--- Julia Thompson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Gautam,
>
> I didn't say I agreed with the article. I just put
> it out there for
> commentary. I thought of some of your points as I
> was reading it in the
> print paper earlier today.
>
> I'm wondering what everyone *else* thinks.
>
> Myself, I'm mostly disturbed by the fact that the
> entire French people
> is being bashed due to what its political figures
> are doing, and that
> admirable parts of its culture (especially parts of
> its food producing
> capacities) are being singled out with negative
> attention. Maybe they
> don't make sense all the time, but they can make a
> good wine. Maybe the
> two are connected? ;)
>
> Julia
Hi Julia. I didn't think that you did agree with it,
actually, and I'm sorry if that's what I implied. I
just thought that the article was, well, odd - I mean,
you can defend France on the grounds of "It's pursuing
its national interest, which is its right" - but that
doesn't seem to be what that article was about. That
was pretending that France was motivated by some
higher goal ("Like "protecting American boys") - which
is, well, you can guess what I think of that. It
would be a first, let's just leave it at that.
But I think another part of what's going on is that
Americans feel - quite possibly correctly - that this
_isn't_ just the French leadership. This is the
French people as well. Once Schroeder is gone it's at
least possible that Germany will act differently.
It's hard to imagine the CDU being so obdurate. But
Chirac (although not Villepin) is probably the _least_
anti-American leader France is likely to produce. He
has, or at least used to have, a pretty close
relationship with George H.W. Bush, for example. So
when he's gone, it's unlikely that relations between
the two countries will improve and they might, in
fact, deteriorate.
Gautam
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