French Military Contributes To Thunderbird 3 379
fredboboss sends news about Mozilla's email client Thunderbird 3, whose release we noted last week. "Thunderbird 3 contains code from the French military, which decided the open source product was more secure than Microsoft's rival Outlook. The French government is beginning to move to other open source software, including Linux instead of Windows and OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office. Thunderbird 3 used some of the code from TrustedBird, a generalized and co-branded version of Thunderbird with security extensions built by the French military."
French thunderbirds rock (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a look at some of the footage of those French fighter jocks doing terrain avoidance at a few feet high. Incredible.
As for thunderbird the email program, I like some things about 3, and not others. I'm glad the devs allow you to switch the old toolbar back on. Much better than the Mozilla Firefox attitude of forcing you into changes you don't want to make.
Re:Well, at least we know it'll run well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Open source software and govt's (Score:5, Insightful)
> Access to source code is necessary in order to ensure that secrets remain
> secret and the software is up to any custom tasks the government might
> require.
That is, unfortunately, not a strong argument for Free Software as governments (and other large organizations) often can and do purchase access to proprietary source code.
Re:How About a Plain Text Mode? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:French thunderbirds rock (Score:3, Insightful)
Security fixes aren't around forever for old branches, so essentially yes.
Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begin (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is one thing that is certain in this world, its that if someone says "The French" or "France" within hearing of any US Citizen, the immediate response will be an endless string of "Surrender" or "SurrenderMonkey" Jokes.
Caveat: I am not French just to clarify that. I am (English) Canadian, and I don't even particularly like the French myself.
It gets awfully tiring to be reminded of just how fucking bigotted the US is in this way. You should get over yourselves already.
Yes, the French got their asses kicked in WWII, whatever. Any nation invaded by Germany at that time would have suffered the same fate (and many of them did). You got your asses kicked in Vietnam, even if you don't want to admit it. You pulled your forces out before anyone had to surrender of course.
All these jokes serve to accomplish is to remind me just how fucking ignorant, narrow minded, bigotted and offensive the US can be at times. They make you look like nothing more than a nation of assholes. Then you wonder why the peoples of many other nations find Americans offensive.
Of course none of you seem to have enough education or enough wit to recall that during the Napoleonic period, France was the most respected and feared nation on earth. They conquered pretty much all of Europe and it took the combined might of England, The Austro-Hungarian Empire, Prussia, Russia and others to eventually defeat them after 20 years of warfare. At that point in time the US couldn't even carry out a successful invasion of Canada, and we (as the British) burnt the White House in response.
I for one would like to see this fucking "meme" be laid to rest. It was always present but seems to have been resurrected when the French decided not to commit forces to the first Gulf War (because it wasn't authorized by the UN I believe).
Now, queue all the responses from people calling me a "liberal", "faggot", "commie", "pinko" etc, because I criticized the US (I am none of those things by the way). What I am, is tired of seeing US citizens act like a bunch of fucking ignorant assholes, and then wondering why people think they are a bunch of fucking ignorant assholes :P
Yes, yes I have met many very decent and nice Americans, they just don't seem to post in response to their fellow citizens offensive shit that crops up like this every few days.
Re:At Least... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't mention OpenOffice while talking about how secure, stable, and worthwhile OSS can be. This is really only meaningful because people are starting to wake up and realize there are superior alternatives out there. But that doesn't apply to OO - OpenOffice is freer but it's not better. OpenOffice is a total mess of staggeringly bloated Java components. It's by far the most sluggish, memory-devouring application on my machine and integrates badly with my GTK theme. And there aren't any good ideas in OO, it's like someone bought Office 2003, made a list of features they saw, and tried to implement as many as possible throwing everything together without any kind of purpose or vision other than to take as much market share as possible away from MS office.
Gnumeric and AbiWord, on the other hand, are actually usable. The project knows what it wants, and continually refines toward that purpose, while OpenOffice scrambles to throw in new features every time someone discovers a use case that Office handles and they don't. A good sign that a project is maturing is when someone asks for a relevant feature that makes sense, and the project says no. I don't think openoffice has ever said no.
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes, a joke is just a joke. No strings attached, no intent to offend, no distaste for others, just a comment made in jest. The same people that make the surrender jokes will often make fun of their own nation just as quickly.
Try removing your head from your ass, you might see things a bit more clearly.
