Thoughts & Commentary on the Obama Administration

[Louis VI the Fat]

Also, I'd like to point out that I said I was "tempted" to accuse you of a lack of backbone, but that I recognised that the situation was more complex. Given that I have friends who have died in battles resulting from a strategic lack of manpower, I think that's generous.

I shall be generous too and call your position 'mistaken'.

Mistaken, because the UK apparantly could spare 40k soldiers and hundreds of billions of pounds for Iraq, but not for Afghanistan. Instead, you seek to blame your death friends on lack of backbone of others. Maybe if a fraction of those 200k soldiers from Iraq had been deployed in Afghanistan this would've made a bigger difference than 10k French and German troops?


And not just Afghanistan has been left to bungle because of Iraq:

the UK contributes a larger proportion of it's population to NATO engagements.

NATO? Sure. But that is spinning it. France is second only to the US in troops abroad for multinational engagements.There is more than NATO.
There are more French troops in this world's hellholes than British. The British have pulled out their troops everywhere to concentrate them in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As with the Poles, I would not mind the insults, were it not that the UK, like Poland, actually contributes less than France.


If one reads the Anglo press, one would think the world consists only of Iraq and Afghanistan. If one reads the French press, you'll pull your hair out at the waste of UN/NATO resources in Iraq, which has left the burden of maintaining the peace throughout the world mainly on France. Since the start of the Iraq war, we've witnessed, amongst others, war in:

Ivory Coast. UN mission under French command. 4000 French troops. Not a Briton or Pole in sight. Too busy in Iraq.

Chad. Bloody civil war. EU mission under French command. 2000 Frenchmen were send. The UK managed to send...four men. Or maybe they were stranded tourists.

The Balkans. UN mission. Half of the foreign casualties are French. No Brits or Poles to be seen anymore. Too busy creating more wars instead of maintaining the peace.

Somali Piracy. The French fleet is chasing them all over the Indian ocean. The Royal Navy managed to spare one single frigate, Poland nil.


In every instance, European troops were too busy in Iraq. France had to solve it mostly on her own. The enormous diversion of troops and resources for the adventure in Iraq has been very detrimental for the more mature countries and their quest to a) maintain peace and stability and b) support the interests of the free world.

Darfur - sorry, the west had no more troops to spare to stop this genocide.


As for The War on Terror:
Hezbollah has been having a ball in Lebanon, after all those European countries left UNFIL for Iraq and Afghanistan. Earlier this year, all the Brits and Poles packed their bags to head for Afghanistan. (They've got to come from someplace, eh?) Then the Poles and Brits scoff the French for not having a backbone, for not staying the course. It's the -what? fourth? fifth? - mission the Brits and Poles simply abandoned to concentrate on the 'War on Terror'. Meanwhile, France has been in the Lebanon for thirty years.

So, UNIFIL is all that you have. And, ineffective as it was, it is disintegrating. Pressed by the Obama administration to send troops to Afghanistan--I support the presidents efforts in this regard--Poland and other trusted European countries have reacted by some announcing, some whispering that their military will not be long in Lebanon. Some European states have so few personnel stationed in the country that it hardly matters: Slovakia, 6; Slovenia. 14; Ukraine, 1.Yes, one. Many others are toy soldiers: Brunei and Nepal, as instances.Two countries represented are stalwarts of the Muslim International: Malaysia, Indonesia. Others are countries with rabid anti-Israel politics: Norway, Greece and Ireland, for example. You decide where Erdogan's Turkey belongs.

Encouraged by these neutral defections from UNIFIL, Hezbollah has now expanded its revolutionary turf to Egypt.

[KukriKhan]

Say what you will about Louis and his views. Anybody who can knock out over two thousand words - thoughtful, coherent, on-point words - in less than 6 minutes... gets my admiration.

So... Louis: Afghanistan is a mess. More troops are on the way (many will arrive next month). The way forward?

[Louis VI the Fat]

Say what you will about Louis and his views. Anybody who can knock out over two thousand words - thoughtful, coherent, on-point words - in less than 6 minutes... gets my admiration.

So... Louis: Afghanistan is a mess. More troops are on the way (many will arrive next month). The way forward?

My opinion depends on my view of the chance of succes in Afghanistan. If there is a decent shot at succes, I'd personally press for more troops. But I am not so sure. Then there is the whole timetable to pull them out in two years and all that. I do wonder - what is the point?


At the moment, though this changes at a daily basis, I'd say we should go for it. Let Obama have his shot at it. All that shite from my three previous posts above shouldn't be important. Afghanistan is what matters. We should send 5000 more troops, give it one more shot.

