Tue. Nov 5th, 2024

STYlenoyYou called my people cowards on a nightly basis for years based on your skewed perception of events in World War II and your willingness to please the Bush administration before and during the Iraq war. [Read Jay’s Anti-French material]

While it is a fact our leadership betrayed us and surrendered us to the enemy in 1940, over 100 000 men in uniform died trying to slow the German advance. Had the French been the cowards you so often joked about, there would have been no battle of Lille and no evacuation of 340 000 British troops from Dunkirk. But historical facts were never your forte.

One last time Jay, let me remind you your mocking of the events of 1940 was – and is – as offensive to the French as 9/11 jokes are to Americans. In a print interview, you also went as far as calling the French Resistance a “mythical joke”, a highly offensive and revisionist comment you have yet to redress.

We will not miss you, save a sincere apology.
Marc from Miquelon.org

More from 112 Gripes About The French. Published in Paris in 1945 by the ‘Information & Education Division’ of the US Occupation Forces.

  • The French fought in Africa, in Sicily, liberated Corsica, fought in Italy, took part in the invasion of Europe and fought through the battles of France and Germany — from Normandy to Munich.
  • Units from the French navy participated in the invasions of Sicily, Italy, Normandy and South France.
  • Units of the French navy and merchant marine took part in convoying operations on the Atlantic and Murmansk routes.
  • On June 5, 1944, the day before D-Day, over 5,000 Frenchmen of the resistance dynamited railroads in more than 500 strategic places.
  • They delayed strategic German troop movements for an average of 48 hours, according to our military experts. Those 48 hours were tactically priceless ; they saved an untold number of American lives.
  • French resistance groups blew up a series of bridges in southern France and delayed one of the Wehrmacht’s crack units (Das Reich Panzer Division) for twelve days in getting from Bordeaux to Normandy.
  • About 30,000 FF1 troups supported the Third Army’s VIII Corps in Brittany: they seized and held key spogs ; they conducted extensive guerrilla operations behind the German lines.
  • 25,000 FFI troops protected the south flank of the Third Army in its daring dash across France: the FFI wiped out German bridgeheads north of the Loire River ; they guarded vital lines of communication; they wiped out pockets of German resistance; they held many towns and cities under orders from our commmand.
  • When our Third Army was approachiung the area between Dijon and Troyes from the west, and while the Seventh Army was approaching this sector from the South, it was the FFI who stubbornly blocked the Germans from making a stand and prevented a mass retirement of German troops.
  • In Paris, as our armies drew close, several hundred thousand French men and women rose up against the Germans. 50,000 armed men of the resistance fought and beat the Nazi garrison, and occupied the main buildings and administrative offices of Paris.

Our comments at the Huffington Post

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118 thoughts on “Adieu Jay”
  1. It is a well worn myth embraced by many ignorant Americans that the French forces folded quickly and without bloodshed. Actually the defeat was caused by failures of the General staff and the surpise tactics of the German blitzkrieg.  Ihe British Expeditionary Forces were also defeated but through German hesitation and attacks by French and some isolated British units kept pressure on the other German units. Notably, De Gaulle distinguished himself  in attacks that blunted German armor. The war would have been much different if his opinions on tactics and organization had held sway in the General Staff before the war. 
    France was our first ally and I hope that our interests will always be close enough that we will always ne allies. Vive La France!

  2. Why are there so many trees on the sidewalks of France?

    So the Germans can march in the shade !!

  3. There was never anything even remotely humorous in these “jokes”. Leno should have kept his humor to making “fun” of  American targets. Nobody deserves these insults. Would he find insults thrown at Americans about 9/11 or Vietnam funny? I don’t think so.

  4. It wasn’t that the French never tried anything to defend their nation..it was just that they got their asses handed to them so spectacularly while doing so..

  5. Americans have NO business making these insults. If we didn’t have the Atlantic and Pacific, with high tech and well armed opposition such as Japan and Germany on our borders, how well would we have done with virtually no tanks, minimal weaponrey, and limited air power. We would have been overrun faster than we were  in the Philipines. Remember, 1940 was not 1944 or 45 and we were minimal at best.