Re:At Least... (Score:2, Insightful)
A good sign that a project is maturing is when someone asks for a relevant feature that makes sense, and the project says no.
That doesn't sound very mature to me.
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, you don't hear many jokes about Poland, The Netherlands or Belgium being invaded by the Germans. Perhaps the French history as a great nation and the cultural arrogance that comes from that makes them more of a valid target to joke about.
But with that said: the French were absolutely right about standing up to Bush against an unnecessary war. All they had to do was commit a symbolic number of troops to "fight" in some relatively peaceful outback region like other countries did. If only more people stood up to the false claims...
Now, years later, we know that the primary achievement of the whole Iraq war effort has been to transform their country from a secular dictatorship to a theocratic dictatorship. This at the mere cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, thousands of US military lives and tens of thousands of civilian lives.
So much for them Freedom Fries, eh...
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:5, Insightful)
[Patrick Stewart voice] Gods! What a moron! [/Patrick Stewart voice] If the French are to be blamed for anything after WWI, it is for being too *aggressive* against the Germans. They crippled the German economy with vengeful reparations. They invaded and occupied the Ruhr. If it hadn't been for the post-WWI aggression of the French, Adolph Hitler would most likely have remained a unknown, raving anti-Semite and an artistic and political failure.
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:0, Insightful)
The problem isn't the joke itself. The problem is that when it's a "joke" made by many Americans, it's made with complete ignorance.
I mean, many of these people can't even find France on a world map, even when it's labeled. They have absolutely no understanding about World War I or World War II, or any of the many armed conflicts that France fought in the centuries before the last. They don't even know of France's significant military involvement in the American Revolution.
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, years later, we know that the primary achievement of the whole Iraq war effort has been to transform their country from a secular dictatorship to a theocratic dictatorship.
It's worth mentioning that most American foreign interventions before Iraq had been for the purpose of removing democratically elected politicians and replacing them with pro-US dictators. The missions don't always succeed, but the outcome is always disastrous for the inhabitants.
Next time a anyone mentions "liberating" a foreign country, think about the Philippines, Chile, Indonesia, El Salvador, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Vietnam, Laos, Afghanistan, Guatemala, the Seminoles, and Haiti.
I've probably missed a few in there, but anyone with a grasp of US history with regard to foreign interventions should be quite skeptical of any claims of "liberation" or "promoting democracy" abroad.
Re:everyone hates the French (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm proud to be an American.
I'm proud to live in that dot over here. My friend wishes he had been born on the dot on the other side of the map, though. If only.
Re:Well, at least we know it'll run well... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:5, Insightful)
I, like the GP and most people with half a brain are sick of the same tired old "France surrenders, huh, huh" jokes trotted out when even so much as a croissant is referenced. I saw one about Thunderbird crashing whenever it receives a message from Germany and thought that it was semi original enough to justify a funny rating but for the most part such comments are uninspired, unfunny, tired old surrender jokes being trotted out time and time again which we've all heard before.
Maybe the comments are in jest, maybe someone has an anti-France agenda but if you do make derogatory comments in jest make sure they are funny, otherwise they just become annoying.
BTW, at least don't display an ignorance of history, the French resistance did far more harm to the Nazi's then the Vichy collaborators did good for the Nazi's. Much of the early war intel, including several parts of "Ultra" came from resistance fighters who risked their lives and families lives to get that intel.
Naaaah (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah , but Americans are pretty fucked when it comes to derogatory jokes about them. Like how they are such pussies they can't even go to war unless they pick on a country that can't defend itself against air power - and even then pimply nerds do most of it by remote control.
The French surrendered against a kind of warfare that had only appeared very shortly before their invasion and then fought a very successful underground campaign against the aggressors, much like the Iraqis have done. Good on them. Beats a bunch of wusses that don't even have the balls to surrender properly to a bunch of midgets in black pajamas when they are licked, despite having all the jets, agent orange and napalm.
I too know plenty of decent Americans, but this vocal peanut gallery makes me sick, especially this anti-French bullshit. Even Kiwis don't generally hang the same level of shit on them. You guys go on and on because they won't join you in your international armed robbery? Good on them for having some balls, even if they are the stinky cheese ball variety.
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:3, Insightful)
"The same people that make the surrender jokes will often make fun of their own nation just as quickly."
Bold claim, backed up by NOTHING, followed by insults. Anonymous, no less. Why does that not surprise?
