A Flame Free Discussion on France

[SFRT - Frenchy]

Originally posted by Ripsnort
A touching letter from a Marine in Bosnia when faced with a frenchman:

Marine letter home...

A funny thing happened to me yesterday at Camp Bondsteel (Bosnia):

A French army officer walked up to ......................
Mary Beth Johnson, LtCol, USMC

LOL:D  ... what's next, you believe what CNN is telling you Ripsnort? Oh man ... that made my day. thx, I had a great laugh.

[Hades55]

Money its a point, but not The point.
Controling the meedle east  oil you
control the economies of Europe &
Japan. You rule them.
If Europe wants a free  command
of her self Needs Oil. Her Oil.
The interests are Opposite.
You know what that means.Soon or later.
If a president of Usa sees his self as a
Ceasar thats his problem.(or hiden Hitler)
The support of some Americans to this
War its the same as the support of the
prewar Germans to Hitler.
At least in the eyes of the Europeans.
If someone fails to understand that,he is out of reality.
Sadam is indeed a dictator, but the people here dont support sadam when
they dont want this war.
They think Whos next ?
If some of you Americans are sleeping
dreaming free fuel for your cars, ill tell
you one thing.
The most europeans see at this war the start of WWIII.
And if some of you think ,so what ?
Ill tell you, think twice because Usa
for first time in her short history is
vulnerable to straight hits from the enemy weapons whoever is he.
WWII was a war of honor.
We had a bad guy ( hitler ) and we
( allies ) was fighting for the good of
humanity.
We,(europeans),now,remain the good
guys But Bush have take the possition
of hitler.
Maby you dont like what i write here,
but if someone want to understand WHY you have to look at this view,
but also to THINK.Have a nice day all :)

[Slash27]

Nice reply Hang:D  That answer your question dolf nader?

[bounder]

Originally posted by Hangtime
Air & Space Power Journal - Fall 2002

DISTRIBUTION A:
Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.


Although France complied with the NATO/ Common Market weapons embargo, the French technical team remained in Argentina and apparently continued to work on the aircraft and Exocets, successfully repairing the malfunctioning launch systems. Without the technical help and collusion from the government of France—Britain’s NATO “ally”—it is improbable that Argentina would have been able to employ its most devastating weapon.[/b]18

18 Christopher Chant, Super Etendard: Super Profile (Somerset, England: Winchmore Publishing, 1983)., 48–49.

Apparently:  appearing as such but not necessarily so.

[Naso]

Disclaimer: It's just my opinion, and I am talking about policie and NOT the percieved reasons by the population.

I'll try to answer in short your points.

Originally posted by muckmaw
We tried the the peacekeeping thing in Afica. Somalia? Anyone remember that little endeavor? How many American's died trying to help the Somalis? Is there oil in Somalia? Negative.

Somalia.. well this one I cannot explain fully, I have heard that in the "horn of Africa" there are big reserves of Uranium, but I dont remember where and when I heard it so I can be probably wrong.

What about Bosnia? Nothing there that can fuel a pontiac. We went there too.

This one was nice, but first listen some fact.
We, here, (we share boundaries with former Yugo), percieved since the beginning the atroucious facts that were happening, and, as electors, there was a big opinion movement to "do something to stop the butchering", at politic level, there was a problem of stability and risks to have an important road cutted for reaching the eastern markets.
The European community started moving slowly, as is in his usual behaviour, toward an intervention in the egida of the European Military Association (OCSE?), since the US was in some way refusing to be involved.
Just before the EC start moving, a huge information campaign was  raised in US (I remember it because suddenly my US friend started asking me informations about it), and the US jumped in, imposing the action in the egida of the NATO (of witch US is part).
So we can call this a...
Preentive strike against the Euros acting as indipendent and common military force.

Vietnam? No oil.

Geopolitical zone control.
"Domino effect", did you heard this before?

Korea? Nope.

