Thursday, September 18, 2003

We're at war.... with France!

So sayeth Tom Friedman, columnist for the NYTimes! Friedman isn't exactly one labelled at a neo-conservative, hawk, etc., so it's been interesting watching people's reactions to this in the blogosphere.

Anyway, I'll give you the opening sentence as a teaser; then you can go read the rest:

"It's time we Americans came to terms with something: France is not just our annoying ally. It is not just our jealous rival. France is becoming our enemy."


Wow. Wowy wow wow.

Wait, one more line: "Instead, the French have put out an ill-conceived proposal, just to show that they can be different, without any promise that even if America said yes Paris would make a meaningful contribution." That seems to be typical of the french mentality (not all French people, mind you... I know too many actual, real Frenchmen to make such a stupid blanket statement) -- if the US is doing X, we'll do Y. We see this in that country's practice of absolutely refusing to use nearly-universal terms like "walkman", instead translating the terms literally into french in an apparent bid to save the language, and differentiate themselves from others (including the US) for differentiation's sake, period.

Wierd.


Anyway, go read Friedman's piece and draw your own conclusions.

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