Most people tend to base their opinions of the French people from their experiences in the more touristy parts of France, Paris, in particular. From my experiences, and I'm an old lad that's traveled a lot, large cities and popular holiday spots tend to be a haven for indifferent, impatient and seemingly rude people - especially when it comes to tourists. My experiences in France, working with the French and French counterparts have almost always been positive.

Yes, I found the people in the country to be very welcoming and open, while the people in the cities (who I had contact with, so Im not making judgments on the entire city) were rude and wanted nothing to do with you unless they could benifit from your $.

I still dislike the French government though, just like I dislike the American government (Not the executive Branch though )

Desire, speaking of a boycotts, I do not think I would have supported this idea several months ago. After reading The French Betrayal of America, however, I certainly can appreciate American reluctance to support or promote anything French. And this book certainly provides any American with plenty of adequate justifications for feeling betrayed by the French. Furthermore, Timmerman, the author of this book, illustrates why Americans can no longer trust the French government especially when and where our national security is at stake. I think Timmerman raises some very valid and serious questions like “Should the United States depend on France for its defense in the event of a nuclear strike from a rogue nation? Should we continue to share our nuclear weapons secrets with a country that has increasingly declared herself to be America's enemy? Should nuclear cooperation agreements still in force with the French today be canceled in light of France's behavior?" Eric, you offer favorable hope. However, this book has provided me with a great deal of insights into understanding world politics in general and French politics in particular while revealing many of the disturbing facts below to name a few:

·Documented in detail the "paper trail" of recent French assistance to Saddam's clandestine nuclear weapons program.
·How, despite France's nuclear assistance to our enemies like China, U.S. and French nuclear weapons designers continue to exchange secrets about maintaining our respective nuclear arsenals!
·How Chirac lied to Bush and to the public about the war in Iraq.
·Incredible new evidence of France's duplicity during the war -- including how they stood to gain $100 billion from secret oil contracts they had concluded with Saddam Hussein.
·Revealed how President Chirac personally told President Bush well ahead of time that France would be at America's side with Troops and even sent the highest military French commander to Central Command to plan with General Franks the use of French forces.
· How French news coverage of the Iraq war was not merely one-sided, but viciously inaccurate and openly anti-American.
·The prominent French defense company that shipped U.S.-designed laser designator pods to Iraq in the 1980s, compromising the most high-tech weapons in the U.S. arsenal.
·Irrefutable evidence that French defense companies were key partners in helping Saddam Hussein perfect the long-range missiles that killed U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia in 1991 and rained terror onto Israel.
·The top-secret missile defense cooperation between the United States and France that has taken off at precisely the same time the Chirac government has been undermining the U.S. on Iraq.
·Exposed as a fraud: the French claim that they were "shocked to learn" that the Bush administration was preparing for war in early January 2003.
·How French influence and oil interests were behind Saddam's genocidal campaign against the Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq.
·Revealed how arms dealers made cash payments in Switzerland to French politicians on behalf of Saddam Hussein, in exchange for their support.
·How France's top counter-terrorism judge was ordered to stop cooperating with the United States in the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged 20th hijacker, despite mounds of documents that would have helped the United States to convict Moussaoui of conspiracy to commit mass murder.

Hmm, sounds like a good read. Ill check that out.

Well, considering Timmerman as an unbiased journalist with no other agenda but the truth is like praising Michael Moore for his latest piece.
After all, he is the one who, to support the US position against Iraq, published an article linking the Oklahoma city bombing to Saddam....I wonder where this piece of journallism ended up: the National Inquirer?
Come on guys....broaden your sources! Yes! We need the Moore and Timmerman of the world to stir the mud and help us THINK and RESEARCH!!!

"Kenneth Timmerman is a senior writer for Insight Magazine a sister publication of the Washington Times owned by self-proclaimed Messiah Sun Myung Moon, a Bush family supporter. Timmerman, who has also written for the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, is well known for his passionate pieces on China, the Middle East, Islam, international terrorism, Iraq and Jesse Jackson.
Kenneth Timmerman is also known for collaborating with JINSA, the Middle East Defence News, and the Foundation for Democracy in Iraq. Timmeran also briefly sat on the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives. His views can safely be categorized as neo-conservative hegemonist.
In 2000, Kenneth Timmerman failed to secure the Republican primary in Maryland in his bid to become a U.S. Senator. Two years later, Timmerman published an article claiming there were links between Iraq and the Oklahoma City Bombing.
Master spin doctor for the neo-conservative movement, it comes as no surprise that Timmerman claims to have exposed a number of links between the French government and Saddam Hussein that would explain France’s anti-war stance."

Hey, we live in a bias world. We have to expect these kind of things. Im still interested in what the man has to say, even though I submit to you he probobly is a right wing version of michael moore.

Right....
And as long as we are visiting sources and claims, take a look at this link and note the reactions of the media involved: complete indiference (but no defence of their positions) or rebuttals...

http://www.info-france-usa.org/news/...ativepress.asp

Although I know this is unrelated directly to the French issue, I do think it might have an indirect impact because I am certain some of the 70,000 soldiers stationed in Germany would visit France each year. Nonetheless, it seems like the crying has begun. Please note this Associated Press article published Aug 16, 6:15 PM (ET) by Tony Czuczka:

BERLIN (AP) - German officials voiced concern Monday that their country has the most to lose with President Bush's announcement that tens of thousands of troops will return to the United States over the next decade.

With some 70,000 U.S. soldiers based in Germany, thousands of local jobs - from bakers to maintenance workers and office personnel - depend on the Americans, who first came as occupying forces after World War II.

European and Asian countries with U.S. troops have braced for the changes for several years, but Bush's announcement Monday that up to 70,000 uniformed personnel and 100,000 dependents will gradually be moved back to the United States brought home the full impact.