See Vietnam

There's a whole host of motivations here that I'm seeing, and learning about.

What happens if Hussein gets the bomb? He's going to put it on a missle and Nuke Tel Aviv. It's only a matter of time, if he's given it.

I dont know, using a nuclear bomb it's not an easy choise, even for a mad like Saddam, mad, but not stupid.
The reactions by the entire world will be surprising.
And it's the case even if US use the bomb, something that make me laugh when some of the posters here use terms like "glass", "glowing glass" , or other nice expressions suggesting the use of the A-bomb by the US.
Never forget that the US it's not the only one having the A-bomb, but I am confident that you govenment know it VERY WELL, and they are'nt mad, either.

He would love nothing more than to  be known as the savior of the Arab world who took the Jews out of Palestine.

For sure he is using in the last years a propaganda image that point to have help by the fundamentalists, but dont forget Iraq it's one of the few "arab" nations (arab it's not exact) that is not under a religious control, and, the particular ... i fail the word... version? of Islamism, it's not the same that host the "active fundamentalists".

So what if Israel Retaliates. He won't be killed. Only a good portion of his population.

Do you really think that the "intelligent bombs" that are going to be used now will not kill the population?

 A sane mind would never consider a first strike using nuclear weapons, but we're not talking about a sane mind here.

I dont know if Saddam it's sane or insane, but it's not an idiot.

As for backing the wrong horse.....we'll I think the USA has the worst reputation for doing that. Castro? Marcos? Noriega?

How many more don't we know about.

Lol, sorry but I never heard that US is supporting Castro.

For the others, what let you think they were wrong horses?
They were and are in some way doing US interests, so, why wrong?
In the moment they are no more useful... see Noriega.

As for the French connection, well I was listening to the radio on the way home, and Shawn Hannity was on. Now hes extreme, I'll admit, but he had a point.

The French sold Iraq a 200 kiowatt reactor, as well as a host of military items, (Ever notice how the Iraqi Air Force is made up of Migs and....yep...Mirage IIs and IIIs?)according to an Iraqi defector. The Germans sold them a subterfuge, as military equiptment. And of course we have the soviets. Tanks, Choppers, missles, Planes....you name it.

The French, for their reasons, are disagreeing with US, so they are presented to you as a new member of the axis of evil, like Germany, It's a propaganda question, and must stay out of a good and unbiased discussion.

So I think I've answered my own question, with the help of you fine gentlemen. It all comes down to money.

Yep!

[X2Lee]

Originally posted by SLO





personnelly...I want Saddam out....but i think BUSH is pushing it to far by makin the "UN" look un-important.....

my country will follow the UN..not the US

Short trip to make the UN look un important. Would be much harder to make them look credible.

And who needs Canadas backing?
Not Us  

[Toad]

Somalia

U.N.'s Boutros-Ghali Proposes Armed Intervention in Somalia

UNITED NATIONS

An international military operation, probably led by the United States, must intervene forcibly in Somalia to disarm its warring factions if that East African country is to be saved from further massive starvation and bloodshed, U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali told the Security Council Monday....

Boutros-Ghali said that traditional U.N. peace-keeping efforts have failed to halt the famine and anarchy devastating Somalia. He analyzed five possible courses of action that the world body might take and concluded that only "a country-wide show of force" by outside troops can guarantee deliveries of food and humanitarian aid in the face of attacks by warring militias.

Yugoslavia

 US slams Germany for Yugoslav war

Meeting of EU foreign ministers in the Hague in November 1991:

At that meeting, the then German foreign minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher (FDP), announced without any prior notice Germany's intention to recognise the regime of Franjo Tudjman in Croatia.

This peremptory declaration, which stunned Germany's EU partners, set the seal on any last surviving chance of either preserving the Yugoslav state - which, even at that stage, the USA, France and Britain believed could be achieved - or of preventing the eruption of the conflicts within Yugoslavia into full scale war.