But while we're at it: what is "just a joke"? What meanings and functions can a joke have, which do apply here? "It's just a joke, shut up now" is just a feeble attempt by weak intellects to shut down any pondering/discussion of that.
Specific members of the French military contributed specific code to Thunderbird -- what does FRANCE have to do with it? And no, I'm neither French nor would I care if be insulted and utterly outraged (LOL) if I was - I just think it's apeish and fucking lame, not to mention predictable and utterly boring to anyone except the "oooo-raaahhhh" crowd... which to me is the main function of such "mere jokes", they serve as a glue for people with common cognitive defects. It's not even dissing France or anything French, it's simply a signal flare saying "Idiot here, where are my idiots at?"
Someone pointing that out is doing you a favour actually. Do with it what you will.
Which just goes to show... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's over... it's all over (Score:2, Insightful)
It is a bit strong for Americans to accuse the French of being cowards considering that USA never gets involved in a war that you don't are completely and massively military superior in. France fought brave and well in WW2 but still lost. USA wouldn't know anything about fighting such a war where you risk losing your country. I guess you know that since you keep repeating that lame meme about France. It was old years ago and now it is just embarrassing so watch.
/Not French
</RantMode>
Re:French thunderbirds rock (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a balance between "maintain old versions forever" and "Firefox attitude of forcing you into changes you don't want to make."
Yeah - I think they struck that balance fairly. They only issue critical security fixes for Firefox 2. They don't force the upgrade through code. They don't pop up warnings saying "OMG UR FOXFIRE IS TEH OLD".
My point was, if there was sufficient demand out there for Firefox 2, someone would fork the codebase and continue developing it under some other name. That's how the open source community works.
It's not obnoxious to point out that it's silly to refuse to let the developers take their project in the direction they want to take it. You don't have to like it - use some other browser, if it's that important to you.
You can maintain only one version AND give everybody the UI they love, just make it an option.
... unless the two UIs have sufficiently different code, in which case you are asking them to maintain two essentially distinct versions, and of course maintaining two separate UIs can make UI-related bugs much more difficult to fix.
I'm not disagreeing with you that a lot of people like the old toolbar. But while it may be arrogant of the Firefox team to arbitrarily choose a new direction for their UI (though it is, you know, their project, so if anyone has a right to determine its course, it's them), it's at least equally arrogant of you to expect them to maintain two separate UIs just because some users happen to like the old one.
There is more than one way people could get the old behavior back. Maybe a plugin. Maybe a fork. But guess what - that's the beauty of the open source world. If you don't like the direction a project is taking, you have other options - nobody forces Firefox 2 users to use Firefox 3 (ceasing security updates is not "forcing people to upgrade", no matter which way you paint it). Nobody forces you to stay with Firefox at all.
If you don't like Firefox 3's awesomebar, there's nothing wrong with that. Switch to Opera, or Chrome, or Safari, or (shudder) IE, or any of the other dozen web browsers out there. It's not like there's a lack of choices when it comes to browsers.
I'll be honest - I didn't notice any significant UI changes between FF2 and FF3. I can't think of any behavior of the old toolbar which the new toolbar doesn't do. For my usage patterns, at least, the new toolbar works exactly like the old toolbar, but more... awesome. Maybe I'm atypical, but isn't it possible that the Firefox 3 devs think I'm typical? Isn't it possible that the Firefox 3 devs are catering to people with my usage patterns? Maybe they have some usage pattern data that they're basing their decisions on. I highly doubt it's just arbitrary.
Watch patriotic American geeks heads explode (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm going to love this one. How are the patriotic American geeks going to respond? US military goes with Microsoft products, French military supports open source....
so where were you for the first 2 years of the war (Score:1, Insightful)
So where were you for the first two years of the war? Having breakfast? Running out of excuses not to join in? Waiting until the Russians had done the hard work for you?
It's easy to make cheap comments and dishonour the fallen of all nations.
Re:It's over... it's all over (Score:3, Insightful)
American war of Independence? War of 1812?
Re:It's over... it's all over (Score:1, Insightful)
France fought brave and well in WW2 but still lost.
No, France had very powerful military and opportunity to win but they failed to take initiative while German was invading Poland. Later on, they just crapped their pants, especially Gamelin.
