The more virulent anti-French feeling goes back to the beginning of the Iraq War. The French joined the Afghan war from the beginning. They are still fighting and dying there today. The French decided that Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the others who cobbled together the lies that got us in that war were full of merde.
The French were right and since they did not fall for lies in 2003 they are willing to join us now. The British decided evidence from us still smells like Iraq. They voted NO.
The same instructor who makes French jokes says the job of the military is to "break shit and kill people." He knows we are not well suited to peacekeeping. The French know that better than we do. When they went into Mali, they fought the terrorists and killed them. They were not winning hearts and minds.
The French lost 1 million killed and 5 million wounded in World War I out of a population of 66 million--double the casualties on BOTH sides of the American Civil War. France does not go to war since then without a clear objective. I think we should do likewise.
Without Marquis de Lafayette there would be no America. To me, dissing the French is stupid and ungrateful.
But then, then main group of public people dissing the French dodged the draft during Viet Nam and became patriots later when they could no longer be drafted.
C'est la vie.