  6. Q – Why does the US Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor have glass bottoms?
    A – So it can see the old US Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor.
    Awwww……now who can’t see the humor in that? 

  7. Thank you Poilu, you’ve made the point of how awarkward it is to joke about the dead of an Ally. The US, Canada, France, Australia, New Zeeland and the UK are historical brothers in the struggle to preserve liberty, equality and fraternity. To this end, we have added Japan, the EU memberstates South Korea, India and others are comming. The least honorable thing that Allies can do is to insult and belittle those who were before us and with us in this struggle of preservation. An insult against one is a direct insult against all.

  8. If we had the Japanese and Germans on our border during 1930’s – 40’s, we would have armed ourselves in a wink of an eye and built up an owesome military (which we did later after we got involved in WW2)  It was precisely because we were protected by the Altantic Ocean which meant that  Germany could not invade nor bomb us from an ocean away that we were so defenseless.

  9. How much of americains is needed for defendre two tours, us not soap spas it never has was made have you of the humor now

  10. Whoa, look at all the Bushitters! You might consider moving with him to Waco and form a court-in-exile, like Napoléon in Saint Helena. Then you’ll be able to remember the good old days, when the United States acted like jerks and set off on pointless half-assed “wars” (if you can call razing undevelopped countries with shitty militaries a “war”) and pissing your neighbors off.

    That’s not America. That’s Uhhmerica, Murka, and Yoonatedsteights.

  11. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

    It seems some anti-French xenophobes have found their way into this thread…
    What a bunch of losers.

    How many Americans does it take to defend a skyscraper ?
    Don’t know, never been tried.

  12. Q – What is Al-Qaida’s favorite football team?
    A – The New York Jets

    Anyone hear about the One Legged Man at the Bataan Death March?

    …….waiting for the approval of the Joke and Humor Gods Mike, Bob, and Jazz.

  13. The US Army’s new fitness program includes a state-of-the-art treadmill with the following settings:

    “Walk”, “Jog”, “Run”, and “Kasserine Pass”. 

  14. The Iraq war saw the use of the new top-secret “bunker buster” bombs. The US High Command was right to assume that a 400-pound American dropped from the sky was sure to smash through anything in his path.

  15. @Andre, that “undevelopped countries with shitty militaries” invaded two of its neighbors ( Kuwait & Iran) , not to mention gassed the Kurds.
    Iraq had a “shitty military”?  Then French weapons must be “shitty” since Germany and France were Saddam’s biggest weapons suppliers.  France also had no problem helping a brutal dictator like Saddam build nuclear reactors .  German helped Saddam build chemical factories capable of dual use. When Saddam gassed the Kurds he used French  planes and German chemicals to do the job. 

    PS1:  I didn’t support the Iraq war but it is too much to hear German & French hypocritical moralizing lectures about Iraq when those two countries have their dirty fingerprints all over Saddam’s Iraq .

    PS2: It is not “undeveloped” but ‘underdeveloped countries’. Also I think most Iraqis would find this term rude and offensive. Since this is a website devoted to figting offensive remarks about France, one should practise what they preach.

    PS3: Those who suffered under Saddam haven’t forgotten who Saddam’s best friends were even if the French and Germans have.  The following is an article written by a Kurd in response to German lectures about human rights in Iraq.

    http://www.newmajority.com/ShowScrol…3-1123b8be8696

    FORGETTING SADDAM’S VICTIMS

    I must admit that I was astonished when I recently read in the newspaper that a German parliamentary delegation was visiting Iraqi Kurdistan and that the head of the delegation, Herta Däubler-Gmelin, had made critical remarks about the situation of human rights in the region.

    As someone who survived the Iraqi army’s poison gas attack on Halabja, I may be permitted to make some comments on Ms. Däubler-Gmelin’s visit.

    If Ms. Däubler-Gmelin had had her way, Saddam would still be sitting safe and sound in one of his palaces in Baghdad and no changes would have been possible in this country.

    And after 2003, it was people like her – and so many others in Europe – that showed no concern for the changes and developments underway in Iraq. We did not have the impression that the terror unleashed by Al-Qaeda upon the people of Iraq gave them any sleepless nights either. On the contrary, for years they seemed to welcome the suffering of the Iraqis as proof that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein had been a mistake.

