RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events after all the fighting's done, now the french arrive in kabul.

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Originally posted by digitaldawg:
it's reported that a group of 15 french soldiers arrived in kabul today to join brittish and american soldiers that have been in the area since mid-november.

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i hear they also just stormed normandy!

vive le france!

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France Sends Soldiers to Haiti
25 minutes ago Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo!



PARIS (Reuters) - Up to 200 French troops are due in Haiti on Monday after the Caribbean nation's president resigned and fled the troubled former French colony, officials said.


Reuters Photo



The office of French President Jacques Chirac said France was sending the troops to Haiti in coordination with the United States, and that it was continuing to work with other countries to form a U.N.-backed peacekeeping force.


The French soldiers will be deployed in the main Haitian city of Port-au-Prince to protect French nationals, a day after Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned as Haitian president and went into exile.


"Conforming to the wish of the president of the republic, two companies -- between 150 and 200 men -- will arrive there tomorrow from the French Antilles (Martinique and Guadeloupe)," French Defense Ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau said.


The deployment of French troops along with U.S. Marines is expected to be backed by the U.N. Security Council at hastily-arranged talks that were already under way on Sunday.


Some of the U.S. Marines are expected in Haiti on Sunday night, a defense official said.


President Bush (news - web sites) ordered the deployment of Marines on Sunday as the "leading element" of an international force to keep order in Haiti.


The U.N. Security Council called an emergency meeting on Sunday of countries including the United States, France, Canada and Haiti's Caribbean neighbors to approve a resolution authorizing a multinational force to restore order in Haiti.


The Foreign Affairs Ministry in Paris said talks over the mandate, shape and size of such a force could lead to a formal meeting of the U.N. Security Council as soon as Monday.


The U.N. Security Council, whose permanent members include France, the United States, Britain, China and Russia, would eventually have to meet to authorize an intervention force.

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britneyspearsatemyshorts said:




....leave it the french to authorize troops in another virtually risk free enviroment!

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I don't know which is greater, your jingoism or your stupidity.

Iraq blast kills Estonian soldier

Iraq new home to terror: Putin

Copter Crash Kills 2 U.S. Troops in Iraq

Suicide bomber kills 10 at Iraqi police station

Obscure Group Says It Killed Over 1,000 in Iraq
Guerrillas Kill 3 Iraqis Working with U.S. Military

Vigilantism Hits Iraq's 2nd-Largest City

Deadly Bomb Attacks Since Iraq War Began

US soldiers in Iraq receive psychological care ahead of trek home

A Daily Look at U.S. Iraq Military Deaths

Or maybe you'd rather overextended American G.I's and National Guardsmen do all the patrolling (and dying) so you can continue to French-bash in the safety of your own home while happily munching on your 'freedom fries'.

And they say it's 'the liberals' who don't give a fuck about our servicemen.

I also notice you aern't the only one here with that same arrogance and ingratitude. Perhaps the French should just pack up and leave us there with our dicks in the wind over there since their allies can't tell the difference between freind or foe.

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whomod said:

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britneyspearsatemyshorts said:




....leave it the french to authorize troops in another virtually risk free enviroment!

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I don't know which is greater, your jingoism or your stupidity.

Iraq blast kills Estonian soldier

Iraq new home to terror: Putin

Copter Crash Kills 2 U.S. Troops in Iraq

Suicide bomber kills 10 at Iraqi police station

Obscure Group Says It Killed Over 1,000 in Iraq
Guerrillas Kill 3 Iraqis Working with U.S. Military

Vigilantism Hits Iraq's 2nd-Largest City

Deadly Bomb Attacks Since Iraq War Began

US soldiers in Iraq receive psychological care ahead of trek home

A Daily Look at U.S. Iraq Military Deaths

Or maybe you'd rather overextended American G.I's and National Guardsmen do all the patrolling (and dying) so you can continue to French-bash in the safety of your own home while happily munching on your 'freedom fries'.

And they say it's 'the liberals' who don't give a fuck about our servicemen.

I also notice you aern't the only one here with that same arrogance and ingratitude. Perhaps the French should just pack up and leave us there with our dicks in the wind over there since their allies can't tell the difference between freind or foe.

