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Thread: America's Best Friend is France

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    Administrator CatInASuit's avatar
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    Default America's Best Friend is France

    Yup, that's right the yanks are now bestest buddies with the french.

    Never mind the cheese eating surrender monkey jokes, or renaming french fries to freedom fries, it's all in the past.

    Think I'm kidding, Obama certainly isn't

    I just hope you don't wind up in yet another war.
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

  2. #2
    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    So much for the Special Relationship.

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    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    I voted for Obama. I lightly campaigned for Obama. But this is just plain stupid.

    We clearly have at least two far closer allies. UK and Canada without question. After that I still don't see France as #3 but I am not as sure where to put everyone else.

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    Prehistoric Bitchslapper Sarahfeena's avatar
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    I'm not an Obama fan personally, and I'm not sure if others will agree with this, but I think the headline is a little misleading. I read a slight difference in meaning between "France is our strongest ally" and "We don't have a stronger ally than France."
    Last edited by Sarahfeena; 11 Jan 2011 at 10:54 AM.

  5. #5
    Oliphaunt
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    Yeah, it reads to me like he's saying that France is just as strong of an ally as the UK etc.

    Which I of course disagree with, but I cut Obama slack since he was, you know, talking to Sarkozy.

    Besides, Canada and the UK aren't so much friends as family.

  6. #6
    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    Yeah, "We don't have a stronger friend or a stronger ally than Sarkozy and the French people" is not "France is our best friend and strongest ally." Considering the nature of the discussion, I can understand a little sucking up.
    So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.

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    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    Fair enough, though sucking up to France is not something I particularly like. I have to admit Sarkozy France is hardly the France of the past that I considered our worst ally1.

    1) Ally in this case not including client-states like the Shah led Iran or Panama. I mean actually semi-equal world powers in theory aligned with us against the USSR and its allies and client states. But then I am just a cold-war warrior at heart I guess.

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    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by What Exit? View post
    Fair enough, though sucking up to France is not something I particularly like.
    Why? They're discussing international monetary reform and Sarkozy has gone on record as wanting to strengthen ties with the US. Part of strengthening ties is making that blah blah blah, brotherhood, blah blah blah friendship talk.
    So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.

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    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    Well I thought I explained it, of old, France was a terrible so called ally.

    I have to admit Sarkozy France is hardly the France of the past that I considered our worst ally.

    Ally in this case not including client-states like the Shah led Iran or Panama. I mean actually semi-equal world powers in theory aligned with us against the USSR and its allies and client states. But then I am just a cold-war warrior at heart I guess.

    That Cheese Eating surrender Monkey thing might have begun with the Simpsons but the anti-France view from Hawks at least is far older. They had a long history of doing things counter to American and usually British interests during the cold war. Not to mention the fact they made the mess in Vietnam that we so foolishly stepped up and took over. The Ayatollah was in France when the revolution in Iran happened and while the Shah was a shit of a man, it was still a better country under our asshole than under what followed. France was often at loggerheads with us on NATO issues. Selling arms to questionable nations, etc.

    Not all my views were correct, but they go back a long way to before I was in High School even.

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    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    Well, the Berlin Wall fell when I was eight and there was never a "this is why we thought France sucked during the Cold War" day in school. It had the barest of mentions in anything we ever read on it, actually.
    So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.

  11. #11
    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    I wonder if Sarah or Olive or Loki and any of the other 40+ crowd will wander into this thread and add their impressions of France as an Ally. I strongly suspect I was the biggest hawk of the older group of posters on this board. Though Sarah is now more conservative overall than I am, she probably still isn't more hawkish.

  12. #12
    Member Elendil's Heir's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Sarahfeena View post
    ...I think the headline is a little misleading. I read a slight difference in meaning between "France is our strongest ally" and "We don't have a stronger ally than France."
    Yeah, I'd agree with that. But I could see why the Brits and Canadians (to say nothing of the Australians, Germans, Japanese, South Koreans, etc.) might be a bit miffed.

