Yes it was but you are being very selective when lisiting countries who “stuck their soldiers in”
You do like to generalise. In very recent times troubles in Timor recieved army and police troops from Australia, New Zealand and Portugal. If I’m not mistaken Britain (part of Europe??) helped America occupy Iraq. Countries like Spain helped “liberate” Iraq until they realised that occupation was not the same thing as liberation. Since 1948 Close to 130 nations have contributed personnel at various times, and 108 are currently providing peacekeepers. The top three countries contributing to UN missions are Bangladesh,Pakistan and India. Not America? Fancy that.
Or they will put peacekeepers on the ground who will probably not be armed, who will work with people on the ground to help rebuild their lives, who will not go in waving flags of their own country but will quietly work with the people who need help and who will actually build good will.
America and Israel have a relationship that is not about to change. Israel needs America. America needs Israel (as in an America friendly place in the Middle East).
devastating?. HOW was this “skirmish” not devastating?
Or perhaps the UN is happy to back off. Perhaps the UN has realised that forcing a country into a corner only makes it come out spitting. Perhaps the UN has realised that it is hypocritical for the countries WITH nukes to tell other countries they shouldn’t have them? Trade is something that is important, no spin will change that.
I would think that MOST Iranians don’t give Americans a second thought, they are probably too busy cooking dinner, going to work and worrying about how to pay the bills.
In the end “this mess” will be sorted out by the US because the US is the country that sees this as a threat. Just like a mini cold war. The world hung about waiting to see what the USSR and the USA would do. In the end they did what we all expected. Nobody blew up anyone.
But Iraq has showed the world that plunging in waist deep only leaves everyone covered in shit.
Not exactly sure what you meant to say: but you can find the following quote on the Rainbow Warrior’sWikipedia entry. (bolding mine)
Additionally, even though the U.S. didn’t say much about the incident other than to shake our collective heads at the needless absurdity, New Zealand was PISSED.
Dunno man, I think Gulf War I went quite well. If you’re criticising UN peacekeepers (who historically did a fine job in e.g. Lebanon and Nicosia for quite a while), well, the clue’s in the name.
What I meant to say is that was not decried by any govt…it was NZ against France. Yes Greenpeace was repaid but an act of terrorism sanctioned by one govt toward a friendly country was not condemned by the world.
It was a long time ago, much more recently NZ has sided with the French. Perhaps that is the model. Get over your self!
Care to address the Ivory Coast, Kiwi? Maybe try to stay on the subject of French “peacekeeping”? It was that fiasco, afterall, that was my central point - not my joke about birkenstock and gorp bombardment.
This thing prompted me to do a little research, and I was quite surprised to learn that the current number of US blue helmet peace keeping troops is… wait for it…
This part makes sense, insofar that anything the UN does makes sense. Although it might be that the reluctance of countries like France to commit significantly to troop levels contributes to the weakness of the mandate.
This part doesn’t. The French won’t go because some one might shoot at them. Well, duh.
The terrorists who the UN force is expected to keep the peace against are going to attack the peace keepers. That is pretty much a given. I seriously doubt they will be any harder on the French than anyone else. Unless the terrorists think that the French might react differently.
Ineed it was. And why did they stick their troops in? Because they were themselves directly attacked. History’s not my subject, but I don’t recall the Arsenal of Democracy™ doing much beyond selling arms on credit and muttering encouragement until it was, y’know, attacked. Since Hezbollah haven’t yet started shooting Katyushas at Japan, Korea, Canada, Germany or anyone else, it’s not surprising they’ve decided to sit this one out.
Almost enough to make you wish the worlds most powerful country hadn’t spent the last half-century or making sure the UN stayed a talking shop with no military assets beyond what it could scrape off the collecting plate, isn’t it?
You broke it, you fix it. You seriously expect the French (or anyone else) to put a couple of thousand citizens in harms way to sort out a fuck-up they were against right from the very beginning? Maybe after the USMC deploys into Cote D’Ivoire to keep the Francophones from chopping each other up…
UNIFIL has been in Lebanon since 1978, believe it or not. Since there hasn’t been much peace to keep, they haven’t done much except distribute aid, fill in paperwork whenever either side breaks the ceasefires, and get killed (257 fatalities to date). A pattern which will almost certainly continue in future, and makes it unsurprising that few countries are jumping with joy at the chance to participate further in the Great Lebanese Blue-Helmet Skeet Shoot.
But from 1978 to about 1990, there was a massive civil war going on in Lebanon. So, why was the UN force just distributing aid, filling in paperwork, and getting killed? Why didn’t they actually try to stop the various sides from killing each other? If groups like Hezbollah were operating, why didn’t UNFIL go in there and arrest/kill them?
Ale, it’s pretty clear why US troops aren’t especially suited for UN peacekeeping missions. Ideal peacekeepers are from countries that don’t have a stake in the outcome of the war. US troops would be seen as favoring one side over the other. The US can’t send “peacekeeping” troops to keep Hezballah and Israel from bombing each other, because we’d be on Israel’s side bombing Hezb’allah. We wouldn’t be peacekeeping troops, we’d be warfighting troops. Which is fine if continuing the war is what you want, no so good if you’re trying to stop the war.
Are you that dense? The Iraq war was never a “peacekeeping” mission. The U.S. chose a side - its own; with the express purpose of toppling the dictatorship. France was supposed to be on a peacekeeping mission in the Ivory Coast, yet decided to destroy the Ivorian air force after a friendly fire accident killed some French troops.
Apples and oranges and all that.
Why am I debating this guy? He can’t even string a proper sentence together, much less a coherent point.
And France has pretty deep ties with Lebanon, so they make a good candidate for troops.
I think we wait should a bit and see how this plays out before jumping all over anyone or any country. Putting the UN force together is going to take some time, and troops will most likely be deployed in phases. It’s going to be tricky to make sure that both the Lebanese and Israelis are comfortable with the make-up of that peacekeeping force. I’m just happy to see that the US and France were able to work together on this resolution.
I was always under the impression that before 1947 (when they created Israel was created by the western powers that won WWII), it hadn’t been this bad since the Crusades.
I heard a report on CNN a little while ago that apparently the US aid isn’t being well received. In fact, it’s being outright refused by some based on the reasoning they’ll not accept hypocritical assistance from the same country that supplied Israel with the bombs that put them in this predicament in the first place.
Now as to how widespread this sentiment/ refusal is, the report didn’t say. I don’t know if it’s a indignant few or if it has become a more widespread phenomenon. But, to some degree, it’s more certainly happening.
