Enough with the “SURRENDER MEME” in the comment sections every time the Huffington Post has an item about France.
For over five years, we - French expatriates in America - have had to endure all kinds of harassment, public humiliation and ridicule, all because our government refused to follow the Bush / Cheney in lock and step over the invasion of Irak.
Mocking the 1940 armistice by Marshall Pétain show lack of understanding and respect. 92,000 men died fighting in 1939-40 and 20,000 French resistance fighters and 40,000 POWs died from 1940 to 1945. Civilian losses include 120,000 killed due to military action and 230,000 victims of Nazi reprisals and genocide including 83,000 FRENCH Jews.
This is no laughing matter, yet day in, day out, Monday morning quarterbacks spew their hatred of the French here and elsewhere with the impunity that comes with remote disconnection.
Once again I shall maintain that mocking the 1940 deblacle is as funny to the French as 9/11 is to Americans. It’s time to get past the Jonah Goldberg / Grounds keeper Willie zingers and show some mutual respect between our sister republics.
Marc A. Cormier
A huge bravo for Marc who has remained dignified and calm amidst the vitriol against the French because our government refused, and rightly so, to sanction President Bush's illegal, immoral and criminal invasion of and war on Iraq.
Not all Americans deserve to be rebuked. But I maintain that those Americans who take to bashing the French because America's own president lied to his people are the parochial, insular, ignorant types, much like their blundering warmonger for a commander in chief, Bush. Frankly, this blog is tempted to to deal with people of this caliber by simply letting them wallow in their pathetic and flawed self-righteousness but, heck, Marc Cormier is right: something has got to be done to educate them!
Lest there be any misunderstanding: Most French backed our government’s refusal, as Marc stated, “to follow Bush/Cheney in lock and step over the invasion of Irak” because we believed that Bush and his fellow hawks were totally wrong to invade and cause havoc on a nation based on deceit and lies… Didn't America’s own officials involved in the Iraq Study Group virtually prove that Bush had been completely inept when he insisted that Iraq must be invaded and its people violated on the basis of fixed intelligence?
It is not a measure of courage or intelligence for a government and a people who have at their command an omnipotent military to be able to poke holes on every square foot of land in a third world country and cause devastation and misery to its already suffering population but it takes immense courage and great intelligence NOT TO DO something as odious and ignoble as that.
And for that we are called cowards?
Photo of commemorative plate in the tunnel at Plage Bonaparte from Mathieu GUY's photostream and also from here.