The regime which Genscher was so keen to recognise has an unbroken line of continuity from the Ustashi murderers of Ante Pavelic during the Second World War. The Croat government's complexion has escaped much attention because of international media attention on its rival gangsters and killers in Serbia.

The fact is, however, that Franjo Tudjman is a hard-line antisemite, proud that his wife "is neither Jewish nor Serbian". Tudjman has links with the French fascist Front National leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in France, has kept open house for nazis from across Europe, including the infamous nazi Black Legion mercenaries, and has himself written a book. Wastelands - Historical Truth denying the Holocaust and defending Hitler.

Such niceties mean little in Bonn and the tactic that bulldozed the EU into following Germany's line, with recognition of Tudjman on 15 January 1992, and drove the USA into reversing its former pro-Yugoslav unity position has since been ruthlessly applied in Bosnia-Herzegovi-a, which, though dubbed "an artificial state", had actually symbolised the multi-nationality Yugoslav experiment....

Quelle SEARCHLIGHT special "Reunited Germany - The New Danger" pp28

THE WESTERN EUROPEAN UNION, YUGOSLAVIA, AND THE (DIS)INTEGRATION OF THE EU

Although all WEU members could agree that their organization should dispatch a monitoring force to isolate the sources of conflict and ensure an orderly transitional process without influencing the outcome,101 ultimately the fear of casualties, Soviet denunciation of any planned Western intervention, and a continuing and fundamental inability to synchronize a CFSP led to the failure to task the WEU even to the support of EC-planned humanitarian relief operations.

Unable by late September 1991 to fulfill even a minimalist role in advancing the cause of European security and defense, the WEU could not hope to accomplish more than the provision of largely symbolic assistance to the implementation of future UN resolutions.102

In its first serious post-Cold War foreign policy endeavor, United Europe, despite collective possession of the overwhelming military capacity to forcibly and decisively intervene to prevent genocide,103 “thanks to the curious alchemy of German leadership, Italian support for it, British [*PG33]limitation of it, [and] French ambition . . . [created an] alloy of common foreign policy . . . inescapably less than gold.”104

[/b]

Korea

United Nations and Republic of Korea Forces

Ultimately, fifteen other UN members sent armed forces to participate in the conflict. First into action, and always providing the greatest total numbers, were the British and other members of the Commonwealth, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa...
 
Other nations providing forces included brigade or regimental size ground elements from Turkey, Thailand and the Philippines. Belgium, Columbia, Ethopia, France, Greece and The Netherlands sent battalions and little Luxembourg contributed a company.

Denmark, India, Italy, Norway and Sweden had medical units in the combat zone. The contribution of the Japanese, still under Allied occupation when the Korean War began, included many invaluable LSTs and inshore minesweepers, plus a significant contingent of merchant ships, stevedores and other hired support personnel in and around Korea, plus the extensive base system in the Japanese home islands.

Seems it wasn't just the US interested in the "domino" theory.

VietNam

Geopolitical Control Zone? Control of what?

It was just our mistake; we bought into Kennedy's inauguration speech and Johnson got really carried away with it. You can't GIVE freedom to anyone. We may be about to repeat this mistake in Iraq.



Cuba

Naso: Lol, sorry but I never heard that US is supporting Castro

It was more anti-Battista, but it was there.

CUBA

The US initially welcomed the 26th of July revolution, until it emerged that Castro embraced communist ideology, at a time when America was terrorized by the "Red Peril". The rebels executed many Batista followers, as others escaped to the US. As Cuba pursued land reform and nationalized the economy, American interests were at risk.

U.S. - Cuba History

July 30, 1957 - U.S. Ambassador Smith, who has been supportive of the Batista regime, now calls the violence excessive after he observes Batista's police beat up women at the funeral of a slain revolutionary.
 
