Correspondence 

The French

      One can be in love with French art and culture, as I am, and be appalled and disgusted by French politics. As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote recently

France wants America to sink in a quagmire there in the crazy hope that a weakened United States will pave the way for France to assume its “rightful” place . . . in shaping world affairs.

      France, which armed Iraq with sophisticated weapons in exchange for oil, seems unable to call evil by its name. They prefer accommodating to it. They have had lots of practice, for example, they accommodated to Nazi Germany in 1940. The Maginot Line was a farce.

      The much criticized unilateralism of the Bush administration means that when America is attacked as it was on 9/11 we are not obligated to collect permission slips from allies to strike back. Our own airplanes were used as weapons of mass destruction on 9/11.

      Too many Americans fail to realize that the Iraq War is not only a war of self-defense but a war for the survival of Western civilization. In spite of the French and German roadblock, Europe knows that in the end its security depends on the strength and protection of the United States military. Ω

—David L. Smith, Dayton, Ohio