As if there weren’t enough, right? Bunch of freakin’ idiots, they are. Anyhow, here’s an interesting quote from some loony french politician: (from Dissident Frogman, via LGF)
I have no hesitation in saying that we must consider giving the Arab side a large enough force, including a large enough nuclear force, to persuade Israel that it cannot simply do whatever it wants. That is the policy my country pursued in the 1970s when it gave Iraq a nuclear force.
This is a GREAT idea! I mean, that’s just fantastic. Let’s give all of the Arab countries nukes. I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around the sheer idiocy of that statement… and it all comes, apparently, out of an anti-semitic loathing of Israel. But still, nukes. For the Arabs. We see how well that worked out in Iraq and, you know, what the world really needs is islamofascists with the capacity to start global thermonuclear war.
If this kind of talk continues, I think we ought to just go ahead and send France all of the nukes they need to arm the entire Arab world… except that instead of sending them by boat or something, we ought to just send them by ICBM, you know, so the poodles get them as quickly as possible.
Oh, and to save a little more time, we might as well arm them, too.
May 25th, 2004 at 8:35 am
People who mention nuking the French from time to time always seem to forget that France has the 3rd largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world, behind the US and Russia of course. They possess aproximately 500 warheads with a range of about 3300 miles, stored at about a dozen sites, including land and submarine based. They are fairly sophisticated warheads as the French have dismantled the vast majority of their older warheads and kept only their modern versions. So, while vastly outnumbered by the Russians ( 44 to 1 ), the French weapons are signifcantly more powerful, and one could perhaps make the case that they possess the second most powerful nuclear aresnal in the world.
Of course, none of that changes the fact Monsieur Dissident Frogman is an idiot, but even most frenchmen could figure that out. And in my opinion anti-sematism is about as cool as polio. Giving Hussein-like regimes nukes is about as smart as… well, I can’t think of anything funny to say because there just isn’t anything that stupid, leaving hyperbole impossible.
But the comments on the site where that was originally(?) posted made me want to mention France’s nuclear power, which I think is largely overlooked.
*Also note their country is sitting on basically the largest plutonium reserves in the world, hence all the nuclear power, upwards of 70% I think.
May 25th, 2004 at 9:11 am
All the more reason for us to make France the 51st state. Of course, we’d have to kick all the French people out once that happened. Then, by special permission and passing an IQ test, we may consider letting some of them immigrate back in.
May 25th, 2004 at 9:45 am
Why not just have the French surrender to the Arabs? Then the Arabs can just take the Frogs’ warheads, and the French can maintain their proud national heritage of bending over for totalitarians
May 25th, 2004 at 10:04 am
Seems like what they wanted to do was to sell nukes to the Arabs so that they could make money off the deal.
May 25th, 2004 at 10:26 am
mj: Dissident Frogman isn’t the politician, he’s the blogger who wrote the first story (I found) about the quote.
That said, we really wouldn’t have to nuke france. Just TELL THEM we were nuking them and they’d surrender.
Brandon: *ahem* If we’re going back to imperialism, Iraq will be the 51st state — we need oil more than cheese and hairy women.
Bacon: it’s funny you should mention that, they’re working hard to get there, it seems.
Warmonger: I hadn’t thought of that angle yet — probably very true.
May 25th, 2004 at 11:14 am
Ah, my bad on who the writer was. Sorry Frogman. I don’t think we’d have to tell them we’d nuke them to get them to surrender, though. Throwing a rock through one of their windows would probably do the trick.
As far as a 51st state, I don’t think France or Iraq are great choices (poltical instability, shitty economy, WAY too much hair on the women on both accounts). I say we take either Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Panama - lots of potential revenue streams (and potential origins of Miss Hairless America).