Plus Que Cordiale

In point of fact, we already co-operate very closely with the French in military matters, although that seems to be quite little-known. I don't know why it is.

As for the angry reaction in certain quarters, did the French destroy our naval alliance with Japan, with all that followed from that destruction? Did the French subject us to Lend-Lease, not paid off until 29th December 2006, or require us to decolonise far too quickly, with disastrous consequences for numerous of the countries that they had forced us to leave? Have the French subjected us to more than sixty years of the presence on our soil of foreign forces, politically as unmentionable as they are permanently unforgettable, without any parliamentary authorisation? Do the French maintain bases here with fake British names, entirely unaccountable to us? Do they also maintain such bases on two other pieces of our territory, denying democratic representation to the British inhabitants of one of them, and forbidding the British people of the other to set foot there at all?

Did the French force us to join a European superstate? On the contrary, they tried to keep us out. Did the French do everything short of send forces to fight for Argentina in 1982? On the contrary, they provided us with invaluable intelligence. Have the French spent decades arming and directing our terrorist enemies (who "haven't gone away, you know") in order to bring about a United Ireland within NATO and the EU, up to and including more than complicity in the murders of at least three British parliamentarians, one of them a member of the Royal Family?

Have the French ever invaded a Commonwealth Realm in the Caribbean, or have they legislation providing for the forcible incorporation of Canada into their Republic (of which no part of Canada has ever been part - Quebec became British before the Revolution), or do they seek to disperse the inmates of Guantánamo Bay by flattering politicians in British Overseas Territories as if theirs were the sovereign states that their electors have consistently voted not to become? Did slavish devotion to the French take us to war in Iraq? On the contrary, they had the good sense to stay out of the whole sorry affair.

To say these things is not to be anti-American. It is to be faithful to George Washington's Farewell Address, and to be truly concerned for the life and health of America's youth.

Meanwhile, let battle be joined to save the three Armed Forces. I'll tell you who will not be considering making do without any one of an Army, a Navy or an Air Force. The French. And good for them. Before anyone says that that also applies to nuclear weapons, where those strategically useless moral monstrosities are concerned, at least the French have their own. They do not merely play host to someone else's and pay for the privilege.