"Base closures would hit us very hard," said city spokesman Ole Kruse in the Bavarian city of Wuerzburg, home of the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division.

That unit and the 1st Armored Division, based in Wiesbaden near Frankfurt, will return to the United States as part of the global restructuring, Pentagon officials said Monday.

They will be replaced by a brigade, a much smaller unit equipped with Stryker light armored vehicles, though they probably won't start leaving until 2006 at the earliest, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

U.S. troops were based in large numbers in Germany during the Cold War to deter a then-feared Soviet invasion, and most of the 100,000 U.S. troops based in Europe are still in Germany.

The United States will close nearly half of its hundreds of installations in Europe as part of the massive restructuring plan, defense officials said. It also has plans to reduce troop numbers in South Korea, where they have held static positions for 50 years.

"The world has changed a great deal and our posture must change with it," Bush told a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Cincinnati. The United States needs "a more agile and more flexible force" to help fight "wars of the 21st century," he said.

But for places like Baumholder, a town in rural western Germany with a U.S. military training area, that spells problems.

Some 11,500 residents are matched by a U.S. military community of the same size, and the local economy would lose $150 million a year if the Americans left, Mayor Volkmar Pees told The Associated Press. "The Americans are part of us," Baumholder resident Iris Schoen said. "You build up great friendships."

In host countries such as Germany and Japan, local governments have paid much of the cost of stationing U.S. troops. German officials have traveled to Washington in recent months to lobby against troop withdrawals and propose alternatives. For instance, Rhineland-Palatinate state officials say they have suggested that lighter units replace the heavy armor now stationed at Baumholder. Mayor Pees called on the German military to move into facilities vacated by the Americans. In Bamberg, officials said the local utility company could lose a major customer and that real estate prices would decline if the U.S. military leaves.

"We view this with great concern," city spokesman Steffen Schuetzewohl said. In addition, a wing of F-16 fighters based at Spangdahlem near the Belgian border could be moved to the Incirlik base in Turkey, closer to the Middle East.

"The Americans' announced troop withdrawal is understandable," said Alexander Bonde, a lawmaker from Germany's Greens party, which is part of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government.

"Since most of the European-based American troops are in Germany, it's clear that the bulk of the withdrawal has to happen in Germany," he said.

Officials have indicated Ramstein Air Base and the Landstuhl military hospital in southwestern Germany, as well as the Grafenwoehr training grounds in Bavaria, are not on the table.

For U.S. military personnel and their families, the immediate impact will likely be limited. Many soldiers are expected to return home when their tour of duty would have been up anyway.

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Associated Press writers Guido Rijkhoek in Wiesbaden and Lukas Grasberger in Nuremberg contributed to this report.

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.....is Hurlbert a French name?

Eric, Hurlbert is an English name coming from the hurlbat weapon. Hurlbats were basically solid steel throwing axes sharpened on all points. They were known to be popular from the mid 1400's to the mid 1600's. They were usually made of 1/4 inch thick steel, which made them impressively light and easier to throw.

Mod Edit: Don't make back to back postings. Edit the last post if you wish to add something more.

It's all about $.

Cool...my name is related to an animal! a weapon sounds pretty good!
As far as the crying goes, the Germans are mostly affected...Sure some US service members or related go visit France but most of them are deployed in operation or live in an autonomous US way in the bases.
Yes the Germans are going to hurt, especially after the recent loss of most French bases and the not so recent but still economically burdening integration of East Germany.
As far as France is concerned, the impact is going to be pretty low. After all, we already visited the issue in 1966!

GuyontheRight, I cannot disagree with you on that point. Eric, you might very well be right about Timmerman’s views being polluted with biases, but I still found his book to be very interesting. Nonetheless, let’s examine some other points that some of us know to be true.

1) The U.S. Army and Australian Special Forces teams have discovered advanced versions of a French-made surface-to-air missile system in Iraq. U.S. Air Force officials are certain that Iraqi French-made Roland missiles downed at least one A-10 "Warthog" attack jet and may have killed two USAF pilots in an F-15E Strike Eagle.

2) France has also come under fire for supplying advanced arms to other potential U.S. adversaries such as China. In fact, the Chinese navy currently employs a version of the French Tavitac, a modified version of the U.S. NTDS (Naval Tactical Data Systems) Link 11. The Link W system employed by China is an unlicensed copy of the U.S. Link 11 supplied to the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) by France. France also has supplied surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft radars to China. A recent Pentagon report to Congress on Chinese military modernization concluded that France is assisting the PLAN in building advanced submarines. A new version of the Song-class conventional submarine is expected to incorporate advanced Air Independent Propulsion. This report details other Song innovations: a skewed seven-blade propeller, submerged antiship cruise missile launch capability, and flank array sonars of French design.

3) Australian Special Forces teams working in Iraq’s western desert did uncover 51 Iraqi MiG fighters hidden near an abandoned airfield. The Aussie soldiers also discovered a cache of Roland 2 missiles and a launcher near the hidden MiG jets. Now I understand why Special Forces operations were so critical in the Iraqi western desert prevent any possible missile attacks against Israel.

4) U.S. airborne troops from the 101st division did stumble upon a French-made Roland 3 missile system, complete with radar, computer and fire control electronics. The French army first deployed the Roland 3 advanced missile in 1995. The Roland 3 unit supplied to Iraq would be a clear violation of the U.N. arms embargo placed on Iraq after the first Gulf War.

5) French defense ministry officials denied that the Roland 3 was supplied to Iraq. However, a variety of media sources postulate that French defense industry insiders speculated that Iraq might have acquired the Roland 3 unit illegally from "mafia" sources, suggesting that Paris has a problem with black market theft inside advanced military projects.