I was driving down the road this weekend, minding my own business. Of course, you never hear of some one who was driving along nosing in to everyone else’s business. Regardless, I saw a bumper sticker. It proudly announced “BOYCOTT FRANCE.” I began to think about that. Why would I boycott France. I’m not crazy about the French. They seem kind of snooty and pretentious. Their history leaves some thing to be desired. But what have they done to me? Nothing.

Oh, I think I know why that guy wanted me to Boycott France. It must be because the French didn’t want us to invade Iraq. Neither did the Germans. Why not boycott them too. Nope, just the French. Let’s see, what exactly did the French do to us. They didn’t want to help us invade another sovereign country. And they said that we shouldn’t do that. Wow. Now there is a reason to be mad. Did they threaten to send fighter planes to stop us. Did they threaten us in anyway way? I would understand this hostility towards the French if they had said (in an accent from Monty Python’s Holy Grail,) “Hey you stoopid Americans, don’t attack Iraq. Go and boil your
bottoms, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called Double-You, you and all your silly American kaniggets. I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough water! I fart in your general direction! You mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!”

But they didn’t do anything to us, that I can see. They just told us we were wrong. And for that I should boycott them? What about India and Pakistan. They developed Nuclear Weapons. WMD if you will. Why not boycott them? Or China? They have violated all kinds of human rights. Shouldn’t we boycott the Chinese? How about Saudi Arabia. They have cultivated all kinds of terrorists. Maybe we should boycott them?

But no. It’s France we want to worry about. Typical, small minded reaction. Some one told us we were wrong and we can’t have that. Not only do we want to be able to do whatever we want to. We need everyone to agree with us. And besides, if our reasons for attacking were flimsy, it was for the best if we were paying more attention to whether or not the French approved, rather than take a hard look at what we were doing.

A couple of years ago, when this nonsense began, I found the Boycott France thing to be pointless. But I see it in a different light now. And that is because the French were right. We shouldn’t have invaded Iraq. There wasn’t enough evidence of WMD to support it. Perhaps, instead of ridiculing them, we should have listened.