throwing NATO into disarray. I don't know if they realize how they're also causing a split in Europe. If you total up all the things they are interested in, you find that they're making a hash of all of them."
Meanwhile, as WorldNetdaily reported, France was found to be more unpopular among Americans than at any time in the past decade in a new Gallup poll. Unfavorable opinions of France have jumped 17 points in the past year while favorable opinions have dropped 20 points.
American attitudes toward Germany, another European power unwilling to support the U.S. on Iraq, also have become more negative, according to the annual Gallup Poll Social Series Update on World Affairs, conducted Feb. 3-6.
In its editorial yesterday the Washington Post argued that France and Germany now "behave as if they share the same over-riding goal as the Iraqi dictator: thwarting U.S. action even when it is supported by most other NATO and European nations."
Great Britain ranked at the top of the list of 26 nations with a +83 percent favorable rating, while Iraq rounded off the bottom with a -85 percent score. Iran and North Korea, the other two nations identified by President Bush as comprising the "axis of evil," joined Iraq at bottom of the list.
Bush 'disappointed'
The White House yesterday scoffed at Paris's offer to fortify U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq after President Bush complained he was "disappointed" with France's refusal to cooperate with NATO.
The Bush administration's exasperation with Paris is affecting public perception, reported the Financial Times, noting as an example the New York Post's coverage of the international dispute. The paper ran a picture of WWII American soldiers' graves near Omaha Beach Monday, headlined: "They died for France but France has forgotten."
New York Post reporter Steve Dunleavy, depicted near the grave of a young American soldier, wrote: "The air is chilled, but I feel an unnatural glow of rage -- I want to kick the collective butts of France. These kids died to save the French from a tyrant named Adolf Hitler. And now, as more American kids are poised to fight and die to save the world from an equally vile tyrant, Saddam Hussein, where are the French? Hiding. Chickening out. Proclaiming, Vive les wimps!"
Presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer said yesterday that French President Jacques Chirac hadn't mentioned France's intention to block Turkey's request for NATO assistance during his meeting last week with Bush. He claimed Bush didn't feel exactly "blindsided," but rather "disappointed at the "setback" for both NATO and Turkey.
Clinton administration deputy national security adviser Jim Steinberg says anti-French feeling is increasing in the U.S., according to the Financial Times. Concerned that it could get worse, Steinberg added: "The next two weeks are going to have a profound impact on transatlantic relations. There is a consensus that whatever the U.S. has done wrong, it does not justify the way the French and the Germans are playing this."
After that I lost it and the nice lady became speechless.
call her.... she is a sitting duck.
You folks never have recovered from the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, have you?
If I recall the statistics correctly, 90% of the Jews in Germany were exterminated during WW II. 80% of the Jews in Italy were saved. You rode out the conflagration in relative peace and comfort, losing perhaps 4% of your population. The Poles lost 25% of their population.
During the Cold War, your "intellectuals" were Stalin's groveling, giddy groupies. Ho Chi Mihn and Pol Pot were nursed in your bosom.
You may have legitimate questions about the Iraq situation. Your heritage, however, makes it impossible for us to take you, or your quibbles, seriously.
tom
(My mothers folks are Ukrainian, BTW)
Don't forget that the Frogs also nursed the father of modern Muslim terrorism: Ayatolla Khomeni(sp?)
Bastards.
"How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris? Nobody knows – because it's never been done yet."
That joke was making the rounds at a political conference in Washington this weekend. It is a cruel and unjust jest. As Margaret Macmillan writes, in Paris 1919, 1.3 million Frenchmen – one out of every four between 18 and 30 – died in the Great War (1914-1918), and twice as many were wounded fighting successfully to defend Paris.
The French must have bought some of his books.
Sounds like a job for Free Repuiblic.
However Scotland is great also, though going in the winter might be less fun.
Someone had to come up with a chant to go along with the boycott
Good email...but don't forget Ayatollah Khomeni set up shop in France as well.
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