    How can you claim the right to criticize our present situation without saying anything about our past?

    WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN THAT GERMANY HELPED SADDAM HUSSEIN TO BUILD THE CHEMICAL WEAPONS THAT WERE USED AGAINST US IN HALABJA

    For many years now, Kurdish organizations have been demanding that GERMANY AT LEAST OFFER AN OFFICIAL APOLOGY FOR THIS CRIME. No such apology has been forthcoming.

    Our politicians ought then to insist that such visitors pay their respects to all the victims of the poison gas attacks on Halabja, Balisan, Goptapa, Saussanan and elsewhere, to all the persons who went missing during the Iraqi army’s Anfal campaign, to all those who were tortured and killed by Saddam. Instead they allow someone like Ms. Däubler-Gmelin to come to our country without making her first stop at Halabja.

    I am convinced that if Ms. Däubler-Gmelin had travelled to Israel under similar circumstances, she would have been required to visit Yad Vashem. Only after commemorating the victims and the German crime against them would she have been allowed to express her criticisms.

    I would like therefore to say to the people of Iraqi Kurdistan that the

    COMMENTS OF MS.DAUBLER-GMELIN SHOULD NOT BE REGARDED AS CRITICISM BUT RATHER AS ONE LAST DOSE OF POISON.

    administered by people who evidently have still not come to terms with the new situation in Iraq.

  16. I found all the jokes about the USA a bit stale as they are mostly copy cat versions of American jokes about France. 

    Come on, be original and come up with your own jokes. These copycat versions lack the originality needed to land that punch.

  17.  Both American French-bashers and French American-bashers are idiots, no matter your purpose. I don’t care if the French Bashers started it, you’re just as bad. Why sink to their level? Don’t give me those cheesy excuses like “thats the only way to fight them”. You should knock it off, it doesn’t matter who started it as long as you are doing the same thing you are just as bad. Not to mention alienating.

    This will become nothing more than a bunch of unintelligent xenophobic comments on both sides of the aisles. Look what the French-bashers reduced you too! congratulations.

  18. Nick – you may want to brush up on who supplied Iraq with the chemicals needed to conduct the Al-Anfal program, starting with DOW chemicals.

    http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/052.html

    Please, don’t call our jokes lame because you didn’t come up with them first – deep down, you know you like ’em!  😉

  19. @Jane

    I presume your remarks are directed at me. If not sorry but I have to respond. Can you point to anything that I said which bashed the French?

    Let me see, does  pointing out well know facts reported in the media for years that the French helped Saddam build nuclear reactors qualify as “french bashing”.  When did the truth become “bashing”?  
     

  20. What is this about France being Iraqs’ main supplier? The US bought half of the Iraq oil, Italy was next and France was tied for third. Armmaments were old Soviet and East European as almost all French made aircraft was still grounded in Iran from the first Gulf War. Iraq had more US weapondry than French! Check out Janes from 2000.
    Jane, I truely see and appreciate your point. I never want to US bash or bash any Ally (sometimes I am tempted by the Brits), but, how do you get unreasonable people to listen to discussion if they are denied the privledge of empathy through recognition of what hateful language brings. All in all, though, I’m with you and would rather take the ethical route.

  21. @ Poilu
    Actuall you may want to brush up on who supplied Saddam with the most chemical weapons ( see below from Wiki  : Germany 52%,  France 21%).

    Over 73% of Iraq’s chemical weapons program was from France & Germany.  The remaing 27 % of Saddam’s chemical weapons contributed  by mainly 4 countries –  UK, Italy, Brazil and USA sold some dual use capacity to Saddam’s Iraq which breaks up to single  digit percentage figure for each of these countries.

