Or at least a good number of his senior aides do. And no, the word boycott hasn’t been mentioned, but options that are apparently up for consideration are sidelining Paris at NATO and limiting its participation in trans-atlantic forums.
Vice-President Cheney has been the most vocal about wanting to punish France, while the State Department has been arguing against any punishment, but as usual Shrub and his boys aren’t listening.
Punishing France.:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Grow up.
Cite? Cite? Cite? Cite?
Here,
and here…
Thread
:eek: I don’t like the direction this administration’s “policies” have taken lately at all. IMHO, we’ll be lucky if we’re still in the U.N. after this.
Betcha they can at least scan a list of thread titles, though.
McDonald’s outlets in Paris, Euro-Disney in France.
America could not possibly punish the French any worse.
I don’t think they want to punish France so much as blame France. They are attempting to get the public to fixate on Les Frogues so they can float the balloon that, really, most everybody was on our side but dat ol’ debbil France messed it all up. France went around muscling and bullying other countries with their overpowering economic advantages. Bribery, extortion, that sort of thing. Wasn’t a diplomatic boondoggle. It was France.
Lot of Muslims in France, you know. And Charles DeGualle was very tall. Lots of tall Muslims, it necessarily follows. Good place for a very tall Muslim to hide out. Not that I’m suggesting anything…
And, of course, we still have the maps. They probably haven’t done anything to the roads since '44, so they’ll still be pretty accurate. Iraq took about a week, France should be good for, oh,…lunch?
I say run them through the Spanking Machine!
That’ll learn 'em
I don’t think Pas-de-Calais is even guarded.
OH they’ll probably just change its name to Pays des Fries de Liberte. Disgustly childish.
From the Yahoo article:
The biggest military and economy in the world, and it’s being run by the Filmore Jr. High student council.
Lessee…you’re the one calling the guy “shrub” and he’s petty?
Moi ou Bush? It was a WWII reference. The Allies pretended like they were going to attack at Pas-de-Calais. A turned German agent fed intelligence to the German high command which helped keep some Panzer divisions pinned down at Pas-de-Calais, waiting for the ‘real’ invasion that never came. Hitler was sure we were going to attack at Pas-de-Calais.
[sub]hit Normandy again[/sub]
Ooops - forgivie my slow computer and slow brain - I meant change the name of the country, just like changing name of French Fries.
Zabali_Clawbane wrote
I almost fell out of my seat laughing on that one. I suspect it wasn’t intended as a joke though.
Here we go again:
Its amazing how being french is considered being an insult. What’s worse is that opposition to the US is only going to get worse! If we get too damn assholish, then the rest of the world will find a way to make us pay, believe it. It doesn’t matter if we were right. If the rest of the world hates you, then you end up getting screwed. It just a question of how much damage W can do in his time.
Well, I’m satisfied with the cites. Thank you. (sigh of relief Oh good, Michael Ellis is pleased, thank God.)
My take: This is understandable. Dumb, poorly timed, and diplomatically idiotic, but understandable.
:sigh:
Imagine for a moment that France had gone to war and we had refused to help them. When the war is over, they say they are going to “punish us.” How effective would that strategy be on an American? It would just make things worse, wouldn’t it? Do you think the French are that different from us?
Of course, if your army’s bigger than their army, you can always be a bully.
And that’s what this is – bullying!
elucidator, I certainly hope that you are right that we are just trying to blame France instead of punish. Were you able to read the article at Yahoo?
**
It isn’t so much that they didn’t help us but that they actively worked against us. I’m sure the French government realized that working against the United States would have a long term affect on US/French relations. Personally I’m hoping that cooler heads prevail on both sides and we’re able to maintain a good relationship across the board.
**
What does the army have to do with this? It isn’t as if we’re threatening France with the might of the US Armed Forces. If you want to talk about bullying how about Chirac’s bullying of prospentive EU members who supported the United States?
Marc