"After insisting on a cease-fire in Lebanon and demanding international action to separate the combatants, the French have performed one of their traditional about-faces and refused to substantially contribute to the effort. Efforts to create a strong international force to support the Lebanese Army centered on commitments by the French of up to 5,000 troops. Now the Chirac government says they could scrape up maybe 200, if they're not too busy on their August vacations."Plus ca change and all that...
"The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." --Jesus
"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious" --George Orwell
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." --F. Scott Fitzgerald
Friday, August 18, 2006
And then there's the new "improved" France: