I’m offering you sums of cash, albeit in pennies of 200 count. Nevertheless, you’ll surely find my attempts to solicit favoritism… worthy?
It’s a start. What’s to follow? Does no one read or heed the folly of US undermanning in Iraq?
According to the linked article, France already has 200 troops in Lebanon and are presently willing to commit 200 additional troops. But you have to read carefully to see it.
Did anyone else find bias in the newspaper reporting? I think it attempted to obscure the total number of French soldiers that would be present.
Then you do disservice to brave soldiers everywhere – and this from a pacifist. You might want to look more closely at the linked article to see why the French are so cautious.
Sort of the point I was getting at, yes. Not that the French will probably be hailed as hero’s either. They might THINK that their stance and agitation on the part of Lebanon and the ceasefire will buy them love, but I’m betting that THEY won’t be seen through very friendly eyes either. Maybe I’m wrong about that…
-XT
400 French troops! mon Dieu! Be still, O harting beet. :rolleyes:
It looks like we’re going to try to buy us some love: US tries to counter Hizbollah rebuilding efforts
Of course, that sort of effort works better if you don’t come out and tell everyone that you’re only doing it to keep the other guy from looking good. What became of our our principled support of democracies and the Cedar revolution? This reads like the state department has plum run out of platitudes or something.
Sadly I don’t think it matters much one way or the other. Had Bush kept his mouth shut and worked behind the scenes, had the US and others poured money into the region far in excess of whatever Iran backed Hezbollah does, I doubt it would make any difference at all at this point. Maybe at any point.
-XT
Read the rest of the fucking post. I later stated how it was wrong to think that way in these times. I don’t need your cite, thank-you-very-much. Did you get so far into the post to see I was justifying the seeming lack of troops in an action the French are spearheading? Or at least, taking credit for. Where I recognized a very valid reason they wouldn’t send too many troops to the region?
Take a fucking pill before lecturing me on the use of force in cases like this, where the use of force is something the targets try to prevent, while the opposition is stating at the bargaining table that they will still fight to the death.
Copy and paste this post, bookmark it, whatever you need to do. By 1 March 2007 there will have been, or will be, another situation we’re trying to end just like this. It’s been going on for centuries, and will go on for centuries. (Provided we’re still alive then.)
How long have the Iraelis and Arabs been fighting? How long has the UN been around? How many cease-fires, Peace Accords, truces have been sanctioned by the UN? Like I said, I like poking fun at France, but this shit has gotten to the point that it isn’t so much fun anymore. I don’t want France to fall or be eliminated. I need my supply of Drakkar Noir. (What the hell is a black Drakkar, anyway?)
And doing a disservice to servicemen? From that post you mentioned? I’ve suspected there’s no arguing with you, but this almost cements it. All servicemen, of any country, are risking a bullet to the head voluntarily. I have a few friends serving, 1 in Iraq and 2 in Afghanistan, that are risking their lives for me and my family. Don’t pull that shit with me.
And don’t get into why we’re there. They’re over there. The reasons are moot when we’re talking about someone stationed there.
duffer, you know (or should know) I think you’re a great guy and I usually agree with most of what you have to say, but at the risk of having my ass handed to me either by you or Zoe, or both, I have to say that I think you’re being much more rough on Zoe than her post would warrant. She didn’t cast aspersions upon anyone you know who is in the service, and she is most certainly someone who most certainly can be argued with.
She is also someone who can look past areas of disagreement to see the good that lies in (almost) all of us. In my experience, she is one of the most gentle and helpful people on this board, and more than anyone else I can think of she strives to actually live by the philosophy she believes in.
Now, I am no fan of the French government and actually I came into this thead to post a snide comment of my own, but when I read some of the comments about what France is having to contend with inside its own borders, I decided against it. But Zoe has traveled to France and she loves much about both Paris and French culture. I think she was merely trying to take up for this country for whom she has so much empathy and admiration in the face of your suggestion that the idea of a French army is, if not laughable, at least chuckleable.
I don’t want to piss you off with this post and I hope I haven’t embarrassed Zoe (who I’m sure can take up for herself just fine, being a former school teacher and all 
) but it’s difficult for me to sit by and do nothing when I see such a gentle and good-hearted person being treated in a way that is, to me, so patently unfair.
My regards to you both,
SA
“…and she is most certainly someone who most certainly can be argued with.”
Could a mod please forward that sentence to the Department of Redundancy Department? Thank you.
:smack: (Why don’t I ever catch these things on preview?)
I read this and couldn’t help think of that great negotiator of world peace for the free world, Maxwell Smart.
Smart: So, General Alsic-inheadi, you better give up all your weapons because right at this very moment the united forces of the most powerful nations on earth are on there way to Southern Lebanon to ensure peace.
GeneralI Alsic-inheadi: I doubt that.
Smart: Would you believe 200 miffed french soldiers armed with mustache scissors, paring knives, and a truckload of three-month-old creme brulee?
