In a parking lot in Adams, Butler County, nearly every car was decorated with some sort of patriotic insignia. These included giant yellow ribbons and bumpers stickers decorated with the Stars and Stripes.
One 4x4 sported a decal the size of a dinner plate reading "Boycott France: The Buck Stops Here!"
You're not alone in wondering just how much international trade, fellowship and cultural exchange previously existed between the French and residents of rural Western Pennsylvania. But apparently, the partnership, as it were, is now dissolved.
Even sillier than arrogantly suggesting there's any love lost between suburban Pittsburghers and the French is how anyone -- well, anyone who is not a well-connected military contractor -- could care about whether the French sent troops to the now-dwindling "coalition" fighting in Iraq.
Critics of the French refusal to get involved in Iraq note our country liberated them from the Nazis in World War II. That's one hell of a debt to repay, but what the bumper-sticker brigade forgets is how screwy, convoluted and confusing military debts can become over time.
If old battlefield debts dictate that the French still owe us for WWII, then we should have fought against and not with Canada during that same conflict. Canada sided with the British during the War of 1812, after all, killing tens of thousands of American troops.
If we're keeping score, it's likely we should have attacked the British as well as the Germans in 1944. The Brits recruited the 30,000 German troops, known as Hessians, to fight on their side against the colonists during the Revolutionary War, and their combined forces cost us dearly at the Battle of Trenton.
After the war, many of these troops settled in what's now known as Pennsylvania Dutch country, raised families and gave their sons to fight as Americans.
In the past 200 years, we've battled the Philippines, Mexico, Panama, Canada, North Korea, North Vietnam, Spain, Germany, Italy, Japan, Afghanistan, China, Somalia, Grenada, Iraq, and, if I'm not mistaken, parts of southern Butler County.
Trying to make sense of who is an ally one week and an enemy the next is best left to warmongering politicians and people who make weapons for a living. In the 1960s, Iran was our ally. Twenty years later, it was Iraq. Now we're supposed to hate both of them.
I think.
It's not easy making sense of all this my-enemy's-former-enemy's-friend-is-my-newest-international-homey business.
Just what does an active hatred of the French involve⢠Running down to the local record store and busting up a few Edith Piaf CDs⢠Lobbing stale croissants at the TV every time Jacques Pepin appears⢠Refusing to wear berets and vertical stripes?
Keeping score is impossible. It's also as useless as trying to create more unnecessary, baseless prejudices.
