March 14, 2003
Dear Mr. Chirac:
I write to express my displeasure at your attempts to protect Saddam Hussein from the agreed upon consequences for his continued defiance of the will of those who defeated him in the 1991 war and of his own people. There can be no justification for the French defense of this murderous tyrant.
Whatever remained of the former French/American alliance--after French collaboration with the Nazis; withdrawal from the NATO military structure; Le Balon Rouge; refusal to grant overflight rights at the time of the Libya bombing; etc.--is surely now gone and the blame is wholly France's.
In future, I will urge my representatives in Congress to thwart any measure designed to aid French interests and to treat your country as what it is become: an objective enemy of the United States.
Regretfully,
Orrin C. Judd
Hanover, NH
A bit strange to see the form in English given Gallic paranoia about the language.
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at March 14, 2003 3:54 PMMetroSpy
has a list of French companies they advocate boycotting, plus alot of other French-bashing.
"Regretfully" is not the word I'd have chosen. My father and grandfather had to go rescue those poltroons, and I'm glad that's over with. I have a son.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 14, 2003 7:15 PMOrrin, maybe you ought to change the motto on top of the page to "(whatever the Latin for Paris is) delenda est"!
Posted by: Joe at March 14, 2003 10:01 PMJoe:
Ed Koch closes his radio program with Gaul delenda est.
Lutetia delenda est.
Gallia delenda est.
Dr. Weevil corrected us on this point recently . . . Peter has it right.
Orrin, what do you have against Carthage? Isn't that carrying tradition a bit too far?
Carthage is a metaphor for all enemies of Western Civilization.
Posted by: oj at March 15, 2003 9:33 AMBut wasn't Carthage more Western than Rome at the time of the wars? It was a commercial, libertarian society, a bit soft and degenerate perhaps, compared to the martial Romans, who soon enough earned their living by theft and empire.
Posted by: pj at March 15, 2003 10:30 AMThey produced no art, literature, philosophy, religion or other culture worth noting. Liberty means nothing if you do nothing with it.
Posted by: oj at March 15, 2003 11:39 AMWell, Rome didn't produce much culture either until later.
Posted by: pj at March 15, 2003 12:52 PMCompared with the art, lit, culture and philosophy
coming out of the greatest capital of the world,
Washington, D.C.
pj:
Produced Cato:
http://www.geocities.com/~kashalinka/cato_bio.html
Well, Cato was born 30 years after the First Punic War began. I would tend to date the beginning of Roman contributions to "art, literature, philosophy, religion" to the period of Rome's conquest of Greece, 200-140 BC. Cato himself was educated in Greece.
Posted by: pj at March 15, 2003 3:09 PMFor a good philosophical analysis of the Punic wars, read G. K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man,
especially the chapter "The Gods and Demons." Or "The Demons and Gods" or something like that. It's been a while.