    So please pare us the hypocritical  moralizing sermons on Bush’s Iraq war when France and German have the biggest dirty fingerprints on Saddam’s Iraq,  a fact well know by Saddam’s victims such as that article written by the Kurd clearly shows.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
    In the early 1970s, Saddam Hussein ordered the creation of a clandestine nuclear weapons program.[15] Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs were assisted by a wide variety of firms and governments in the 1970s and 1980s.[16][17][18][19][20] As part of Project 922, German firms such as Karl Kobe helped build Iraqi chemical weapons facilities such as laboratories, bunkers, an administrative building, and first production buildings in the early 1980s under the cover of a pesticide plant. Other German firms sent 1,027 tons of precursors of mustard gas, sarin, tabun, and tear gasses in all. This work allowed Iraq to produce 150 tons of mustard agent and 60 tons of Tabun in 1983 and 1984 respectively, continuing throughout the decade. Five other German firms supplied equipment to manufacture botulin toxin and mycotoxin for germ warfare. In 1988, German engineers presented centrifuge data that helped Iraq expand its nuclear weapons program. Laboratory equipment and other information was provided, involving many German engineers.

    ALL TOLD 52% OF    IRAQ’S INTERNATIONAL CHEMICAL WEAPON EQUIPMENT WAS OF GERMAN  ORIGIN.

     State Establishment for Pesticide Production (SEPP) ordered culture media and incubators from Germany’s Water Engineering Trading.[21]
    France built Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in the late 1970s. Israel claimed that Iraq was getting close to building nuclear weapons, and successfully destroyed the reactors in 1981. Later, a French company built a turnkey factory which helped make nuclear fuel. France also provided glass-lined reactors, tanks, vessels, and columns used for the production of chemical weapons.

    AROUND 21% OF IRAQ’S INTERNATIONAL CHEMICAL WEAPON EQUIPMENT WAS OF FRENCH.

    Strains of dual-use biological material also helped advance Iraq’s biological warfare program.

  22. @ Poilu
    Actuall you may want to brush up on who supplied Saddam with the most chemical weapons ( see below from Wiki  : Germany 52%,  France 21%).

    Over 73% of Iraq’s chemical weapons program was from France & Germany.  The remaing 27 % of Saddam’s chemical weapons contributed  by mainly 4 countries –  UK, Italy, Brazil and USA sold some dual use capacity to Saddam’s Iraq which breaks up to single  digit percentage figure for each of these countries.

    So please pare us the hypocritical  moralizing sermons on Bush’s Iraq war when France and German have the biggest dirty fingerprints on Saddam’s Iraq,  a fact well know by Saddam’s victims such as that article written by the Kurd clearly shows.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
    In the early 1970s, Saddam Hussein ordered the creation of a clandestine nuclear weapons program.[15] Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs were assisted by a wide variety of firms and governments in the 1970s and 1980s.[16][17][18][19][20] As part of Project 922, German firms such as Karl Kobe helped build Iraqi chemical weapons facilities such as laboratories, bunkers, an administrative building, and first production buildings in the early 1980s under the cover of a pesticide plant. Other German firms sent 1,027 tons of precursors of mustard gas, sarin, tabun, and tear gasses in all. This work allowed Iraq to produce 150 tons of mustard agent and 60 tons of Tabun in 1983 and 1984 respectively, continuing throughout the decade. Five other German firms supplied equipment to manufacture botulin toxin and mycotoxin for germ warfare. In 1988, German engineers presented centrifuge data that helped Iraq expand its nuclear weapons program. Laboratory equipment and other information was provided, involving many German engineers.

    ALL TOLD 52% OF    IRAQ’S INTERNATIONAL CHEMICAL WEAPON EQUIPMENT WAS OF GERMAN  ORIGIN.

     State Establishment for Pesticide Production (SEPP) ordered culture media and incubators from Germany’s Water Engineering Trading.[21]
    France built Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in the late 1970s. Israel claimed that Iraq was getting close to building nuclear weapons, and successfully destroyed the reactors in 1981. Later, a French company built a turnkey factory which helped make nuclear fuel. France also provided glass-lined reactors, tanks, vessels, and columns used for the production of chemical weapons.

    AROUND 21% OF IRAQ’S INTERNATIONAL CHEMICAL WEAPON EQUIPMENT WAS OF FRENCH.

    Strains of dual-use biological material also helped advance Iraq’s biological warfare program.

  23. @ poilu
    Regarding the jokes, how can one find recycled jokes entertaining ?
    Come on,  be original.

