I'm reading "The Rise and the Fall of the Third Reich", which is full of insights not revealed (or driven into MY teenie brain, at least) during history classes over the years.

Some of the American resentment towards France has to do with lingering feelings in people still alive, with direct or parental memories of World War II. The French, although initially grateful for the very effective help & sacrifices of Americans, began behaving in a resentful way soon after the war.

Sometimes when you aid people, especially in major ways, it not only helps them, it points out their vulnerabilities and weaknesses, resulting in mixed emotions. Think of France as overcompensating - getting defensive - the last 60 years. After having quickly gained their lost international status (in 1925), it was again quickly blown to bits (by Germany), and France has never regained the level that suits them.

When I lived in Holland, the rudest tourists were the French, Japanese, and Americans. The French just seemed "bitchy". The Japanese...I can't describe them. The Americans expected their here-today-gone-tomorrow butts to be kissed before the wallet would be opened. (I preferred not speaking to ANY of them, and pretended to not know English, or French.) We can assume that American tourists behave identically in France, and French tourists do the same when in the U.S.A.. I think the "bitchiness" of the French towards Americans caused many in this country to react with an "And THIS is what we get after saving their pansie asses??!" If YOU played a role in helping someone 60 YEARS AGO, would you STILL be playing the Savior Card? And, if YOU were the one that RECEIVED the help 60 years ago, would you be bitchy after 60 years of being told you owed everything to them?

So let's face it, some of what we're fussing over these daze isn't about Iraq - it's about our history as a loose-knit "family". THIS INCLUDES the fact that most every country in the world of the 1930's COULD have OR DID deduce that Germany was brewing up big trouble, COULD have stepped in years earlier, and SHOULD HAVE. Had they unified earlier, it would have saved millions and millions of lives. There is NO doubt. I think there's a deeply embedded sadness and embarrassment about those delays...and the U.S.A. is not exempt. A LOT of what Germany did, under Hitler, happened before December 7th, 1941, you know - and it wasn't Hitler's gang that bombed Pearl Harbor.

I think the people that want to push ahead with this war are looking at it in these terms: the LESSONS of World War II. People wanting no action to be taken, are looking at the LESSONS of Viet Nam. There could be no more polarizing a pair of eras than these. Some citizens of the squabbling countries have survived BOTH eras, and more. They should be listened to closely.

Personally, I would rather see the same amount of money, personnel, and equipment dedicated to the daily tracking, and killing of all those involved in the terrorism of the last decade. Country by country, cave by cave, rock by rock...with such a massive, thorough, horrific effectiveness, that none but the completely insane would even allow themselves to ponder such acts against anyone - anywhere - ever again.