Rice Repeats U.S. Complaints About France

"There were times that it appeared that American power was seen to be more dangerous than, perhaps, Saddam Hussein. I'll just put it very bluntly," Rice said, according to an English- language transcript of the interview.

"We simply didn't understand it."

Rice complained that France had not only criticized the war but actively tried to rally other countries to provide "checks and balances" against the United States.

"What was to be checked?" she asked. "Perhaps Americans couldn't understand why it was not considered a worthy cause to liberate Iraq... there is a lot of consternation about the way that this was posed (by Paris)."
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daily Kos has excellent comments on the above article.

"We simply didn't understand it."

Oh, where to begin.

Well, the Texicutioner, as he is called in most of Europe, is despised. Not disliked, or distrusted, but despised. And that has to do with his habit of executing people regardless of their actual guilt or innocence. Bush was regarded as an idiot before his election. Subesequent events have only confirmed the obvious to most Europeans.

Saddam Hussein couldn't threaten his neighbors. The whole WMD thing was a put up job. And then, there is the slight fact that the Secretary of Defense is a meddler who undermines you and the Secretary of State on a regular basis. He's attacking the fundamentals of our relations with our most important allies .

The French objected to the culture which the former communists were buying into. The coalition of the billing were being bought like some former French colony and then saying they wanted to be included in the EU. Can't do both. If you're up for rent, how can you be part of a united Europe.
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