    Although we couldn't have won the Battle of Yorktown and hence the Revolution without French help, and Lafayette is justly honored as a great friend of the early republic, our relationship since has certainly had its ups and downs. We fought them at sea in the Quasi-War. Napoleon sold us the Louisiana Territory but was no friend, as such. The French and the British both flirted with the Confederacy and gave Lincoln some gray hairs during the Civil War. We fought on their side in both World Wars, although DeGaulle was a big pain in the ass for FDR, and even more so once he was actually in charge in the Sixties, pulling France out of NATO, developing an independent French nuclear force and flirting with Quebec secessionists. Although we didn't come to their aid at Dien Bien Phu, we picked up their dropped baton in Vietnam a decade later and paid the price bigtime (not that I'm blaming them - we had our eyes wide open).

    Other than DeGaulle and the NATO controversy, though, the French first really drew the ire of American conservatives in the Eighties, I think, when they were less than ardent in their support of Reagan's military buildup and confrontations with Khaddafy, forcing U.S. warplanes to fly the long way from the UK to Libya, for instance. Blowing up the Rainbow Warrior and opposing U.S. policy towards Iraq, and later being seen as obstructionist in the leadup to Gulf War II, further annoyed those who would become Bush partisans.

    Nowadays, Sarkozy and Obama seem to have a genuine rapport, and it doesn't look like Cameron and Obama (or Obama and the Canadian and Australian PMs) have much of one at all. I don't want to overstate the importance of personal ties in high-level international diplomacy, but it does make a difference. In any event, far more unites the U.S. and France than divides them, and I hope this era of good feeling can last a good long time.
    Last edited by Elendil's Heir; 11 Jan 2011 at 09:21 PM.

  13. #13
    Curmudgeon OtakuLoki's avatar
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    Other bits of French foreign policy that always seemed to go down badly with me:

    Their total abandonment of any moral responsibility for Vietnam, and later common seeming cracks about cowboys and fools, while they were losing an insurgency in Chad. Often enough while ignoring the more obvious lessons of the Vietnam conflict. It wasn't until Libya attempted to intervene directly that some semblance of order was restored - under a French supported dictator. BTW - is anyone aware that Chad is again devolving into more insurgency?

    Lebanon. Seriously, folks - look at how much of the mess in Lebanon stems from the National Pact they imposed upon the state to keep the Presidency in the hands of the smallest religious minority in the nation. When the state melted down in the 80s, not only did they seem to not care about the chaos there, but again were criticizing the US for trying to find some way to establish order.

    On an emotional level, I find it very, very hard to forgive the French for the cooperation the Vichy government gave to the German Final Solution. Simply compare the French response to invasion by the Germans to that of the Danes, and there is no doubt that the Danes cared a lot more about their entire pre-war population than the French did. Now, there are some ways the comparison is unfair: The Danes did more, as a nation, to materially support the German cause than the French did. (Though the actions of the French fleet are a murky mess: ranging from heroic, to victimized, to goat, and back again.) The French as a people did more to fight the invaders than the Danes did, too. It doesn't change my view that the French, as a people, are guilty of many of the same atrocities as the Germans during the Holocaust, and have made far fewer gestures to acknowledge that guilt. Shall I be mean and mention the Charlemagne Division? Or is that unfair*?

    Related to that last point, France has traditionally been willing to offer moral support to any group opposing Israel, often for reasons that seem flimsy to me. I have a hard time accepting that random rocket attacks by Hamas, for example, are a valid form of protest - while the military response by the Israelis is simple terrorism.

    Elendil's Heir has already brought up Rainbow Warrior. That I disagree with many of the tactics and even goals of Greenpeace doesn't change that I believe there's no possible justification for what was done there.

    Then, having grown up in a defense industry heavy area of the nation, there were a lot of rumors going around about how this or that company had had their DOD projects penetrated by French agents. I cannot prove that this happened. My memories may be wrong. And even if correct, rumors are not evidence. But I do know that in recent conversations with both my parents they shared my impression of ongoing active "industrial" espionage by official French government agencies. (Which, I'll admit, is one reason that my reaction to the vast majority of the stuff that's come out of the Wikileaks files has been one of boredom.) A common belief does not equal evidence - but it does suggest it isn't simply a lone delusion.

