Bin Laden Went On Move Immediately After Attacks, Pakistani Intelligence Sources Say

Fox News /AP ^ | Septemeber 13, 2001

[Southack]

France's former President De Gaulle said that he hated the Americans and the British for humiliating the French by liberating them in WW2. He then went on to appease Islamic terrorists by allowing them to gain full independence from France in the now-former French colony of Algeria.

France went on to draw the U.S. into its losing conflict to maintain the colony of French IndoChina, now known as Vietnam.

France gave aid and comfort and sanctuary to Iran's Ayatollah Khomeni prior to his overthrow of the pro-American Shah of Iran.

France continues to give to this very day aid and comfort and shelter to at least one of Palestinian terrorist Yasser Arafat's wives in Paris.

At various points in time, France jumped into and out of NATO, all in fits of rage and arrogance against the U.S.

France likewise defied the U.S. - CCCP ban on nuclear testing, setting off a nuke in the South Pacific after first ordering the attack that sunk the Rainbow Warrior and killed a GreenPeace protester.

Faced with the imminent overthrow of Saddam Hussein, France once again betrayed the U.S. by actively opposing our Iraqi invasion.

That French-speaking, Islamic Algerians are involved with Al Qaeda should surprise no one.

The AWB Has Expired - Gun Owners Have Won Again For All Americans!

[twigs]

So do a lot of Moroccans.

[Atlantic Friend]

Sorry, but no, it was not exactly like that.

True, de Gaulle resented the fact that Churchill and Roosevelt did not treat him like a peer - and for some reason he didn't get along at all with Roosevelt, who apparently thought De Gaulle was some kind of French variant of Latin America's military dictators.

Still, if de Gaulle was a very irritative ally, he was an ally and behaved as such, for example during the Cuban Missiles Crisis.

France did not try to draw the US into Indochina - as a matter of fact, there was some ongoing war of influence between the two nations during our Indochinese War, the State Department working quite hard to detach the Indochinese countries from France, ultimately succeeding and putting the USA in the role of protector of the SOuth-Vietnamese Republic.

The items about Khomeiny being in exile in France is correct, as is the one about France deciding to resume nuclear tests in the Pacific. Please note that AFAIK, France was not compelled by the USA-CCCP treaty which only concerned the two superpowers. The attack on the Greenpeace boat occurred in 1986 (9 years before the ruckus about French nuclear tests), and frankly it does not prevent me from sleeping, even if the death of the Portuguese reporter aboard the Rainbow Warrior was an unintended tragedy.

I fail to see how it can be construed as betrayal of the USA, though. US envoys came to visit Khomeiny in France and seemed quite eager to negotiate with him, or at least to see if that was possible.

While it's entirely true to say that France overplayed its opposition to the 2004 operation in Iraq, to be totally honest you could also state that French troops fought and often died side by side with their US comrade in arms in Lebanon (1983), Chad (1984), Iraq (1990-1991), Ex-Yugoslavia (1992-1999), Somalia (1993), Afghanistan (2001), and Haiti (2004).

[Southack]

"The attack on the Greenpeace boat occurred in 1986 (9 years before the ruckus about French nuclear tests)"

The French nuclear tests

The Rainbow Warrior and MV Greenpeace meet near France's nuclear test site at Moruroa to protest the resumption of French nuclear weapons testing.

Since 1960, France has conducted around 200 nuclear tests in the South Pacific. Some of Greenpeace's earliest campaigns confronted the French over nuclear testing. The Greenpeace yacht Vega was badly rammed in 1972 by French warships at Moruroa. In 1973, the Fri was boarded and the crew detained while, in the same year, the skipper of the Vega was severely beaten by French commandoes.

In 1985, France planned to resume testing in Moruroa. Greenpeace was once again determined to stop the tests, with the Rainbow Warrior, MV Greenpeace, Vega and other ships planning to form a peace flotilla. Although the bombing in Auckland put an end to the Rainbow Warrior's involvement, the other ships did visit the area. After a number of arrests the testing unfortunately took place, watched by the French prime minister and defence minister.

[jerseygirl]

Tunisians?