"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion."
— Donald Rumsfeld
There has been much laughter, and many Google search queries, over the lack of results when searching for French Military Victories.
Some of you have run to the side of our European 'ally', waving a history book and pointing to that short little military dictator who liked to travel around Europe with lots and lots of men and big cannons (nudge, nudge, say no more, wink, wink).
Not convinced that France matters much, I did a little research and came up with their war scorecard. The home of Inspector Clouseau, Dean Allen, and Jerry Lewis, has a win-tie-loss record of 2-3-12. There was the successful attack on Greenpeace in July 1985, but it does not count as a war because the conflict lasted less than 24 hours. Instead the matter was merely labeled as just another Frenchie thing to do.
In fact, Amnesty International continues to be on alert status 'Orange' whenever France is concerned.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
Did they ever claim to be prosperous in war (if there is such a thing)?
Like good friend, a good ally lets you know when you are screwing up; being honest with a friend about whom you care can be the most loyal act of all. Something to consider, in my opinion.
It was actually Jed Babbin, a former deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush administration who said the whole Frenchie accordion thing earlier this year:
http://www.snopes2.com/quotes/babbin.htm
I was just going to point that out. You beat me to it dougie :)
It's a good line, no matter how people continue to conveniently misattribute it. How quickly we forget. This level of discussion continues to lessen our standing on the international stage — though I'm not contending that world leaders are reading Airbag, unfortunately, as this thread points out, insult-hurling has become an administration policy. Nice 90-minute town meeting last night on Nightline, with one of the 'pro-war' panel, a Southern Baptist leader whose name escapes, thanking France for their unique place in American history and proclaiming, "We'd still be singing God Save The Queen" if the French navy hadn't bottled up the British at Yorktown." Are you putting the 'American War of 1776' on your list of French victories?
Sorry I missed that show, I'll have to look for it on the rerun. Right now I'm trying to see if I can get further up the Google results page.
Tomorrow Airbag will move on to other, more important topics like Steve Jobs bashing or cussing at CSS.
And then there's this.
Thanks for the link Bob. If that history is correct then I'm going to take a troop of Cub Scouts and turn France into Le Storeyville.
A whole troop? Isn't that a little "Shock and Awe"-ish overkill?
There's something that you forget, french speak french. Now type "Victoires militaires francaise" : ± 24 500 results.
(sorry for my poor english ... )
OMG I just loved the GOOGLE answer "do you mean "French Military Defeats"... HA! or did you do that Greg?? either way....
Pierre, no need to apologize for your English here. And good point on the poor search translation. Perhaps now, armed with new evidence I will be able to stop the future boycott of French products here in America.
the joke is good, but please tell me you've noticed the answer is not a google page, so thanks to
www.albinoblacksheep.com.
now try this one i just figured out:
type "george bush webpage" in google, hit "i'm feeling lucky" and have fun...
george bush webpage, without the quotes
Betrand: Way, way ahead of you but thanks for the support.
Go to google and make the test for real : "french military victories" scores 403 hits, "american military victories" scores 52 and "english military victories", scores 5 hits.
If you don't even check the "news" your publish, no wonder why you believe all the crap you read...
and British military victories scores 55
and British military victories scores 55