    An example that may be more memorable for most posters: During the build up towards the second Gulf War, France was one of the major sources of stumbling blocks, of claims that there was no reason to believe that there were unreported WMD. When even Hans Blix got frustrated at Hussein's shell games, and started saying that the Iraqi regime wasn't abiding by the agreements, France was still pooh-poohing every concern. While trying to play down in the media that they'd already signed for a sweetheart deal for Iraqi oil, as soon as the post GWI sanctions could be ended. That fact alone left not just me with reason to question just how honest they were being when supporting the Iraqi claims of total cooperation.

    I have never supported the whole idiocy with Freedom Fries, Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys, or anything like that. But I've never felt that France was as staunch an ally, even within the NATO framework, as other nations. Their recent treatment of black and Islamic minorities turns my stomach, especially when I remember how many editorials I read in L'Express in the 80s chiding the US for our racial inequities. ETA: Let alone that this is the same nation that stepped up so flamboyantly to demand justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

    Having said all that - while I do raise an eyebrow over Obama's phrases, I can't get too excited for the idea of a politician trying to butter up a negotiation partner.



    *Actually, yes it is unfair. There were Danish, Flemish and Balkan SS units as well, and I think even a Pole unit. The SS is not simply the execution squads that people think of these days when they hear the name. Nor were executions performed solely by the SS, whatever many people find more comfortable to believe: regular Wehrmacht units did their share, too.

    It's still a nicely shocking little fact to bring up.
    Last edited by OtakuLoki; 12 Jan 2011 at 03:36 AM.

  14. #14
    Prehistoric Bitchslapper Sarahfeena's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Elendil's Heir View post
    Quote Originally posted by Sarahfeena View post
    ...I think the headline is a little misleading. I read a slight difference in meaning between "France is our strongest ally" and "We don't have a stronger ally than France."
    Yeah, I'd agree with that. But I could see why the Brits and Canadians (to say nothing of the Australians, Germans, Japanese, South Koreans, etc.) might be a bit miffed.
    Point taken there, for sure.

    Personally, I'm not a big fan of France, and not a big fan of Obama's, so my intention wasn't to defend his statement. It's just that the press annoys me when they do stuff like that. I think it was perhaps a misstatement on Obama's part, but on the other hand, he's a politician and he talks like one, no big surprise.

  15. #15
    Prehistoric Bitchslapper Sarahfeena's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by What Exit? View post
    Well I thought I explained it, of old, France was a terrible so called ally.

    I have to admit Sarkozy France is hardly the France of the past that I considered our worst ally.

    Ally in this case not including client-states like the Shah led Iran or Panama. I mean actually semi-equal world powers in theory aligned with us against the USSR and its allies and client states. But then I am just a cold-war warrior at heart I guess.

    That Cheese Eating surrender Monkey thing might have begun with the Simpsons but the anti-France view from Hawks at least is far older. They had a long history of doing things counter to American and usually British interests during the cold war. Not to mention the fact they made the mess in Vietnam that we so foolishly stepped up and took over. The Ayatollah was in France when the revolution in Iran happened and while the Shah was a shit of a man, it was still a better country under our asshole than under what followed. France was often at loggerheads with us on NATO issues. Selling arms to questionable nations, etc.

    Not all my views were correct, but they go back a long way to before I was in High School even.
    Yes, I think that the US has good reason to be cautious about their relationship with France, and although relations have improved sometimes it's hard to shake off old impressions. It's also tough because I think their sort of national temperament is very different from ours, and it makes it hard for the two countries to relate to each other. I've also been pretty shocked lately to learn the depths of racism that exist in France (and other European countries, for that matter), when the US has always been so vilified for our own racial issues. I have trouble having warm feelings towards France as a nation.

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