Everyone is Arrogant and Superior (Score:3, Insightful)
I am not an American, I'm actually from Zimbabwe. I promise you that Zimbabweans are as nasty and arrogant and superior as Americans in spite of all the s*** they are in at the moment. :-) I live in Britain and the British are arrogant and superior too, particularly going on all the time about how non arrogant and nice they are and how awesome their own sense of humour is. I see it because I am a foreigner and because when I go back to Zimbabwe I realise I have become a foreigner there too.
You often don't notice your own arrogance - I know I don't.
In the end, everyone needs to think that they are great, part of a great team or group. It makes us feel safe. There must be some branch of psychology or sociology devoted to this and I will look it up some day. The problem is that if your team is really good then it must be really good compared to something else - like that other team over there who talk funny and eat disgusting food and wear odd clothes and . . . .
Americans can just do all this bragging and loud mouthing with a greater degree of confidence than everyone else - partly because America is powerful and partly because they don't know any better. I've heard Chinese and Indian people express awful and immensely arrogant opinions but not quite so loudly.
Anyhow I think you're right about putting that surrender thing to bed but I also think that everyone needs to "pick the beam out of their own eye before picking the splinter out of the other guys" more than they think.
Re:It's over... it's all over (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow... really? A whole thread of bashing the French? Are you really that pathetic?
Re:Naaaah (Score:3, Insightful)
"Yeah , but Americans are pretty fucked when it comes to derogatory jokes about them."
Thanks for proving GP's point.
Re:At Least... (Score:3, Insightful)
OpenOffice is written in C++. The Java bits are optional (I don't use them, though I use Gentoo and it may be harder to disable them completely on other platforms).
Now, I'm not saying OpenOffice isn't a bloated mess, but have you tried MS Office? It's kinda another bloated mess.
Re:It's over... it's all over (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. There is no reason to single out the French as cowards, or generally to attribute military skill to national character. Experience is what makes the difference. The difference in British performance in 1940 and in 1944 makes that very clear, I think.
Poland was occupied fairly quickly in 1939 by Germany and the Soviet Union because of the sheer military strength of the aggressors, even though soldiers at both sides were green and performed comparably. Contrary to the impression German propaganda has created, this was a trying experience for the German army.
In 1940, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France were overrun quickly one after the other by increasingly experienced German veterans. Most of these armies fought too short (or not at all in the case of Denmark) to have the time to absorb the lessons given by the Germans. Most individual soldiers and most army units never fought the Germans in more than one encounter. Importantly, the British in 1940 performed no better than the continental armies they cooperated with. In all armies there are cases of exemplary courage, and of units that fought above expectations, and cases of the opposite.
In 1941 the Germans overreach themselves by attacking the Soviet Union. In 1943 and 1944 the British and Americans open additional fronts by invading Italy and France; British are by now mostly considered veteran by their German opponents, while the American units are mostly green when first fielded. Because the balance of power now favors the Allies (more firepower, air superiority), green Allied units now do survive their first encounter without falling apart or surrendering and do gain experience fast.
The outcome of 1940 has little to do with courage and a lot with political choices in 1937-1939. I don't believe at all that the US, if it had been on the European continent, would have acted very differently.
Re:It's over... it's all over (Score:4, Insightful)
They're just hurt because the French told them to fuck off when they took the criminal, insane and stupid decision of invading Iraq and wanted their friends to "play along". If the leaders of the nations that bought the "coalition of the willing" bullshit were any democratic they would have done the same, since the populations' support for Dubya's war for oil was near zero throughout most of Europe (and in the rest of the world, by the way).
They created the shit by yourselves. Now let them roll in it.
Taking into account they owe so much to the French [wikipedia.org], these bigot jokes are extremely ingrate and rude.
I'm not French.
Fought brave? During Phoney War? (Score:1, Insightful)
You know, i live in Poland, and we do remember French and Brits who "fought brave" while Poland was dying.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War
The Phoney War, also called the Twilight War by Winston Churchill, der Sitzkrieg in German ("the sitting war": a play on the word Blitzkrieg),[1] the Bore War (a play on the Boer War), the Polish dziwna wojna ("strange war"), and the French drôle de guerre ("funny war" or "joke war") was a phase in early World War II – in the months following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 and preceding the Battle of France in May 1940 – that was marked by a lack of major military operations in Continental Europe. The great powers of Europe had declared war on one another, yet neither side had committed to launching a significant attack, and there was relatively little fighting on the ground, notwithstanding terms of Anglo-Polish military alliance and Franco-Polish Military Alliance, which obliged the United Kingdom and France to assist Poland.