 
March 14, 1958 - General Batista continues his reign of torture and killing of suspected rebels and their sympathizers and his bombing raids on villages. The Eisenhower Administration under increasing pressure to withdraw their support from Batista, declares a Cuban arms embargo against the protest of Ambassador Smith.  
 
 
November 1958 - In an effort to maintain government stability, Ambassador Smith suggests that a free election be held in Cuba in the hope that it would produce an alternative to both Castro and Batista. However Batista's candidate wins in an election that even Ambassador Smith concedes was rigged.
 
 
December 9, 1958 - William D. Pawley, an emissary from the Eisenhower Administration, meets secretly with General Batista to try and persuade him to leave office and accept exile in Florida. The emissary proposes that the government be left in charge of a U.S. approved junta. Batista refuses the offer and three weeks later flees Cuba as revolutionary forces led by Fidel Castro take over the government.

[X2Lee]

Originally posted by lord dolf vader
assum

an officer (female?) challenges a male officer of a allied nation to a common brawl and is refused like any sane male would.


and you think that is some sort of usa patriotic statement?



just plain barbaric and neither cool nor inspiring to me.

I think he was saying in a nice way....
Any of our lady marines can kick a french solders arse at burger king?

At least thats how I read it    

[Naso]

Originally posted by Toad
Seems it wasn't just the US interested in the "domino" theory.

No, not only US, all the western countries, including mine.

I tought it was assumed.

It was just our mistake; we bought into Kennedy's inauguration speech and Johnson got really carried away with it. You can't GIVE freedom to anyone. We may be about to repeat this mistake in Iraq.

No comment.

Cuba


It was more anti-Battista, but it was there.

Very interesting infos.

But this confuse me, Batista was'nt friend of the US?

Thanks for infos, anyway.

Lol, as a joke, we can say that the embargo is Batista's heritage?

[Toad]

Obviously the relationship with Batista changed over time. It's an interesting read; initially (in the '30's) the US didn't support him. However, they dealt with him due to his clear overwhelming influence in Cuban politics.

Truman recognized Batista's coup almost immediately in 1952. By 1958 Eisenhower had enacted an arms embargo against Batista's government due basically to "human rights" problems.

So, no Batista wasn't always a "friend" of the US.

However, I understand your confusion.

A lot of people on this board seem to think that international relationships are stable and never change over time. Just as they seem to think that people/politicians are always what they appear to be and also do not change over time.

History books are stuffed full of the tales of nations that were once allied becoming enemies. Along with tales of nations that were once enemies becoming allied. It's the history of man.

Thus, I find many of the comments here........ humorous.

[Naso]

Originally posted by Toad
...Thus, I find many of the comments here........ humorous.

Sometime, they are.... scaring

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by SFRT - Frenchy
LOL:D  ... what's next, you believe what CNN is telling you Ripsnort? Oh man ... that made my day. thx, I had a great laugh.

At least *someone* understood it was a joke!  Christ, never leave a line unattended in this forum, you get some of your biggest fish on an unattended line!

LOL Mandoble, is your cheek sore this morning?

[SLO]

Originally posted by AKIron
Tucker Carlson said it well on Crossfire tonight. "Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordian".

an accordian player who has nuke powered subs...nuke powered ships....ICBM's.....Ship Missile's(already proven they work...ask the limeys)...good Jets....Advanced dev. of jets.....Arian5....bla bla bla

apart from your toys....ya got nothing as soldiers:eek: ....somalia proved that....vietnam proved that...Korea proved that....and you came after the battle of britain when germans where already fighting the white bear.....keep thinking your the best....and i'll keep bustin your inflated bubble brain

Your monkey brain prez wants the war(and his oil buddies)....ask the american majority and you'll have a different vote

[Monk]

Son......you need to take that SEAL qoute off your sig.
Thank you.

[Dowding]

lol I agree with the first paragraph slo, but the rest drops off pretty quickly.

Are you a SEAL, Monk? Besides, that's not a SEAL 'quote', it's been around for a million years.