I fully understand and agree with the Frenchman's point about their not siding with us in a useless war.

Don't people realize how much that useless war cost France in terms of higher oil prices and lost contracts?

Americans, if they know what is good for them, will leave the French deals with Iran alone.

After all the French have given Americans a Statue. No reason not to give an aircraft carrier as an added bonus.

Uh, there are one or two differences between us and the French. They have screwed up every place they have ever visited. Americans have left one or two places better off.

CSGuy,

Personally I find his use of DiHydrogen Monoxide (DHMO), to which he has OPENLY ADMITTED, to be more appalling.

For more about this alarming chemical, go to www.dhmo.org

Why everyone beating on the french, i mean, after all, they conquered England, Insinuated themselves into Scottish and English Kingships, invented the organised killing of rich dudes so that other rich dudes could do their thang....
so, my point, America kills rich dudes so they can do their thang(oh, no wiat, they kill the rich dudes' servants, but party and dine with the rich dudes...), and get modern kingships by weedling in. So french history==American History in a lot of ways, and dude, Louisiana, Florida, Mississipi et al , well, are kinda french, so are they un-american? So like, are cajuns surrender monkeys? Are the Scots surrender monkeys? or the English?
We have a lot to thank France for, like Hitler, Croissants and Racism.
Or wait, no, we dont, Hitler was a creation of the US (Versailles, Edward Bernais etc.)
Croissants are polish i heard,
And Racism, well the romans were pretty good at that, so...
Yeah, F**K The French
Go Team!

GAH! A French sympathizer!

We bred that filthy French blood out of the highland scots years ago!

As I have said on other blogs, France has the size, population, and economy around the size of some US states. I care about as much about what France thinks as I do about what Californians think. Well, less, actually, since Californians can vote and make an impact on politics here.

Italy, ireland, viet nam uragay , congo etc have less power than france

And we are not denigrating them. Any ill feelings we have for France are not because they are weak, it is because they are weak and spineless but insist on imposing their will on us.

"weak and spineless" i hoped you could argue better. Lot of my friends have gone in USA in school exchange and all told me that at 18 years old in school you learn what we learn at 15 ...
Weak... in wich sens ? mind, constitution??? argue pliz ( if you can...)

"but insist on imposing their will on us" - We dont wanna impose our will. You asked us if we agree with a war. we said no ... It s look like more it s you that tried to imose your will on us. Diplomacy is made of conflict of influence. USA do tha same. Perhaps the the difference between congo and france is that we have a history that allow us to talk to the world (and whatever you say the nuclear weapon and a permanent sit in ONU and a major influence in the europe of 25). Not giving orders, but trying to convice other that our opinion is the right one. When our have an opinion dont you try to convice the personn in front of you ( or you prefere hit him ?).

weak : nuclear submarines. one permanent sit at ONU, major influence in CEE (europe of 25) - and if we were so unsignificant, why asking us our help , why so much talk about our opinion, why trying to imose your point of view with some trade embargo or others political mesure, why so much talk in newspapers. Lot of litlle country didnt agree with you and no such noise with them.
With short post like the last one we can not really discuss, perhaps cant you give good exemples.
I insist one more time one the fact that when a friend made a mistake when try to convice him that its an error. That s not what i call iposins our point of view.

France is like the celebrity that thinks that everybody should listen to him on politics because of his celebrity status.

you got me...good one. I thought Lance was going to have to wave the French Flag...the white one.

But didnt you think that our history give us a little more experience? USA have only 2 centurys... You are a young contry.

NEWS FLASH: You guys went through a revolution at the same time we did, as well as a number of regime changes in the 19th century.

Our countrymen didn't just materialize out of thin air 228 years ago; many were parts of familes that had been farming the country for over 100 years prior, but as subjects of the crown. And then, ALL ultimately immigrated from various countries (American Indians excepted).

"i would suggest a good, long look at French history in South East Asia and North Africa. Might be enlightening..."
I totaly agree with you bakerstreet : i said the same since beginning : none of ours countrys are clean... no problemes about that.
I have read some of your blog bakerstreet ( it took me some time but i have find that interesting ).
At the end of reading, my feeling was that lot of our conflict may have his roots on religion. In france religion is not melt in politics due too our history. We try to think behnd of good and evil like nietzsche or like an autor i like a lot : Montaigne.
In the "essais" from montaigne, he describe the catholic spanish ppl invading south america and killing the primal natives to push them to catholiscim and take their land.Spanish ppl are sure to be the good because they are "civilized" and catholic.
Now what french ppl at this time : a superpower that have politics guided by God ( the vocabulary use by GB in speech (crusade - good vs evil etc ) is something that we doesn t like at all.)
I think that europe is like uranus because we have alredy know lot of religion war on our soile. When usa have attack afghanistan, if u rememeber, there was no objection in france and we send troops too because it was to eliminate a danger and help a population. For irak we immediatly understood that it was for oil. And usa was pretexting mass dest weapon ( no comment ) - al quaida ( no comment ) - and to give the democracy in irak ( cf spanish vs south america ).

@ at guideon : the history of a country do not begin with democracy. Democracy is good, but it s not the ultime level of human beeing. I don t know if you do too , but when we have a politic reflexion, in europe, we use reference like the roman republique for exemple, or fact that have happen during the "rennaissance" ( i dont know how to translate that : it s the periode between 16e and 17e centuries). When i say your history is shorter it s not to insult you, it s for trying to make you understand that our referals are different from yours, with lot of war and blood. Wich lot of different political regime. With lot of etnic movement. lot of military conquest ( win or lost ) and all of that make that we take more precaution with war.
In exemple : viet nam war seem to be very important in the way you decide a war or not. We have lot of viet nam, and some of this viet nam were in our soile...
friendly.

Salamader, what do you say to some of your more illustrious fellow citizens (e.g., BHL or Revel) who describe anti-Americanism in France as a kind of national illness? Is there anything to this?

Now as for the reverse (anti-French feeling in the US), I tell you with all seriousness that it is something of a joke. France and its people are the butt of many jokes but I don't think there is the deep, seething resentment towards the French that the French have towards Americans.

In fact, central to the sort of jokes one hears is precisely this absurd superiority complex you seem to have. I can't remember who it was, but it might have been Hazlitt who wrote: Pity the poor French, masters of all the arts; supreme in none.

Despite this conceit that Americans are stupid, ignorant, simple-minded etc., you might consider that we are an impossibly large and diverse land, such that while you and your countrymen might like to think of us all as a bunch of stupid, fat cowboys, you might also take a moment to consider that Americans win 80% of the Nobel Prizes and more than our fair share of Olympic medals. Of course none of that glory should rub off on me, as I am simply a fat, lazy, stupid (but not ignorant) American.