The French military is making it's customary preparations for war.

France's only aircraft carrier, the nuclear-powered Charles de Gaulle, will return to its home port next week "as planned",

I guess they are too tired trying to keep up with the USS Harry S. Truman for three days.

Bush was then reported to have added, "And we'll do stuff together." A delighted Chirac ran off skipping.

Stand back fellas. The brie is gonna hit the fan now.

Didn't chirac get an autographed picture of Jerry Lewis out of the deal too?

http://www.wardebate.com/

The present US Administration sees the coming conflict as the first step in a much larger campaign aimed at the political and economic transformation of Iraq and the surrounding region under US supervision.

US troops are likely to remain in Iraq for a very long time--first to insure the installation and survival of a friendly regime and then to coerce other states in the region into obeying Washington's dictates.

They will, in other words, serve as imperial occupiers

Hey, Frenchman. You don't know the half of it. We've (the US, that is) also ginned up this North Korean crisis as cover for South Korea and Japan to go nuclear (nukular to you), AND we've been encouraging India and Pakistan in the development of their nukes as well. Then our client states will have our enemies surrounded, and guess what? France is next. If you liked your German occupiers 60 years ago, you'll LOVE us. Most Americans have a problem dealing with the constant smell of urine, so assume your country will be left better off than we found it.

To Giad

Are you a soldier ?

To A Frenchman

Judging by the shear number of your posts, those 35 hour work weeks must be a killer. Well, I guess you and Chirac are busy preparing a fine little party for Mugabe. Hey, what wine goes best with dictators?

What cutting edge edge analysis, Frenchman! You probably also were in the crowd that predicted mass starvation in Afghanistan and protracted fighting with the Taliban before we went in there. Is it hard being so right all the time?

Merde, You cowboy Americans. Is it wrong to afraid?

Dear "A Frenchman N?2"

Could you be kind enough to use polite and correct words when usurping my identity as I personnally pretend that someone can defend his point of view without being impolite ;)

The QUESTION; Does USA needs UN and france? UN being an irrelevant organization, which canít impose its own resolution, has libya as its chairman for their human right commission and irag as its chairman for their disarmament commission.-bizarre or strange? As for france, what can it do if ever it will join or continuously object to any US plan to solve the crisis with irag?-Nothing.
The intransigence of france is based on its hidden ëfinancial and economicí interest with irag. A french oil company ëTOTALí is the biggest beneficiary for its violation of UN economic sanction. It is afraid that the world will uncover the extent of their collaboration with saddam.
The decision of the Secretary of State Collin Powell to involve the UN into the discussion concerning USA security is a big plunder. Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are correct all along when they advocated for unilateral American action. The US military can handle the problem by its own. The weasels can only contribute very small military force (which is really negligible).
The US government must stop wasting American taxpayerís money by HALTING or reducing its contribution to UN and NATO. The said money will be better spent and reinvested in the US military and the economy.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose!

Hey Guys, remember when the French gave author/adventurer Clive Cussler a hassle when he just wanted to check out the location of one of his underwater "finds" near Marseille? Just check it out and locate, document and leave. I still crack up over he and his crew throwing boiled potatoes at a French frigate as they sailed into port in England as the French frigate was sailing out, out of frustration over the hassle they received from French authorities.

To A Frenchman, No, it's not wrong to be afraid. It's normal. But it is wrong to appease evil and not repay your historic debt to the nation that liberated you from the same kind of aggressor. But, you know, we Americans don't expect anything from you French. We've learned over many years that as a nation you are ungrateful, proud and selfish and that you can't be counted on in a fight. You view yourselves as superior to us at the same time that you condemn us for being superior to you. We didn't ask to be the biggest nation in the world, it just worked out that way. Everyone wants something from us, but very few will stand with us when we need it. But we will remember...

To France and European COLLABORATORS of Saddam;

Every Iraqi and Kurds has the right to be free (like the Europeans) from the dictatorship and tyranny of Saddam.

SHAMELESS France supports Saddam as a way to protect their oil contracts at the expense of every Iraqi and Kurds. France DEPLORAPLE business with Saddam are all in violation of the UN trade embargo and therefore illegal. DESPICABLE France must be tried as an ACCESSORY to all atrocities and genocide committed by Saddam to its own people-particularly the Kurds.

Bootlickers can show their CROCODILE concern by putting Saddam as the King of France and the President of Europe. ìVive Europe - Long live Der Fuhrer Saddamî.

As a native Texan, I've known lots of real cowboys. They tend to be hardworking, quiet, kind and honorable. You can count on them in crises- like tornadoes, floods, overheated radiators and flat tires. And in terrorist attacks, or getting folks out of places like Auschwitz or Bataan. I'm proud to be called a cowboy and I'm sure George Bush is, too. Beats hell out of being called a coward.