Try, wrong to think that way, ever. The “cowardly and/or militarily incompetent” canard that makes ignorant people chuckle at the idea of a French army never had any truth to it and owes its longevity only to the fact that repeating slurs against foreigners is much easier than learning even a little bit of history. Sadly, some people are equipped only for the former.
It’s possible that in the future France will be the only place on the planet where you can smoke. I hope you live to see it, and have to beg them to let you in.
Am not.
(Exiting, drinking my Coffee-mate Special Edition Creme Brulee-flavored coffee)
Are too. 
Oh, yeah, Zoe…since you’re here, guess what? I finally purchased a copy of A Movable Feast. You were right, I’m lovin’ it. Thanks. 
Seriously. How many votes is any politician going to get for sticking their soldiers into the middle of the worlds biggest, shittiest, most dangerous snakepit? I guess the French desire to be seen as a major player is overriding their common sense. The situation in Lebanon makes Afghanistan look stable, and even that’s falling apart at the seams.
So far the only countries to offer troops are the usual third-world outfits who make a profit from the daily rate the UN pays - nobody else is dumb or desperate enough to get involved.
Y’know, Europe in WWII was a pretty shitty, dangerous snakepit when the U.S., Canada, and Australia stuck their soldiers into it. I’m getting pretty sick and tired of all these countries yelling and screaming for peace and for the U.N. to do something, then refusing to pony up when it’s time to pay the price. But this is par for the course, and it’s why the U.N. is worse than useless - it tends to provide cover for tyrants and murderous bastards.
This is what is going to happen - the U.N. will do something totally ineffective by sending blue-helmeted troops into the region with no mandate to do sweet fuck all about anything. They’ll mill around and make it look like everything is ‘secure’ and that the peace is being kept - until Hezbollah is ready for round 2. Then the U.N. will quietly bug out, leaving the battlefield open for the next clash. For examples of this, see the last Arab/Israeli war, or Rwanda.
But next time, Israel will be able to claim that they gave the U.N. a fair shot to fix the problem, and it didn’t happen. By then, they’ll probably have a real hardliner like Netanyahu back in power, and the next skirmish will be devastating.
The same thing is going to happen in Iran. The U.N. is doing nothing more than buying Iran time to finish a nuke. Oh goodness, not another resolution condemning Iran! Whatever will they do? Ignore it, of course. And the U.N. will then threaten to issue a resolution demanding that the first resolution be honored, or by God they’ll issue another one. There will be threats of sanctions, but as soon as the sanctions are to be implemented the biggest trading partners will get cold feet and back out. Then it’ll be back to square 1.
I’ll bet the Iranians sit around the house at night and just kill themselves laughing over how stupid and gullible we are.
In the end, it will be up to the U.S. and/or Israel to sort this mess out. And if they try to, the U.N. will wail and gnash its collective teeth and scream about U.S. aggression and the need for peace, ignoring the fact that it’s hard to keep the peace with useless, defanged or nonexistent peacekeepers. Ultimately, it will be the U.N.'s failure, but that won’t stop them from pointing fingers and tsk-tsking over the U.S.'s ‘unilateral’ approach.
The reason this dirty work continues to fall into the lap of the U.S. and Israel is because a number of the other major players in the game simply refuse to step up to the plate. They’d rather heckle from the sidelines.
Exactly! Well said, Sam.
Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but you seem to be saying that conscription has been abolished world-wide. Only approximately 70 countries have volunteer armies (as of about 2001). Most draft armies or have a limited form of the conscription.
My family will find that one particularly amusing, but I promise to do just that.
The targets? The opposition? The use of force? A fight to the death? You don’t even have to mention sides. They are all the same. It doesn’t matter which side you are talking about. Just below the surface, they have the same reasons for fighting.
In my opinion, I think that it may even have to do with some of the same things that maybe motivate you to want to ridicule another country. But that is just a guess. I can’t know your motivations. Why does anyone need to put others down for sport? Why do we need even to win arguments? (But I’m guilty!)
Your friends are risking their lives, but the reason is moot? Maybe they are there to protect my right to pull this shit with you without government interference. Or maybe they are trying to arrange it so that people in Iraq and Afghanistand can pull that shit with you too. And the reasons we are there will never, ever be moot, duffer. And no amount of putting your hands over your ears and going “mum-m-m-mum-mmum-m-mum-m” is going to change that.
Have you ever lost anyone you loved to a war?
A friend of mine got shafted with that duty when he was serving in the Swedish Army, apparently, the blue UN beret’s they were issued worked just like bullseyes.
If I have to be honest, I’m glad the French aren’t sending in troops. Even if we leave WWII and Vietnam out of it, the modern French Armed Forces are inept and dangerously skittish. The last time they used a force of any sizable number to protect a buffer zone between two warring factions was the Ivory Coast. That didn’t exactly go well. There’s more on that particular clusterfuck here.
Christ, this is the same military that was so terrified by the Rainbow Warrior that they sank it. What were they afraid Greenpeace was going to do? Begin a campaign of birkenstock and Gorp bobardment?