French block airlift of British troops to Basra

I attempted to post thia at ~10:40 EDT
But the Bellsouth news server has been having
problems (issues, so called) here today.
Therefore I am submitting the article again.
My apologies if, in fact, this is a duplicate
--
Rostyk


Stephen Harding wrote:
Brian Sharrock wrote:

Slight semantic problem; the loyalists(sic) _were_ British.
They didn't 'side with' the British, they were British, remained
British and refused to follow the rebellious smugglers, slave-owners,
land-owner and lawyer clique into an armed French-funded
insurrection. History _does_ record that they were treated badly
by the revolting colonists.

So is this the current Euro spin on the American Revolution?

Just a bunch of criminal, low life types, cajoled by the perfidious
French, into breaking away from "The Empire", where most wanted to
stay?

My, my how the politics of anti-Americanism spins its web.

Perhaps slightly overstated, but there's a good amount of truth
in that. The residents of the British colonies: English colonists,
Britishers, et al, did have a number of grievances about their
treatment. But they weren't being particularly oppressed or
treated more harshly than the people living in the British Isles.
But the local gentry far from central control quite naturally
took the opportunity to avoid paying their taxes. Similarly
for the more common folk. And the revolutionary ideas from
the continent surely did have a sympathetic audience, whether
the French did any organized meddling or not.