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Originally Posted by Lux
france for not speaking up in the whole terrorist campaign because they didn't want to jeopardize their business of selling weapons to countries such as iraq
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That's what American media and the Bush administration have been feeding the American public with, and it's a total distortion of the truth, France is just as committed to fighting terrorism as any other western country. In 1985/86 there were about 15 terrorist bombings in Paris perpetrated by muslim extremists, we know perfectly well that terrorism is a threat and our secret services are fighting it with other western countries, but that doesn't mean that we agree with bombing and invading countries that have nothing to do with terrorism, killing an Arab and his family simply because you've been attacked by another Arab makes absolutely no sense.
France is fighting terrorism, but yes, we were opposed to the invasion of Iraq because Iraq had no relation whatsoever with muslim terrorism (Iraq was a laic communist-like country, the exact opposite of an islamic state, it had no connection with muslim extremists), Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, Iraq had no military nuclear program, Iraq had no terrorist training camps, Iraq was not a threat, that's what France and Germany said at the UN security council before the invasion of Iraq and we were right since the US has been unable to find anything of what it said it would find in Iraq, and yet this country has been bombed, invaded, annihilated… for nothing.
I actually used to be relatively in line with American policy, i grew up during the cold war, a time when you knew that the red army could be at your door the next morning (if they had not vitrified your city first), i supported the Atlantic alliance and was generally close to US views, at least in terms of international policy.
But after the fall of communist regimes, US foreign policy started to get out of hand and i found myself increasingly in disagreement with the US.
At the time of the 9/11 attacks, France was still very close to the US though, and French people mourned and were just as shocked by the attacks as American people were… But then Bush (and many American people with him) became totally insane… "I am the leader of a new crusade against the forces of evil"… I mean, wtf?!? And the US decided that they had to invade a bunch of countries for no good reasons.
And when France opposed to it at the UN, the French bashing started on every level of the American nation, the government, the media, TV stations, newspapers, web sites, even movies and TV shows, everywhere, not to mention the infamous renaming of things with 'French' in it to 'Liberty'… We were treated like trash just because we dared to disagree with the almighty US and refused to participate to the invasion of a country that had nothing to do with the terrorism the US was supposedly fighting, because we didn't want to bomb a country to destroy weapons of mass destruction that never existed.
So yeah, i have kept some resentment from that period and the loads of insults targeting French people that i've read, seen, and heard everyday for months in American media, especially since we were actually right and the Bush administration was bullshitting 24/7.
And yes, invading a random Arab country (well, not totally random of course, it has yummy oil to feed SUVs) just because you've been attacked by a dozen Arabs from another Arab country is definitely over the top.