[KukriKhan]

My opinion depends on my view of the chance of succes in Afghanistan. If there is a decent shot at succes, I'd personally press for more troops. But I am not so sure. Then there is the whole timetable to pull them out in two years and all that. I do wonder - what is the point?


At the moment, though this changes at a daily basis, I'd say we should go for it. Let Obama have his shot at it. All that shite from my three previous posts above shouldn't be important. Afghanistan is what matters. We should send 5000 more troops, give it one more shot.

We agree then.

As much as I want to pull up stakes, declare victory (ignoring the worldwide laughter) and come home by Christmas... and I'm not 100% certain it can be done successfully, we should give it one more shot. Lemur disagrees about the pull-out date thing. I think that was dangerous to the mission, unnecessarily. Have a date in mind, sure. Tell that date to the principal players, but don't announce it to the world.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

My opinion depends on my view of the chance of succes in Afghanistan. If there is a decent shot at succes, I'd personally press for more troops. But I am not so sure. Then there is the whole timetable to pull them out in two years and all that. I do wonder - what is the point?


At the moment, though this changes at a daily basis, I'd say we should go for it. Let Obama have his shot at it. All that shite from my three previous posts above shouldn't be important. Afghanistan is what matters. We should send 5000 more troops, give it one more shot.

Eh? How can you move to rebut my every point, and then agree with my conclusion, right down to the numbers?

Also, where do you get the figure "40,000" from for Iraq? Is that the total number of men we sent overall, because some of those were the same men going back three or four times. Or is it the number for the actual invasion? I'm fairly sure it isn't.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Eh? How can you move to rebut my every point, and then agree with my conclusion, right down to the numbers?

I don't know. I haven't changed my position. I can't really make my mind up about Afghanistan. Last page I said I thought there were reasons to support a surge, and reasons not to.

Then jingoism broke lose: 'disgraceful', 'beneath my dignity', 'no backbone', 'my friends die because of this'.

Which irritated me. So I pointed out that Poland and the UK have contributed less troops to international missions this past decade, and that much of the troops and resources that were committed were send to Iraq. Which is currently commonly regarded as unsuccesful, and also as detrimental to the cause in Afghanistan and other missions.



'Also, where do you get the figure "40,000" from for Iraq? Is that the total number of men we sent overall, because some of those were the same men going back three or four times. Or is it the number for the actual invasion? I'm fairly sure it isn't.'
I was referring to the number of UK troops deployed for the invasion. Wiki below says 46.000. 200 Poles were involved in the invasion as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_Force_-_Iraq

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I don't know. I haven't changed my position. I can't really make my mind up about Afghanistan. Last page I said I thought there were reasons to support a surge, and reasons not to.

Then jingoism broke lose: 'disgraceful', 'beneath my dignity', 'no backbone', 'my friends die because of this'.

Which irritated me. So I pointed out that Poland and the UK have contributed less troops to international missions this past decade, and that much of the troops and resources that were committed were send to Iraq. Which is currently commonly regarded as unsuccesful, and also as detrimental to the cause in Afghanistan and other missions.



'Also, where do you get the figure "40,000" from for Iraq? Is that the total number of men we sent overall, because some of those were the same men going back three or four times. Or is it the number for the actual invasion? I'm fairly sure it isn't.'
I was referring to the number of UK troops deployed for the invasion. Wiki below says 46.000. 200 Poles were involved in the invasion as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_Force_-_Iraq

Funny how the mind plays tricks on you. Ok, so Britain sent 46,000 troops to invade Iraq, then left 8,300 troops there, and those numbers continued to fall. So that figure is a bit of a red herring when talking about troop commitments long term. If you were to wiki military forces and deployments you would see that Britain has deployed more men per-capita, and from a smaller armed forces.

As I said, your country is more populous (by 4 million), has more money and a larger army. You also have a larger defence budget and the only reason we get ahead of you in military rankings is because we have more planes and an extra aircraft carrier.

As far as "jingoism", you basically said, "I only think we should go if it can be won", which ignores the fact that the major problem is troop numbers, so that "winning" could well be dependant on whether France gets involved seriously or not; along with Germany.

So you look like you are setting up a self fullfilling prophecy, where you can turn around after we fail for lack of men and say, "look, we were right not to send more men". That position then become win-win for France, unless the Coalition wins in Afganistan.

It is also a fact that my friends died because their units were stretched too thin, because of lack of resources. That is not jingoism, it is a logistical and strategic reality.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Lame speech. He looks weak and seems worried, but I missed the first half.