Aaahh, Marie-Claude. No One Accused the French of Lacking Imagination; Only Fidelity, Constancy, Courage and Loyalty.

Submitted by mariana (United States), Apr 18, 2008 at 12:13

Chere Marie-Claude:

I doubt seriously that President George HW Bush [le pere] ever threatened to leave NATO. He fought in WWII [was shot down twice], had been UN Ambassador, and was/is "old fashioned" enough to still believe in NATO, UN and "A Community of Nations"; even though modern France [post deGaule] refused over-fly rights during the Gulf War, causing his pilots and military great hardships.

Clinton loved being "one of the Big Boys" too much, to even notice that his NATO brethren were regularly "cleaning his clock" with every transaction [Bosnia-Herzegovina]. How well has that worked out?

GW Bush [le fil], on the other hand.... Nothing would make me happier than to believe he even "suggested" we'd leave NATO. If it is true that he had done, I love him even more! It was under the present Bush that Old Europe led by Chirac and deVillepain, nakedly and unambiguously "showed their true colors" in ways America can neither ignore nor spin-away with "diplomacy".

Do try to remember, that in 1967 when de Gaule pulled out of NATO, the large new bases and airport which NATO had built [with American $Millions] in Algeria "went" with him. At that time, Algeria "belonged" to France, and only France benefited from this colossal International Grand Theft. France paid, en fin, and pays still for this "infamia".

[Francois Mitterand told us one evening at Merritt College, that he was "embarrassed" at this "blunder" and that: "When I am President of France, you will see that my foreign policy..." will be closer to US policy than de Gaule's].

I'm sorry about "hairdressers papers", but, I do not read your trade journals. Perhaps, if you tried more variegated sources for your information, you'd not have to "make up" your responses.

mariana

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