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britneyspearsatemyshorts said:




....leave it the french to authorize troops in another virtually risk free enviroment!

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Blasts Kill 143 at Iraq Shiite Shrines

Welcome to your risk free enviroment.


"Mission accomplished".

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JQ said:
BSAMS: You're quick to point out the French's financial motives, but you're blind to America's real motives in Iraq.

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And of course you know of these "real" motives.



P.S. If America's "real" reason for the war was cheap oil, we would have simply dealt with Saddam like France and Russia, *instead* of going to war.

Keeping Saddam in place and dealing with him would have been a lot cheaper than paying the human and financial costs of the war.

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britneyspearsatemyshorts said:
but whomod linked to unrelated stories so that couldnt be right, jq said so!

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Rob Kamphausen said:
i was unaware that there was any french military in iraq. is there?

(note: the initial post in this thread, from notable CNN correspondant "digitaldawg," is from over 2 years ago).

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MisterJLA said:

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JQ said:
BSAMS: You're quick to point out the French's financial motives, but you're blind to America's real motives in Iraq.

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And of course you know of these "real" motives.



P.S. If America's "real" reason for the war was cheap oil, we would have simply dealt with Saddam like France and Russia, *instead* of going to war.

Keeping Saddam in place and dealing with him would have been a lot cheaper than paying the human and financial costs of the war.

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We don't need that kind of logical thinking here. It must be a right-wing conspiracy!

What would Howard say if he read that?

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britneyspearsatemyshorts said:

....leave it the french to authorize troops in another virtually risk free enviroment!

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Bombs Kill Six U.S. Soldiers in Iraq

1 hour, 4 minutes ago

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Four American soldiers died in two bomb explosions in Baghdad, the coalition said Sunday, raising to six the number of U.S. forces killed in roadside bombs this weekend.

Hundreds of Iraqis, meanwhile, mourned the death of a Shiite politician's relative in a bomb blast in his shop the previous day.

A roadside bomb killed three soldiers from the 1st Armored Division and wounded another during a patrol Saturday night in southeastern Baghdad, a spokeswoman for the U.S.-led coalition spokeswoman said.

That followed a similar attack in Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s hometown of Tikrit that killed two American soldiers and wounded three others.

U.S. forces responded by making several arrests and dispatching troops into the streets in a show of force on the same day that the 1st Infantry Division's 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, took control of the restive Sunni Triangle town in a troop rotation.

Soldiers who have been on the front line facing the anti-U.S. insurgency — believed led by Saddam loyalists and Islamic militants — have been carrying out joint patrols with the newcomers. Saturday was only the second day that troops from the German-based 18th Regiment patrolled alone.

A sixth soldier died at a combat hospital from injuries suffered in a blast in the Iraqi capital Sunday morning, the spokeswoman said.

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They're still 'bringing it on'.

In a relatively risk free enviroment of course.

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Dave said:
and how!

For those people not keeping score, France also invaded Cote d'Ivoire just after the invasion of Iraq. Knocked the shit out of the rebels and imposed peace.

If someone has evidence that France has huge business interests in the dust bowl which is Haiti, I'd be keen to read about it.

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Tripe a la Mode

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, March 12, 2004; Page A23


Look. I know it is shooting French in a barrel. But when yet another insufferable penseur -- first Chirac, then de Villepin, now the editor of Le Monde -- starts lecturing Americans on how they ought to conduct themselves in the world, the rules of decorum are suspended.



In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Jean-Marie Colombani, who wrote the famous Sept. 12, 2001, Le Monde editorial titled "We Are All American," gives us the usual more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger lament about America's sins: We loved you on Sept. 11. We were all with you in Afghanistan. But, oh, what have you done in Iraq?

This requires some parsing. We loved you on Sept. 11 means: We like Americans when they are victims, on their knees and bleeding. We just don't like it when they get off the floor -- without checking with us first.

Colombani glories in Europe's post-Sept. 11 "solidarity" with America: "Let us remember here the involvement of French and German soldiers, among other European nationalities, in the operations launched in Afghanistan to . . . free the Afghans."