Only an French idiot would call us cowboys and think it's an insult. John Wayne...Clint Eastwood...Ronald Reagan...enough said.

If You're Happy And You Know It Bomb Iraq - by John Robbins

If you cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
If the markets are a drama, bomb Iraq.
If the terrorists are frisky,
Pakistan is looking shifty
North Korea is too risky,
Bomb Iraq. >>>>>More
If we have no allies with us, bomb Iraq.
If we think that someone's dissed us, bomb Iraq
So to hell with the inspections,
Let's look tough for the elections,
Close your mind and take directions
Bomb Iraq.
It's pre-emptive non-aggression, bomb Iraq.
To prevent this mass destruction, bomb Iraq.
They've got weapons we can't see,
And that's all the proof we need,
If they're not there, they must be there,
Bomb Iraq.
If you never were elected, bomb Iraq.
If your mood is quite dejected, bomb Iraq.
If you think Saddam's gone mad,
With the weapons that he had,
And he tried to kill your dad,
Bomb Iraq.
If corporate fraud is growin', bomb Iraq.
If your ties to it are showin', bomb Iraq.
If your politics are sleazy,
And hiding that ain't easy,
And your manhood's getting queasy,
Bomb Iraq.
Fall in line and follow orders, bomb Iraq
For our might knows not our borders, bomb Iraq
Disagree? We'll call it treason
Let's make war not love this season
Even if we have no reason
Bomb Iraq

Robert, please do not be silly.

Cowboys are quite stupid, and we all know it, if you need a proof, just think that they smoke a lot of cigarettes (and fart).

John, Clint and Ronald are theree good examples of old farting opas.

By the way... is Clint the one with his dead cold hands still grabbing his (farted) toy-rifle?

Why do you consider "brave" killing defenceless Iraqi children from the security of a distant plane?

Why do you call "cowards" those that point out that this war has nothing to do with Saddam and a lot to do with your own president?

What has Iraq to do with 9/11?

Who is Iraq exactly menacing?

You are a bunch of cowards, attacking a crippled country, bombed and sanctioned to death, with all your military might without any real reason whatsoever.

Go and look at your face in a mirror, "cowboys": if you are still able to look straight, you will see the same cowards that massacred indians --a short time ago-- using "brave" rifles and canoons against "coward" arrows.

God... you are so sick and stupid you make me puke.

If You're Happy And You Know It Bomb Iraq - by John Robbins

If you cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
If the markets are a drama, bomb Iraq.
If the terrorists are frisky,
Pakistan is looking shifty
North Korea is too risky,
Bomb Iraq. >>>>>More
If we have no allies with us, bomb Iraq.
If we think that someone's dissed us, bomb Iraq
So to hell with the inspections,
Let's look tough for the elections,
Close your mind and take directions
Bomb Iraq.
It's pre-emptive non-aggression, bomb Iraq.
To prevent this mass destruction, bomb Iraq.
They've got weapons we can't see,
And that's all the proof we need,
If they're not there, they must be there,
Bomb Iraq.
If you never were elected, bomb Iraq.
If your mood is quite dejected, bomb Iraq.
If you think Saddam's gone mad,
With the weapons that he had,
And he tried to kill your dad,
Bomb Iraq.
If corporate fraud is growin', bomb Iraq.
If your ties to it are showin', bomb Iraq.
If your politics are sleazy,
And hiding that ain't easy,
And your manhood's getting queasy,
Bomb Iraq.
Fall in line and follow orders, bomb Iraq
For our might knows not our borders, bomb Iraq
Disagree? We'll call it treason
Let's make war not love this season
Even if we have no reason
Bomb Iraq

Zigo...thanks for illuminating my point even more clearly. You associate stupidity with smoking cigarettes (and farting)? You've got the Europeans nailed, right there. Good luck trying to find a non-smoking section of a restaurant.

Selim...how about a compromise where no kids get hurt? Surely you would agree to that? We'll just drive a few thousand tanks up to Baghdad, with a few hundred thousand men, and we won't fire a shot, unless fired upon. You Baathists just surrender, give up Saddam, Uday, and Qusay, and no one gets hurt.

C-mon guys. Give france a break. They belong to a very rare specie-the missing link between apes and man.

John Robbins...you really need to see a therapist. Admitting you have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery (so I've been told).

Where were you back in November...vacationing in Provence or Basra? Clinton, Gore, and the rest of the Democratic universe tried to turn the Florida governor's race into a referendum on the 2000 election. Fair enough. The people of Florida have spoken. Try and get over your denial and get on with yoru life.

Are we to expect that because the United States reluctantly intervened in a European war six decades ago
France must now blindly obey for the next FOUR ZILLIONS years whatever a warmongering American elite decides is just?

