From: Gautam Mukunda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 07:02:27 -0800 (PST)
--- Jon Gabriel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > France > 250,000 > 500,000 > 450,000 > Jon
OK, but does this civilian number include the French Jews who were enthusiastically shipped off to the death camps by the Vichy government? I rather imagine that it does, which puts a slightly different cast on things.
A good question, and one I don't have an answer for. As you probably saw, the site didn't explain if those tallied French citizens included those murdered by their own gov'ts betrayal. I couldn't find numbers on that on the net in a brief search, either. I would assume you're right.
I am struck, actually, by the fact that here in my office most people are fairly liberal - at a rough guess, something like 60% oppose the war - and (at my level, at least) people tend to despise France. It's not something I would have expected.
Now, it's kind of hard to describe me as hating France, much as I enjoy making jokes about its two century record (since Austerlitz) of diplomatic incompetence and military disaster. OTOH, I've been there, took six years of French in middle school, high school, and college, study French history more than I do any countries except Britain and the US, and my thesis advisor, Stanley Hoffmann, is the quintessential French intellectual, and at least as well-known in France as he is in the US.
But, judging by my peers here and the other people I've spoken to, the single most important outcome of the last few months from France's perspective is quite striking. An entire generation of politically active Americans believes (correctly, in my opinion) that France has decided that it wishes to be an enemy of the United States.
I'm not entirely sure I agree that France has decided to become our enemy, per se. They seem to me to have made a very clear decision to defy the US and many other allies in order to protect their own monetary interests in Iraq. I don't think they seriously believe that President Bush is doing anything more than saber-rattling, and I think they believe his 'with us or against us' position will be impossible to maintain in the new globalism.
They're wrong, of course. The funny thing is, they have an over-inflated view of themselves as a global power. American companies have been setting the global standard economically for years and a change seems quite unlikely.
This was a choice on France's part, but it seems to be the one that they have made, and unlike Germany, this is a choice that the people seem pretty enthusiastic about. Unless things change very rapidly, we should treat them that way. Hence the jokes, which used to be made with considerable affection, but are, well, less so, now.
I think a 'they're now our enemy!' perspective may be somewhat naive. By this reasoning, if say, Japan does not support us when we push to have North Korea disarmed (which is probably going to happen sooner rather than later) we should automatically place them on our 'enemies' list and ignore our close recent history with them?
If the French are 'fair weather friends' then they should be treated as such. But they most certainly should not be classified as 'enemies' on the 'those who hate us' column.
Jon
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