Way to go Spain - aka The results of giving in to terrorist demands

[:) Smiley]

We should of let the Soviets conquer the Middle East back during the Cold War. Communism has a way of crushing reactionary religions.

[Shi Huangdi]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
How many promises have the Americans kept with the Indians?

Also note that while the U.S. has poured much hate and scorn upon France in the last year, they have still continued to track down and capture members of the 911 plot. We treat them like ****, and they still act like an ally. That's honor.

The US government remained allied with France and did not pour scorn upon France. The US people did, but so did the French people pour scorn and hate at the US, with the support of traitors such as yourself.

[Shi Huangdi]

Originally posted by Smiley
We should of let the Soviets conquer the Middle East back during the Cold War. Communism has a way of crushing reactionary religions.

Tell that to the Poles. Or, for that manner, the Afghanis.

[Shi Huangdi]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The headscarf ban isn't really about women's hair. It's about try to control the growth of reactionary Islam in a secular republic.

You mean trying to control it's people and exclude a certain group from participating in public life when they aren't harming anyone? Arbitrarily forcing the values of the society at large down the throats of a group that is different? Sounds like something a commie would support.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ouch... very nicely played, Shi .

[Pekka]

If you ban all religious insignia in public school, it's not shoving down the throat, it's keeping religion out of school. If it's banned only from Islam, then it' sshoving down the throat.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
Sounds like something a commie would support.

Understanding it and agreeing with it are two different things.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Pekka:

I wholeheartedly agree with you. And in the case of this very thread, I don't think any external pressure will change our mind, bar maybe pressure from the EU.

I'm curious as to why pressure from the EU would force you to change it if France feels it's in the best interest of France.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
How many promises have the Americans kept with the Indians?

Also note that while the U.S. has poured much hate and scorn upon France in the last year, they have still continued to track down and capture members of the 911 plot. We treat them like ****, and they still act like an ally. That's honor.

Does that include French anti-Americanism? Does it also include selling weapons and advanced weapons technology to countries hostile to the US?

[Az]

You mean trying to control it's people and exclude a certain group from participating in public life when they aren't harming anyone? Arbitrarily forcing the values of the society at large down the throats of a group that is different? Sounds like something a commie would support.

Not harming anyone?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Sprayber
I'm curious as to why pressure from the EU would force you to change it if France feels it's in the best interest of France.

Unlike the decisions of Iran, or of some terrorist group in Iraq, the decisions of the EU can be legally binding. If the EU court considers the ban opposite to human rights, France may end up paying a fine.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DaShi
Does it also include selling weapons and advanced weapons technology to countries hostile to the US?

I thought the main provider of weaponry to Saudi Arabia was the US. I didn't know we had that a significant share in their weapon imports

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by DaShi


Does that include French anti-Americanism? Does it also include selling weapons and advanced weapons technology to countries hostile to the US?

Heh - very thin ice for both of these things. There seems to be a lot of US-supplied arms being brough to bear against western nations, particularly in the Middle East, and many nations that are less than ideally stable have American military technologies also.

Why is there such an anti-French feeling in some parts of America? It defies comprehension. No other country is so singled out, yet France has not stood alone against the US in anything I can immediately think of, least of all recent geopolitical events.

[Spiffor]

We opposed the US' splendid little war in Iraq.

That triggered their unleashing of hatred, but it was accumulated long before. Both countries have big egoes, and bark at each other for a long time.

During the last 4 years, we had a great mix with Chirac and Bush. Chirac is in the gaullist tradition of trying to show France's greatness by having a loud policy that often take cheap shots at the US. And Bush is an absolute non-diplomat, who is also an abomination in any Frenchman's eye (arrogant Texan religious and stupid cowboy - you can't get any worse, except maybe if you eat babies as a bonus).

[Patroklos]

Whatever petty hatred America has ever had twords France has always been nothing compared to what America has suffered from the average Frenchmen for basically the entire century.

And it isn't just against America, Fance is known worldwide for bieng arrogant and not working with everyone. Which isn't true, because there is what France says and what France does. For the most part, France has always been a staunch ally as long as they could say the opposite. God forbid they ever agreed with the US, because then they would lose face as one of our puppets.

Just my opinion that France hasn't gotte over their fall from a world power, a first rate world mover one anyways. They want the position the US has in the Western world now, the one they held for centuries before. The cultural icon of the civilization. For that reason they always have to SOUND different from us, even if they actually are not.

And of course the consequence of this is the reation France gets from us (and by no means just us). And you know what, I bet most Frenchmen deep down like it that way.