Come again? The French arrived in Mazar-e Sharif after it fell, or as military analyst Jay Leno put it, "to serve as advisers to the Taliban on how to surrender properly." Afghanistan was liberated by America acting practically unilaterally, with an even smaller coalition than it had in Iraq -- Britain and Australia, with the rest of the world holding America's coat.

But then came Iraq. "The problem was not so much the war itself, but the fact that it was launched without U.N. approval," Colombani explains.

Rubbish. The Kosovo war was launched without U.N. approval and France joined it. Only two wars have ever been launched with U.N. approval: the Korean War (an accident of the Soviets having walked out of the Security Council on another matter) and the Persian Gulf War.

It is touching to hear such legalistic objections to deposing a man who has killed more Muslims than any person on Earth -- particularly when the objection is offered from a pose of superior international morality from a country whose commandos once blew up a Greenpeace ship monitoring French nuclear tests in the South Pacific.

Moreover, Colombani complains, George Bush "lied about the weapons of mass destruction -- the official pretext for the war -- as now publicly established by recent investigations." More rubbish. The investigations have established that the weapons have not been found and may not exist. The claim that the president knew so at the time, and lied about it as a "pretext" for war, is a malicious falsehood.

There is more. Colombani grieves that the Bush administration has taken "axes" to the two great pillars of Western success following World War II: containment and free trade.

Colombani decries the fact that containment has given way to preemptive war. But containment was designed for the Soviet Union, which died 10 years before Bush even took office. Only a fool would advocate containment against the new threat that has risen in its place: terrorists and terrorist states acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

When dealing with undeterrables (like al Qaeda) or undetectables (like an Iraq or an Iran passing WMDs to terrorists) there is no such thing as containment. There is no deterrence, no address for the retaliation. There are two options: do nothing and wait for the next attack, or get them before they acquire the capacity to get you. That is called preemption.

Warming to the ax theme, Colombani decries the Bush administration's "return of protectionism." This (plus preemption) "is why John Kerry is, a priori, perceived with so much sympathy" in Europe.

Good grief. Only an ignoramus oblivious to what is happening in American politics could prefer Kerry over Bush on grounds of free trade. Has no one told Colombani that the Democrats have made protectionism -- attacking everything from NAFTA to the World Trade Organization -- a theme of this campaign, radically reversing the Clinton policies of the 1990s?

It is not John Kerry's fault that he is endorsed by a Frenchman. (Or by Kim Jong Il of North Korea, whose media have been running some of Kerry's speeches verbatim!) But Kerry has made the major -- indeed, only discernible -- theme of his foreign policy "rejoining the community of nations" and being liked abroad again.

Which is why he does not just court foreign support, he boasts about it. "I've met foreign leaders, who can't go out and say this publicly," he told a Hollywood, Fla., fundraiser, "but boy they look at you and say, 'You gotta win this one, you gotta beat this guy.' "

For the world. For France.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

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whomod said:

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britneyspearsatemyshorts said:

....leave it the french to authorize troops in another virtually risk free enviroment!

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Bombs Kill Six U.S. Soldiers in Iraq

1 hour, 4 minutes ago

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Four American soldiers died in two bomb explosions in Baghdad, the coalition said Sunday, raising to six the number of U.S. forces killed in roadside bombs this weekend.

Hundreds of Iraqis, meanwhile, mourned the death of a Shiite politician's relative in a bomb blast in his shop the previous day.

A roadside bomb killed three soldiers from the 1st Armored Division and wounded another during a patrol Saturday night in southeastern Baghdad, a spokeswoman for the U.S.-led coalition spokeswoman said.

That followed a similar attack in Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s hometown of Tikrit that killed two American soldiers and wounded three others.

U.S. forces responded by making several arrests and dispatching troops into the streets in a show of force on the same day that the 1st Infantry Division's 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, took control of the restive Sunni Triangle town in a troop rotation.

Soldiers who have been on the front line facing the anti-U.S. insurgency — believed led by Saddam loyalists and Islamic militants — have been carrying out joint patrols with the newcomers. Saturday was only the second day that troops from the German-based 18th Regiment patrolled alone.

A sixth soldier died at a combat hospital from injuries suffered in a blast in the Iraqi capital Sunday morning, the spokeswoman said.

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They're still 'bringing it on'.

In a relatively risk free enviroment of course.

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