A Francophobe speaks out...

Whilst many Americans are keen to brand anyone who dares criticise its foreign policy (or anything else for that matter) as "anti-American", francophobia is also rather rife among American right-wing pond life. Testimony to this was given very recently and convincingly by a Jules Crittenden in the Boston Herald in a piece called
"With doublespeaking [sic] France, honor gets lost in translation".

Just a few gems:

French is the traditional language of diplomacy. Diplomacy is the art of saying one thing while doing another.

No, Jules, that's NOT what diplomacy is about, but then right-wingers like you feel only force can solve most problems.

I don’t speak French, so I have no idea what the actual French words are for those concepts or what possible nuances there may be.

The fact that you don't speak French doesn't surprise me, I doubt if you've ever made even the first attempt at learning a foreign language...

To find the last plain-speaking French leader, it is necessary to go back to Napoleon Bonaparte. He said he was going to take over Europe, and proceeded to do so. No, scratch that. He said he was going to bring French liberty and equality to Europe, then crowned himself emperor. Subsequent French history offers us a sordid string of third world colonizations followed by bloody wars to hang on long after the time to relinquish colonies had passed, setting the stage for corrupt government and prolonged conflict in places like Vietnam.

Of course: only the French had "sordid third world colonies", the British Empire never existed. And France is responsible for the Vietnam war?

The shamelessness of France knows no bounds. They have a domestic Arabic population and business interests in the Mideast to satisfy. They desperately want to be taken seriously as a major power. So they sat down with the United States and hammered out a peace plan. Then, before the ink was dry, they shrugged a Gallic shrug.

The Gallic gall: they have a "domestic Arabic population" (no Muslims in Britain or the US, of course) and "business interests in the Mideast". The US, of course has no such business interests...

If we, those of us who enjoy conducting business in English rather than say, Chinese or Arabic, want it to stay that way, I’d suggest step one is that we should continue to state clearly our intentions and do what we say we aregoing to do. Even when the world doesn’t necessarily like what we are saying.

That is our French lesson for the day.

Jules, you're a complete prat. Completement...