  24. Nick, You refer to German supplies delivered in the early ’80s when the US was buying the oil AND paying for Iraq to be aggressive towards Iran. The French sales could have just as easily been used to process milk or legitimate chemicals. I have no argument that the French knew where material was going, but nobody thought, back then, that Iraq would use weapons on their own people. Nobody includes the US, Soviets, France, Germany, Italy, or the UK. It’s the old “unintended consequences” routine that we have all seen, many times, including reciently in Iraq. I would prefer  that governments did not make mistakes but, unfortunately, all do and they have throughout history.

  25. @ Fred
    You may need to believe for emotional reasons that French sales were used for milk and other legitmate needs even though there is no proof.  Prehaps you also need to believe that French built nuclear reactor at Osirak was for harmless purposes, and also the French built turnkey factory which helped make nuclear fuel was also for harmless purposes.

     It takes an amazing capacity for denial to believe what you have written considering Saddam’s well know reputation as brutal strongman with stragetic ambitions way back in the 1980’s. Fortunately the Israelis were not so naive and destroyed the nuclear reactor in1981.

  26. Nick is either from no pasaran, ffrance.com or  bremner’s blog.
    Take you pick.
    I vote for no pasaran.

  27.  @Fred,

    Regarding US being Iraq’s oil importer. True but what you failed to note was that this was under the UN oil for food program. The money was used to buy food for Iraqi’s under an UN program.

    “The United States remains the largest importer of Iraqi oil under the UN Oil-for-Food program. However, U.S. companies can no longer deal directly with Iraq for its oil imports. U.S. companies are forced to deal with third party vendors as a result of a ban on all American companies imposed by Iraq. In 2002, the U.S. imported $3.5 billion worth of Iraqi oil.
    In addition American oil companies have not signed a contract with Baghad since 1972.”
     

    France & Germany had much deeper extensive business ties with Saddam’s Iraq.

    “France’s largest oil company, Total Fina Elf, has negotiated extensive oil contracts to develop the Majnoon and Nahr Umar oil fields in southern Iraq. Both the Majnoon and Nahr Umar fields are estimated to contain as much as 25 percent of the country’s oil reserves. The two fields purportedly contain an estimated 26 billion barrels of oil.In 2002, the non-war price per barrel of oil was $25. Based on that average these two fields have the potential to provide a gross return near $650 billion. ”

    “More objections have been lodged against French export contracts with Iraq than any other exporting country under the oil-for-food program, according to a report published by the London Times. In addition French companies have signed contracts with Iraq worth more than $150 million that are suspected of being linked to its military operations. Some of the goods offered by French companies to Iraq, detailed by UN documents, include refrigerated trucks that can be used as storage facilities and mobile laboratories for biological weapons. ”

    “From 1981 to 2001, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), France was responsible for over 13 percent of Iraq’s arms imports”

    This is pure arms import, does not include chemical & nuclear capabilities.

    http://www.heritage.org/Research/Iraq/wm217.cfm

  28. ,Nick,  I won’t go over the nuclear issue. I agree with you that Iraq was too volitile to aid in building  a nuclear plant, but, I will tell you that France barely outbid Italy and if France had not built the plant, Italy or the Sovietw would have. The French also built the Israeli nuclear arm and I’m not sure that was such a good idea either.
    As to the “oil deals”, please read them (Don’t know if they’re on line), I think that you will discover that France had put in so many restrictions that the work couldn’t begin until and unless the UN Security Councel (With US veto possible) authorized Iraq to be released from its’ international repreations and obligations. Besides, the participants to be utilized in the development of these prospective fields were US, UK, Dutch, French and Itallian. French interests in this joint venture was as a minor partner. I confess to you that the only reason that I know anything about this is that I live in the heartland of petroleum lawyers and some of them were involved from the American oil company position. Sorry, again, but I doubt that any of these are on line.

  29. @Fred

    I agree with you somewhat.  All western countries naively did business with Saddam’s Iraq. Oil being such a valued commodity it was only natural. 

    But some countries had very deep commercial ties with Saddam’s Iraq. while other countries had minimal business ties with Saddam. Germany by far had the most extensive ties with Saddam and  German businessmen continued to  have a lucrative relationship with Saddam’s Iraq even after he gasssed the kurds, and  invasion of Kuwait & Iran.

