BBC World Service...hearts and minds...

[Effoh]

http://bbc.in/1T4tkzu

In the interests of decorum, I'll settle on speechless**.



**because I can only find 23 characters on the keyboard to sanitise what I want to say

[Vancouver]

Looking around, I don't actually see any STATESMEN (in the vein of Eisenhower, Churchill, Thatcher. Roosevelt) with the hootspah to actually take this by the scruff of the neck and deal with it. They are currently all such LITTLE people with selfish agendas from where I sit.
That is my theory which is mine.

[Paul K]

**because I can only find 23 characters on the keyboard to sanitise what I want to say

Colin, I'm not exactly sure what it is you want to say. Are you for or against what is said in the clip? Or do you have other thoughts on it ?

[Effoh]

I find their description of the French people offensive. On reflection I should perhaps have kept my thoughts to myself. Admins, please feel free to delete this thread.

[Paul K]

Ah, I see - the term 'cheese eating surrender monkeys'. You are aware of the origin of the expression and how it gained currency in the USA prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, yes ? I think it's a deliberately ironic reference, in order to contrast today's changing perceptions of the French amongst a certain slice of the American public and media.

[nigelb]

Ah, yes Paul. Some Colonists here even went to the ridiculous step of renaming "French Fries" to Freedom Fries" for a while back in 2003. "Chips", on the unlikely chance you did not know..

Nifel²

[cstorey]

Mmm. Given that until the Louisiana purchase , about half of the then USA was French , the whole cheese eating episode was not one of Uncle Sam's greatest moments . I think the French were too polite to point out that, had the USA not been avowed neutrals until they were forced into the war on 7th December 1941, they might not have been obliged to surrender

[Paul K]

Ah, yes Paul. Some Colonists here even went to the ridiculous step of renaming "French Fries" to Freedom Fries" for a while back in 2003. "Chips", on the unlikely chance you did not know..

Nifel²

Yes, we heard all about that here, Nigel. Had it been a roadside diner somewhere, you could have dismissed it, but the cafeteria of the House of Representatives ? Infantile and demeaning, to say the least.

I don't suppose that after the invasion, and the Idiot Son had to make his excuses for no WMDs, they were renamed 'failure of intelligence fries' were they ? Or next time, instead of succumbing to 'group think', make people answer the obvious uncomfortable questions, such as why a painting of a mobile chemical weapons lab - a painting, mind...an artists impression... was presented at the UN as proof that such a laboratory existed ...fries.

The French didn't believe it for a minute, and they were right not to. We all know where the real failure of intelligence lay - between the ears of Bush and Blair, the pair of loathsome mendacious sh*ts.

[nigelb]

Paul, I am certainly not defending Bush here but he was led by the nose by the Prince of Darkness Cheney, the idiot who managed to shoot his friend on a hunting trip.

Nigel²

[dutchman2]

On the subject of a-holes at the top, didn't you all have some chap named Chamberlain a few decades back?