The French are at it again

“POLITICAL leaders in France and Germany urged President Bush yesterday to avoid a belligerent response, as fears grew in Europe of the consequences of swift and ruthless military reaction to the terrorist attacks.

Lionel Jospin, the French Prime Minister, said the Americans should be "reasonable" in their response. Alain Richard, his defence minister, said the attacks were "not acts of war".

The comments, echoed by senior German ministers if not by the Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, contradicted statements by President Bush and his Secretary of State Colin Powell.

M Jospin said: "We must vigorously condemn and combat terrorism. But we must not allow ourselves to be led into considerations of a conflict between the western world and the Islamic world, where we have many friends and partners."

The remarks from the Socialist prime minister were aimed at reassuring both the France's political Left and its Muslim population, which numbers six million. But they will be seen as further evidence of disagreements between France and America on big foreign policy issues.

The comments by M Richard will also undermine American confidence in France's commitment to joint reprisals as outlined by Nato members on Wednesday. He said: "I think that this was a terrorist attack of particular gravity.

"American democracy is clearly endangered by such action, but in my opinion a war is something else entirely." France disagrees with US policy on missile defence, the bombing of Iraq and what it sees as American cultural imperialism.

Rudolf Scharping, the German defence minister, also cautioned against launching swift military strikes. "I hope we all remain calm and do not now speak of a state of alarm. We do not face a war.

"We face the question of what is an appropriate response," he told German television. "Not in the sense of revenge and retribution, but in order to be able to fight and break international terror."

France's maverick health minister, Bernard Kouchner, went as far yesterday as to put the attacks down to a "series of errors" by America. "America's made a real mistake in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which was to train the Taliban," M Kouchner said.

"To think now that there is some kind of consensus of 'honourable' nations against the 'bad' terrorists, is simply not true."”

“Boom goes London
Boom Par-ee

They all hate us anyhow
so let's drop the BIG on now!”

“"America's made a real mistake in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which was to train the Taliban,"

Well, in retrospect....yeah, we did. But at least we got them godless commies outta there!”

“i love french toast.

french kissing ain't bad, either!”

“I'll take "godless commies" over religious FUNdamentalists.
Those guys know how to party!”

“Don't forget about French Fries.”

“french dressing sucks, though.”

“Yup,
Italiano for me!”

“It's good to see countries which once wanted to drag the whole world into war are now peace loving snobs. I for one feel this is just the beginning of the break down of support, if they don't want to stand shoulder to shoulder with us then they must have sympathy for the terrorist and should be treated as such.”

“No comment”

“What do you expect from a country that bent over and took it in the pooper from the Nazi's?”

“Yea, they'll condone war until some Terrorist blows up something of theirs, then they will bitch at us for not eliminating the Terrorist threat.”

“France is an international joke.”

“One thing you can be sure about. The French are always there when they need us!”

“What about the Norwegians?

Can we pick on them too?”

“What's wrong with Norwegians?

"reptiles" Johansen”

“Some of my family are "Frogh"......Minnesota Norske
Just jivin', Ivan”

“kleetn, some of the people that we trained to get rid of the "godless commies" are involved in these terrorist networks.

We cannot let these attacks go unanswered, but we need to think about things our government has done in the past to contribute to the situation.”

“deathmarch99 - terrorists attack France all the time because of their previous colonization of Algeria, just nothing on the scale of what we just suffered.”

“wsexson, I realize that. I was making light of the situation. I guess in retrospect it was a choice we made between tossing out the devil that we knew for the devil that we didn't know.”

“Maybe we should bomb France.”

“More ethnic slurs?

Let's be sure to tar all French people with the same brush also.”

“kleetn, my point is simply that we need to do a better job thinking about the unintended consequences of our actions as we decide how to combat terrorism. No hostility intended.”

“Teen-Ager Placed Under Investigation After Leading Pro-Bin Laden Demonstration
The Associated Press
Published: Oct 19, 2001

STRASBOURG, France (AP) - A French teen-ager was placed under investigation after he allegedly organized a demonstration at his junior high school where students called out "Long live bin Laden," judicial officials said Friday.

A juvenile court judge in Strasbourg placed the 15-year-old under formal investigation - one step short of being charged - on Thursday for "justifying acts of terrorism," the officials said.

The judge ordered the student to remain under the surveillance of a teacher.

For adults, the charge of "justifying acts of terrorism" can carry up to five years in prison and a $42,000 fine.

The teen-ager is believed to have organized a demonstration Monday at the Lezay-Marnesia school in Strasbourg, in eastern France. About 100 students gathered in the courtyard, burned a pair of red-white-and-blue underwear and cried out "Long live (Osama) bin Laden, down with the Americans."

Bin Laden is suspected in the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

AP-ES-10-19-01 1510EDT”

“Why does this not surprise me. That's it I am going outside on my front porch and burning a poster of Jerry Lewis while shouting "Down with France, we won't bail their ass out again!"”

“He burned a pair of red-white-and-blue underwear.

What a load.”

“I heard the french already surrendered to the Taliban.”

“Tony Blair, now there's a cutie! How are English food? I hear it sucks.

The French - just wait until someone blows up all their pics in the louve. Then they will rethink things and it will be too late.”

“louvre. The French, they can't even spell right, the word colour, what's that all about.”

“Ever been to France? Nice place. Worth rescuing every 50 years or so.”

“How so like the French to burn a good pair of underwear.”

“Hey, Bizgirl, you know the poem about the underpants in France......”

“France is cool, its just the French that ruined the place.”

“Doesn't sound much different than Berkley. Do we just believe in free speech here at home?”

“no Dunaden, why don't you tell it to me”

“The flag of France is coloured (in your face Lipstick (hee hee))red, white and blue also.....hmmm”

“I am eating French toast this morning just so I can turn it into a turd. I might go nuts and have some French fries for lunch.”

“I like the French much better than Italians.

Italian men are nothing but a bunch of whimpy Momma's boys. Italian women are shrews.”

“As mentioned by other TT'ers, French Kissing is pretty good.”

“I think stanlee wants a spanking, and since I'm Italian, according to Gear Slut, I may have to yell at him too :{}”

“It's alright Lipstick, at least you're going to be using your mouth. hee hee”

“You're bad stanlee!”

“Vive la Francois!

http://www.zigzag.com/STANDARD/HOME/home_02.gif ">”

“So what's the deal with garlic bread?”

“G-d knows the British didn't come up with the idea....”

“Yep, I'm bad, bad, bad to the bone...”

“Looks like even war torn third world countries like Ivory Coast get to jump on the "Let's Whoop France's A$$" bandwagon. France are the Generals to the world's Globetrotters.

02/01/03

msa,,mm ABIDJAN, IVORY COAST

Fleeing French


A 5,000-strong stone-throwing mob invaded Ivory Coast's main airport yesterday, storming planes on the tarmac and taunting, slapping and spitting at terrorized French families in flight from their former West African colony. "Never come back!" one band of young men shouted, spewing profanities at a woman and three children who ran sobbing under a gantlet of blows from parking lot to terminal. French forces in cannon-mounted armored vehicles took up positions in and around the runway, backed by helicopters clattering overhead. At one point the French briefly squared off against Ivory Coast forces - rifles locked, loaded and aimed. The day punctuated a week of often-violent protests over a French-brokered deal to end Ivory Coast's 4-month-old civil war.


BTW - I did not make up the title or the story, although it sure looks like I could have.”

“Here is a good article explaining French political tendencies from a British point of view.

Article”

“Hmmmm, this may explain why the Ivory Coast doesn't trust a French brokered deal.

Article”

“Buddha, these are families fleeing a warzone. Give it a rest.”