    German officials are investigating a German corporation accused of illegally channeling weapons to Iraq via Jordan. The equipment in question is used for boring the barrels of large cannons and is allegedly intended for Saddam Hussein’s Al Fao Supercannon project.An article in the German daily Tageszeitung reported that of the more than 80 German companies that have done business with Baghdad since around 1975 and have continued to do so up until 2001, many have supplied whole systems or components for weapons of mass destruction.”

    http://www.heritage.org/Research/Iraq/wm217.cfm

    Germany’s hand are the dirtiest out of all the countries.  52% of  Iraq’s chemical weapons came from Germany (which the Kurds haven’t forgotten even if Germans have conveniently done so).

    Today Germany has the same deep extensive commerical ties with Iran, In fact out of all the European countries,  German firms have the largest business relationship with Iran. What is it with German firms and Arab dictatorships? They seem to get along very well.

  30. Nick- our choice of source – Heritage – is really quite telling.  A Neo-Con organization if there ever was one, they’re only slightly less ridiculous than Fox in their anti-French obsessions, even though many of their culomnists (if one can call them that) also contribute to Fox.  It basically fits the pattern of all American Conservative spittle: US interests GOOD, French interests BAD – essentially playground logic. 

    To be taken with a huge grain of salt. 

    Another ORIGINAL and UNRECYCLED  joke from poilu:

    Q – When jetliners crash into tall buildings, what sounds do they make?
    A – BOING!!  (B-O-E-I-N-G)

  31. Nick, investigation, with consequences and corrections are paramount! We all see mistakes and greed makes fools of us all. The whole point of looking into these past actions is to work, together, to do and be better in the future. Although noone wants misdeads to go unnoticed nor unconfronted, I really do not feel that entire Nations are guilty for what a few do nor what a government unwittingly allows – wether American, French or German. The only governments with absolute control are NOT democracies. I would rather live in a democracy any day.

  32. @ Poilu,
    Prehaps you may want to point out if there was anything infactual in the link from Heritage before bashing it. This article in Heritage used sources such as the German daily Tageszeitung,  the London Times , Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).  These are hardly rightwing neo con institutions.

    Prehaps you may want to be careful about throwing around that neo con label every time you come across unpleasant facts. Let me see, anybody who mentions the fact that France built Saddam’s nuclear reactor is a “neocon” ?  I think you have displayed your mindset very clearly.

    PS:  Your jokes are getting a bit original but still no zing. Need to be  more witty.

  33. @Fred,

    Again I agree with you. One has to learn from the past so that we can avoid it going forward. There are lessons for all but some countries who were the biggest suppliers to Saddam have to learn from their mistakes. There are always going to be crooked businessmen and countries such as Germany have to have more laws on the books to prevent their firms from getting around loopholes to do business with dictators despite UN sanctions.  The German parliament needs to have more oversight over German firm’s business ties with dictatorships such as Iran etc.  Germany having an export driven economy is quite behind in this matter as exports are given top prority , damn the consequences.

  34. Nick, So let us allow the German and EU courts resolve this. If they fail, then it is time to critize.

  35. Nick – I don’t have to throw the “Neo-Con” label around when the Heritage Foundation does it so well themselves.  A simple search of words “french” and “france” is proof enough for me that they are no friends of ours.  What the Heritage wants, on the world policy front, are “yes” men.  Anything less is an obvious threat to American interests.  I believe this proves my earlier point on national interests.   The Heritage may be a view, but it hardly encompasses anything more than a far right wing opinion self grandeur and execptionalism, both of which are almost dead.
     

  36. Nick, I have read some good, seemingly accurate, items from the Heritage Foundation and I have read some pretty idiotic statements. Like all of these “think tanks”, Heritage has a spread of journalistic ethics. Rhey are probably the best, in their category, but they are definetly leaning well to the right politically. Being so, Heritage is just as open to suspecion as those Foundations to the left. Poilu is simply stating the obvious – Always question your source and their motives.

  37. “PS:  Your jokes are getting a bit original but still no zing. Need to be  more witty.””

    Wit is not the really the aim of those jokes.

