France Asserts Its View

As a French and American dual citizen, I am both a lover of many things French and a critic of the few French political and cultural idiosyncrasies Jonah Goldberg describes (“Uneasy Alliances: The French have two problems: what they say and what they do,” Opinion, Feb. 16). One can certainly see Goldberg’s argument that the French often operate with a thinly veiled agenda rooted in their cultural centricity and sometimes at odds with the collective interest of the international community. (Remind you of anyone else lately?)

Despite the attitude that many French people have toward the apparent cultural and political domination by the U.S., it doesn’t invalidate the logic and wisdom of their position on this issue: The most sensible response to the situation in Iraq is to first exhaust all means possible of disarming it before resorting to war. This argument makes sense for both the short-term and long-term stability of the region. A more cautious approach to Iraq would have a positive impact on the kind of influence the U.S. will have worldwide. Along with Germany and Belgium, and the overwhelming majority of all Europeans, the French are merely the tip of the ideological iceberg: easy to see and attack.

The Bush administration and its defenders are trying desperately to shift the focus on the 9/11 culprits from the aloof Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda to the more tangible targets of Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Confronted by the sheer scope of resistance to a war with Iraq here and abroad, Goldberg seems to use the administration’s MO: shift focus away from the legitimate argument that Europe makes against going to war to the admittedly rather easy and even fun game of name-calling the French.

Pierre Smith

Los Angeles

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Goldberg’s claim that because the French oppose Bush’s war timetable they are not “our friends” betrays a misunderstanding of the word “friendship.” Often, only a true friend will tell us the truth we don’t want to hear. It may well be that France is the best friend the U.S. has at the moment.

Mike Lambert

Woodland Hills

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That’s it; I’ve had it with France. I won’t travel to France and give the French my American tourist dollars. I won’t trade with them. I won’t buy their manufactured goods. I won’t even eat French bread.

The French are the ultimate dog that bites the hand that has fed them for over a century. When the terrorists hit them, let them call their friends in Germany to come to their rescue.

Louis H. Abramson

Westlake Village

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Let’s see, we are the immoral, bloodthirsty nation being opposed by those bastions of civil liberties, China and Russia. And the French are the great moral arbiters in the world today? They surely would be just as pacifist if their beloved Paris had been hit on 9/11, don’t you think?

George E. Goodwin

Anaheim

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History professor Kenneth Barkin has eloquently written the letter (Feb. 18) that I wanted to write myself. He points out that the U.S. did not go into World War I and World War II to “save” France but only -- after sitting it out for two years -- because Germany had declared war on it. France was lucky enough to be on the way to Germany. Had it been east instead of west of Germany, it would have been “liberated” by the Soviet Union instead, like Poland and the other Eastern European countries.

As a French-born U.S. citizen, I am tired of the Francophobic attacks and jokes by crude politicians and comedians. They reveal only their intellectual mediocrity. History will show them that war is not a game.

Jacques Steininger

Santa Barbara

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I am not a professor of history claiming that the French owe this country nothing, in as much as the U.S. did not enter World War II “out of compassion” or “to save France or anyone else.” Barkin seems to forget that Charles de Gaulle would not have walked triumphantly up the Champs-Elysees on Aug. 26, 1944, to the Notre Dame cathedral, had the Americans not liberated Paris, after storming the Omaha beachhead. He should visit the American cemetery near Cherbourg to refresh his memory.

As for Germany, there may well have been descendants of the thousands of Germans whose lives were saved by the Berlin airlift marching in protest against the U.S. last weekend.

Richard Earl

Palm Springs

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Drop Chirac on Iraq!

Jack Shirey

Los Angeles