While most of the German army was engaged in Poland, a much smaller German force manned the Siegfried Line, their fortified defensive line along the French border. At the Maginot Line on the other side of the border, British and French troops stood facing them, but there were only some local, minor skirmishes. The British Royal Air Force dropped propaganda leaflets on Germany and the first Canadian troops stepped ashore in Britain, while western Europe was in a strange calm for seven months.
Re:Encryption ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Please down vote parent, encryption up to 128 bits is allowed it's what's higher that's illegal (but not really enforced).
Please ignore cowardly comment above, GP was talking about the past, where (as per link) it was formerly, even fairly recently illegal to use any kind of encryption whatsoever. French SWAT teams wear opaque masks [ebay.com] (where a clear one [armorus.net] performs approximately as well) so that they cannot be recognized in court. France has a poor record on privacy and personal rights. Not that the USA doesn't mind you, but the comment is at least slightly relevant — and entirely true.
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:3, Insightful)
But with that said: the French were absolutely right about standing up to Bush against an unnecessary war. All they had to do was commit a symbolic number of troops to "fight" in some relatively peaceful outback region like other countries did. If only more people stood up to the false claims...
If this is the French version of standing up to Bush, then perhaps they deserve what other people say about them. A recent-ish survey I cannot currently locate claims that the French hate themselves more than anyone else does, so perhaps further they know something we don't. There is a lot of bad blood left over from war between the English and French, and Americans are more British than they know, having retained many of the attitudes and prejudices of that past. I can't help but notice that the USA and the UK are the world's primary surveillance societies, either.
Re:everyone hates the French (Score:1, Insightful)
Basically the French are directly responsible for the two most hated nations in living memory.
Being from Germany (as in "Federal Republic of Germany") I'd like to rephrase this to "the two most hated regimes in living memory".
This is the root of all prejudices, misunderstandings and hate. Do not confuse government with people. Don't put people into drawers. This counts for everybody, every nation and its past. the_world != BOOL && static.
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:1, Insightful)
"It gets awfully tiring to be reminded of just how fucking bigotted the US is in this way"
Yes, good thing the French arent' bigotted.
The bottom line here is that you are one of those holier than thou chest pounders who think they are better because they "fight for the underdog". I'm sure you are up on your ivory tower patting yourself on the back for fightiting for the rights of the French. And of course you delve into the education of people because it's obvious you think you are smarter than everyone else. In reality you are just a loser who needs to make themself feel like they are better than everyone else because you know you are nothing and no one cares a damn about you.
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:1, Insightful)
Care to explain how France was driven out of Ethiopia?
I've trained French soldiers. The joke is a joke to most of America, but I know first hand: the French military is a nest of dirtbags.
Re:It's over... it's all over (Score:5, Insightful)
The French believed they could acquiesce to Hitler's demands, and thus avoid a conflict. The reasons are that they really, really did not want to fight. The reasons for that included that at that time, Hitler was the hero, both of French Nazi's and of the French lefties, including socialists and communists, and even (quite large) parts of "center" parties
Cut the crap. The reason why France did not want to fight was because they fought an extremely bitter war with Germany few decades earlier and they hadn't yet recovered from it. To give you some scale: UK lost 2.19% of it's population in WW2. Germany lost 3.82%. France lost 4.29%. Not to mention the fact that the fighting in the West happened mostly on French soil.
But still they went to war. And they were defeated (together with UK) by the most powerful military force in the world. Should they feel ashamed by that? Hardly. Only thing that saved UK from the same fate was the Channel. And in the end it took the combined force of UK, USA, USSR, France and Canada to ultimately defeat Germany. Yet France is supposed to feel ashamed because Germany defeated them?
For comparison, USA lost whopping 0.13% of it's population in WW1.... In fact, USA has had it amazingly easy in it's wars. Look at Winter War [wikipedia.org]. Had USA suffered similar casualties as Finland did, it would have meant losses of over 1 million men in a war that lasted 105 days.
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:2, Insightful)
Ugh, Ok. Yes, some people are biggoted assholes, it's true. We have them here in the US, but clearly you have them in Canada as well, judging from:
If there is one thing that is certain in this world, its that if someone says "The French" or "France" within hearing of any US Citizen, the immediate response will be an endless string of "Surrender" or "SurrenderMonkey" Jokes.