  38. @ Fred,

    But the point is the German & EU courts are not doing anything to resolve it.   And it looks suspciously like the same mistakes are being made with German business ties to Iran.

      mean time, not allowing the truth about who exactly was Saddam’s biggest WMD suppliers allows people to spew half truths, distortions and misinformation in order to smear the USA as the main culprit. Case in point, Poilus remarks above (#21) : “Nick – you may want to brush up on who supplied Iraq with the chemicals needed to conduct the Al-Anfal program, starting with DOW chemicals.”  And he gives a link which only talks about US sales thereby giving the misleading impression that it was the USA which was responsible for Saddam’s WMD.  One must give the whole picture, not a tiny portion of the picture to suit one’s biases as what Poilu did by only talkin about US sales. When one looks at the whole picture it appears that Germany & France supplied Saddam with 73% of chemical weapons capability.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

  39. Nick, Now your making a point! I am rather supprised that these issues were/are not being addressed.  We may hear clarification, but, I would imagine that we need someone familiar with the German Courts to give us insight. I know that their Courts are natoriously slow (as they are in the US) but this does need to be addressed. I know that the French delt with this issue years ago and the American system has identified transgressers but, to date, I know of no action. See, you can make a valid point. Now let us talk about the poor quality water purification and electrical equipment that US contractors sold to the US for use in Iraq.

  40. @Fred,

    I always question  what  I read anywhere whether leftwing or rightwing.  Like you I find that it is possible to find idiotic and accurate articles on both sides.  In general I find the NewYork times & Economist to be the most accurate, though they sometimes make mistakes too.  This particular article from Heritage is well sourced –  reputable organisations such as Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), UN documents, the German daily Tageszeitung &  the London Times . These are hardly rightwing loony types.

    On the other hand there are some articles from Heritage that I would never quote. It all depends on the quality of the journalist writing that particular article.

    Also wanted to mention that Poilu’s  sources such as “hartford” are also biased and not exactly known to be the top tier of journalistic intergrity.

  41. Nick, OK, we agree. The question remains, is Germany doing nothing? We need to identify where they are, and why. I’m with you in that I certainly do not want Iran to be nuclear. Also, once we know, where do we go from there. This is not a blog designed to address German issues. We need to be listening to good Germans, who care about their country, and let them know your concerns. I’ll even join you, if you want.

  42. Ah, Jay Leno… I still remember the first first French-bashing joke I ever heard from him – making fun of the French military of course – while substantiating his “joke” with a picture of a French Legionnaire, of all soldiers. 

    Clueless.

  43. @ Fred
    How can anything be  done when most Germans are not even aware that their country supplied Saddam with 52% of Saddam’s chemical weapons capability?

    It wasn’t the German media but foreign media outlets which broke the story on Germany’s deep commercial ties to Saddam. It was the NewYork times that first broke the story during the first Persian gulf war ( kuwait) of how Germany companies were the biggest chemical weapons suppliers to Saddam far outstripping other countries.  This issue is not even in the public conscience, hence there will be no public pressure on the Bundestag to act . And besides when other people ( French and some Americans ) keep pointing the finger at the US as being the main culprit thorough selective reporting, it is not going to get better. 

    And now it appears German companies are doing brisk business with another middle east dictator in Iran.

  44. Do Germans not read blogs?  Type in the question on a search engine and see what happens.

  45. @Fred
    I read enough German media outlets and  their comments section to know that most Germans are not aware.  The same old tired story of pointing the finger at the USA as the biggest culprit  is repeated, the facts be damned. If anyone points out the fact that it was Germany which sold Saddam 52% of chemical weapon capability, cries of “German bashing” will follow.  Sound familiar?

  46. I don’t like French-bashing, American-bashing or even German bashing. The point is that you have concerns, which may be very valid, about German control of  their trade. If you are saying that the Germans that you have communicated with are indifferent, that is disturbing. Self-criticism is a necessary step in all democracies. I think that maybe you should approach this differently. Germans are very intelligent and are well aware of their troubled past. They respond to diplomatic concern with a touch of appealing to their sense of justice. With patience, I know that you will reach the right people. I do congratulate you for trying.

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