January 24, 2003 - "Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion." -- Jed Babbit (Former US Under-secretary of Defense)

I woke up this morning wanting to conquer France. Not because of what the country has to offer, not because of its natural resources, not because of its wealth of art or its vine grown treasures. No, I wanted to conquer France because it seemed so inviting.

You may be saying, "Frank! How can you say something like that?! That’s a horrible thing to say. They are our allies.” To that I say, really? Are they really our allies, because if they really are our allies they have an amazingly strange way of showing it?

Let’s chronicle the stuff that everyone knows first so at least we can say that it has been said. And for the record, I am not going to address how two-faced Gerhard Schroeder, the Chancellor of Germany is. Suffice it to say that he is a political narcissist who truly will do what ever it takes to stay in power including leaving in power a confirmed mass-murderer.

There is World War I and World War II. Not once but twice the United States had to sacrifice thousands of lives liberating the citizens of France after their government surrendered to their invaders with only limited resistance. Both times it was liberated from an occupying German army. While they were under Nazi occupation during World War II the French government even found itself rounding up Jewish citizens all the while understanding that they would be sentencing them to death in the Nazi concentration camps. The only faction actually bothering to help end the Nazi occupation was the French Underground. These two events in themselves should have the French government saying, "Whatever you want to do President Bush, we are behind you. We stand behind you because of all of the American lives that were lost in the effort to free our nation from two tyrannical leaders. We’ll make sure that the graves of those brave men and women are well maintained and we will stand behind you whenever you need us to.” But that isn’t happening.

There is Vietnam, once part of a French colony after the era of colonialism was well dead and buried. Here they abandoned their failed colonization after having shot up the flare, asking the United States for advisors. Once again the French government left the US to fight a war that they hadn’t been a part of starting. It was obvious that given the political climate in the United States the war couldn't possibly have been won, but the French Government couldn’t be bothered with such details. It wasn’t in their best interest. Once again American soldiers were fighting and dying in a hotbed created by the French.

Then in another show of support for the United States the French government refused to let American military planes fly over French airspace as they responded to a murderous and cowardly terrorist attack by the government of Libya on innocents aboard a commercial airplane. This caused our pilots to fly around the entire country in order to carry out their mission adding hours to their already elongated flight time.

Today as we stand posed to move against a brutal dictator and a man who has demonstrated that he has no reservations about eliminating his own people with weapons of mass destruction, we are faced with opposition from a country that literally owes the United States their very existence. France stands with Germany, a country that during the 20th Century waged war to the point of world crisis not once but twice, in opposing the use of force even though the Iraqi government has violated time and again resolution after resolution adopted by the nations of the world through the United Nations. Currently the French government, along with the government of Germany attempts to circumvent the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Counsel by crafting their own plan about the disarming of the Iraqi regime. They do so without the courtesy of consulting the United States on the matter effectively slapping the face of the United States, who has painstakingly conferred with France and Germany throughout the crisis in an attempt to bring them on board. France is actively recruiting the nations that stand in the margins in their attempt to oppose the United States in the removal of a tyrant who murders his own people.

There are many theories as to why a country would turn so completely against a country that literally championed its existence.

One thought on the matter is that after the United States gets into Baghdad that it may very well find contraband goods and weapons parts that were furnished by the French government to the Iraqis in violation of the UN embargo that is in place. Another addresses the fact that the French would be affected by the re-introduction of Iraqi oil into the mainstream market. Still another suggests that it is simply an acquired jealousy towards the United States for its stature around the world. And yet another thought is that they are spearheading an anti-war campaign to detract from the crisis that they have in their own country with regard to the increased anti-Semitism that is being adopted by the fringe elements in their society.

Whatever the reason it remains a fact that the French government is acting like anything but an ally to the United States and we need to ask ourselves, should we continue to count the French among our staunch allies? Should we continue granting them any type of foreign aid, whether it be monetary or figuratively? Should we continue to grant them most favorite nation status when it comes to trade? Or should we grant the French what they seem to be wanting; their complete and unsupported independent existence in the world theater? They are a socialist government whose views seldom reflect ours. They are constantly berating the United States about our culture, our opinion, our might, and now they are berating us about our right to retaliate against a rogue regime that has verified connections to those who slaughtered our citizens on September 11th.

Perhaps it is time to cut France loose. They seem to have found a partner in Germany, a nation that invaded them twice. Perhaps we should leave them to their own devices. This way, in about a year, we will only have to negotiate with Germany to get France’s cooperation, that is after Germany takes it over again. Just take a look it has already started!