Emphasis mine.
Any blanket statement applied to all of the people that live within some certain arbitrary geographical area is dumb and bigoted. For instance, USians who say that the French are cowardly are bigots. Also, (English) Canadians such as yourself that say that USians are bigots... are also bigots. And, of course, there are people that say things like:
I don't even particularly like the French myself.
Well done.
Re:everyone hates the French (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm french and wonder why the post is funny as there is truth in it and it's more an insightful one
The european nations had a long love/hate relationship since centuries. They invaded, stole everything and flip side.
It's totaly true that the second world war AND the first one could have been avoided if they have been less Falcon Neo Conservatives at the time in europe (yes it's always the same pattern, history does not repeat EXACTLY, but the bug stay until corrected).
As an european too, and citizen of the world, i do not care any more who wins or loss in european war who plagues europe history.
When i was young, i was proud that Napoleon invaded half europe, wow we were a strong nation.
Now i spit on him, i spit on every "great" man in europe that bring us the wars.
People telle you story of "GLORY" with music and angels, but the blunt fact is France was ruined, ruined a lot of european countries in endless war (they were cycles like financial crisis), and begin the trend of mass production (in this case weapon) wich is not for day to day living
We have no more time to small games, $44 billions are needed each year to avoid hunger in the world. More than $1000 billions of weapon were produced last year.
Can you see the same pattern repeat again with US Neo conservative falcons.
Does they really care if US win or loss in afghanistan/irak/... as long as their mercaneries and products are paid with the high price.
For them war is just a buisness, not a political or ideological goal, even if these two excuses are used.
And we enter in this spiraling with "our" president sarkozy. We follow the US* steps on these endless avoidable not useful war. (US*=US foreign policies)
I'm not in building construction, but i'm ready to bet that the money spend in the war effort in Irak by US* could have rebuild everything brand new (water, bridge, schools, hospital) instead of killing peoples.
If US* have really wanted peace in irak, they would have come as builders, improving day to day life of all the iraki, and you think that they would have fought the soldier that are trapped there without askin anything in an unfair war. ... follow the money.
First move was to protect the oil rigs, leaving the central bank open to all the looters, imagine that Fort Knox is invaded by looters, you do not think that the LOGICAL first move when you invaded, is to protect the infrastructure, to have a quicker relaunch of your "new toy" (what is your tactic in RTS or wargames [ i do not play this type of games])
So why it was not the case, because THEY DO NOT CARE as long as they got a lot of $US. They are the people with all the soldier of fortune organisation, army provisionning,
So yes perhaps we indirectly responsible with the USA birth (but at the time french politicians loved to piss off english ones, reverse was true), and for sure, with all the stupid humilations after the WWI, we accelerated the rising of Hitler.
The lesson here is "prefer love to war", war is good only to the weapons sellers, unless you are a cynical one, you are an idiot to support war;
And if you think, i'm a pussy, i do not see the point to provoke one if you do not need too and are not threatened.
But start to walk on my feet with a smile telling "i'm superior", and i will kick your butt until you understand that cooperation is a more efficient way to live together than provocation.
You can do all your stinking cheese surrender monkey joke to all your heart content the day you prefer the peace, if it makes you feel better to have a sub-nation.
Re:Continuing the naming tradition (Score:2, Insightful)
It's funny that the French army was known for bravery for hundreds of years... and yet a military decision to save the lives of tens of thousands is seen as cowardice. Were the Germans not able to step around the Maginot Line through a neighboring country, we'd likely be celebrating French bravery today.
But whatever... I understand the irony of the Americans (my native country) cowardly waiting to join the war, relatively safe due to an ocean of distance, now calling the French cowards.
Re:Continuing the naming tradition (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you might be overreacting a little. Doesn't every nation have jokes made about them, and have stereotypes? I see enough negative comments about my own country (UK) around the internet without needing to get defensive. Some of them are distressingly justified, such as the way we seemed to act like little more than the 51st State the way Blair sucked up to Bush, or that we tend to overstate our current relative importance in the world.
It is interesting that the French have been landed with the "surrender" stereotype though, given that their performance in WW2 was no worse than the rest of Europe. The UK was only saved by the Channel. I suspect it arises from the attitudes of some of their leaders post-war (particularly de Gaulle).