Posted on 12/19/2006 5:23:46 PM PST by advance_copy
"BTW, the French Special Forces are being withdrawn from Afghanistan."
They are being relocated to Africa in the same area where an American Special Forces base is at Djibouti, where some kind of Special Operations work seems to be anticipated in the near future.
"Zoot Alors, moi, Je ne tirez pas, et j'ai Ozama en mes yeux!
Yeah Right!!
Rummy was right. Going to war with the French as Allies is like going deer hunting with an accordian player.
"Ve deed not shot heem parceque, honlee an Americain Bulleet woul bee politicallee couract??"
This article would be absolutely laughable if some folks did not take it so seriously.
1. French desire to believe they're the only ones who can really get a job done
2. French desier to believe they're warriors, after all
3. French need to believe they're being used by the United States
4. Leftist believe that the US always NEEDS an enemy somewhere in the world, in order to justify militarism
The French military, however, said that the incidents never happened and the report was "erroneous information."
Well, that's that then. (Anon Source)
FMCDH(BITS)
I dunno - I'm not very trusting of Reuters. It's also possible that the French government didn't want to be responsible for one of it's own pulling the trigger, just as our command might have had some national pride over who's taking the shot. I dunno I need to see more info.
sucks to be him...
If only unfurling the white flag required going up the chain of command .....
There is a group...mostly from South Africa who's specialty is insurgency. If they were to "Hire" them to take out these creeps, like Bin Laden, it would be done in a few days.
Why didn't we hire them you suppose?
Two initials....PC. Dont wanna make it appear that we hired "Hired Guns" now do we?
This outfit has been successful all over the African continent in stemming communist uprisings. And if they are successful in the deserts and jungles of Africa, then they can do as well in the mountains of Afganistan. That is, if they are still in business. The last I heard they were not.
Why the he!! did they need another order - wasn't the order already out to shoot him on sight???!
It's a great quote but it was by a deputy undersecretary of defense Jed Babbin in the administration of Bush Sr., during the first Gulf War, not Donald Rumsfeld.
I'm surprised that there is no "shoot on sight" order. But, then I've understood the War on Terror less and less as time goes by.
Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but it seems that maybe the objectives were too broad, defining this effort as a war (yes, I know 9/11 was horrific), and then setting the objective of establishing functioning democratic governments.
Perhaps a narrower objective would have been better, defining it as retaliatory action against Afghanistan for harboring Al-Queda (massive destructive bombing) and then concentrating all resources on getting bin Laden.
Second, all this talk about enemy combatants and POWs, etc. (Getting away from the torture issue, for a minute.)In a sense this elevates them, certainly in the eyes of their supporters. Like, here's Osama, he is at war with the United States, great warrior going up against the mightiest nation on Earth. Instead, we could have treated him like a criminal, captured him, presented him to the Mayor of New York (not the President!). The Mayor could then look at the Police Chief and say "Book em" and the Chief could then read him his rights.
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