It was France that helped America achieve independence from a tyrannical Britain more than 200 years ago.
Should not we therefore be obligated to pledge its blind allegiance to French foreign policy forever after?

Mary USA

Mary of USA avers in her last posting that ìUnited States reluctantly intervened in a European war six decades ago.î The accent here is on ìreluctantlyî.
Oh yes, the Yanks reluctantly intervened, reluctantly sent millions tons of arms, food, medicine to besieged England, reluctantly stormed the beaches of Sicily and Normandy, reluctantly bled to death on Omaha beach, reluctantly have their arms, legs, faces blown off, reluctantly buried their hundreds thousand buddies in the European soil.
Hey, but that is not the end - just think of the scandalous reluctance of Yankee mothers seeing their boys sail across Atlantic perhaps never to see them again, so they may, however reluctantly, liberate the French, who, not-so-reluctantly, collaborated with their Nazi masters hunting down and sending Jews to the extermination camps.

Dear Mary, the US does not demand obedience from France on such trivial matters like international trade, customs tariffs, price of camembert, or wine bottling. These things are resolved, however imperfectly, without the US ever resorting to reminding the French of their debt. But the US is right to expect that France at least doesn't sabotage American initiative to offer the Iraqis what it once offered to the French. What France owes America is her freedom from Nazi monstrosity. Indeed, France owes America her very life.
The dumb, simplistic, Yanks paid (however reluctantly) with hundreds of thousands of their lives and limbs, so France might live and prosper. Today US is ready, perhaps again reluctantly, to liberate the people of Iraq from the rule of sadistic murderous regime as horrible as the one that ravished France and the rest of Europe some 60 years ago. And it asks France to remember her own suffering and to support the US on its noble endeavor. And the arrogant, selfish, cynical, shameless France says ìNONî!

What is most disgraceful about France is not that it doesnít ìobeyî the US, but that it betrays the people of Iraq who yearn for life of dignity and freedom as much, if not more, than the French did 60 years ago. Disgusting!

Dear Selim:

Yep, all that bad stuff happened in our short history. Let's see how wonderful your history has been....Can anyone think of something in the recent past that may come to mind that Selim can be proud of? OH Yeah! The World Trade Center.... I can't wait to play cowboys and Muslims!

Just take all those comments where Iraq is and replace it with France. Then take all those comments with Saddam and replace them with Hitler. Then say what has Hitler done to America? Is he a threat to America? Sure he has attacked France and subjugated her people but what has he really done to us Americans. If the people of France really really didn't want germans on their soil they themselves would get rid of them and we Americans should not intervene. Of course we cowboys along the souther border have always celebrated the fighting ability of the French Army. We have the Cinco de Mayo celebration, when even the poor Mexican army kicked the French Army's [tail] all the way back to France.

Selim: last I checked, the domestic policing and security forces here in the US weren't gouging out the eyes of babies and children to force confessions from their parents.

Tadek:

I couldn't have said it better! France's "NON" is due to their collective belief that they are still a power in this world, with their Security Council Veto, their nuclear 'force de frappe,' and they think poking a finger in the United States' eye on this issue makes us poor third world countries stand in awe! They impose their will on Gbagbo's government in the Cote d'Ivoire, and suddenly its wrong for the United States to seek legitimate redress from a regime in Iraq that is totally indefensible.

It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. Their Security Council Veto is an aberration of history (as much as Britain's is, I must admit, though Britain probably deserves hers more, on account of actually fighting the Axis till the end of World War II). They should strip that veto and give it to Japan, which can claim more clout in this world if they only took some lessons from the French.

Anyway, this'll be a moot point perhaps as early as March 5.

I think that the 1944 liberation of France could be interpreted as the Conquest of France. They did make a half-ass attempt to put up a fight against US forces in North Africa. That ended in a 3 day beach fight that they lost and the majority of the French Navy sitting on the ocean floor.

My dad always told the story of fighting to within 3 miles of Paris. Dirty and tired they were ordered to stop while the Free French army in clean uniforms ran up to the front of the column to lead the way in. They had heard that the Germans had fled the city.

Hey,Giad,we get 37 millions visitors in Paris every year of which 40% are Americans (that gives 14,800,000)....I guess it must be 14 millions 800,000 constant-smell-of-urine-amateurs
Americans....why do the other 260,000,000 hide LOL? We keep hoping hahaha!

Back to France.
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. How and when did we forget that the only allies we had in our own fight for independence were the French? I personally think that the reason Americans are so upset with France has to do with their (the French) audacity at being as egotistical and self servingly motivated as we are. I look forward to eating more of the best cuisine on the planet, and if anyone else out there wants to 'dump' their French wine, please call me first. Finally, lets' be careful out there.

This report was a big fat lie, wow