Thoughts & Commentary on the Obama Administration

[Louis VI the Fat]

i think that is called being a fair-weather friend................. no?

I am very unhappy about the impossible position we're now in. Both options are :

A -Increase troops. But what for? They'll arrive in 210, and will have to be withdrawn in 2012. What's the point in wasting a billion euros and getting a few dozen deaths to make a political point?

As Blackadder would put it: it would be easier to just take a few dozen French recruits and shoot them at the Champs-Élysées.

B -Keep them at current level. Then you let Obama down. If not personally, then at least it will be a blow to multilateralism and transatlantic co-operation. Of which so many complained that there was so little of under Bush.


One argument that argues for choosing B, is that policy should not be decided by whomever might happen to occupy the White House. It is not up to Europeans to interfere with American politics in this manner. We ought to decide on our course of action based on rational policy, not on which party may happen to be in power in Washington.


(On the upside, I myself have never espoused the opinion that under Obama everything would change. Neither has Sarkozy, who covertly prefered Bush)

I find it insulting to my personal dignity for my government to treat the United States in that manner.

Maybe Bush should've focused on Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a lost cause owing to no small degree to the overwhelming amount of resources being diverted to Iraq, instead of fighting terrorism in Afghanistan.
I do not consider it against my dignity to pass up on the opportunity to clean up after Bush.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And why did the American staff repeatedly fail to target OBL when there was a chance of getting him?

A French documentary claims French soldiers had two opportunities to shoot and kill Osama bin Laden, but they were not given the go-ahead by their American superiors.
According to media reports, the documentary says French special forces had the leader of al-Qaeda in their sights twice in Afghanistan, in 2003 and 2004.
The soldiers would have fired on him, the film says, but the order to kill simply never came from the U.S. commanders in charge.


The newspaper Le Figaro said Thursday that the documentary is based on interviews of four soldiers by filmmakers Éric de Lavarène and Emmanuel Razavi, who call their documentary Ben Laden, les ratés d'une traque (Bin Laden, the Failures of a Manhunt ).


The documentary has created a stir among government officials. The French cable network LCI says the Defence Ministry is calling the film's claims "pure fabrication."
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2006/1...ma-france.html

Completely crazy? I am not sure anymore. Rumours have abounded for years. Certainly, the American military staff did not go out of its way to smoke OBL out at the beginning of the war.

Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) on Monday accused former President George W. Bush of “intentionally” letting Osama bin Laden escape during the American invasion of Afghanistan.

“Look what happened with regard to our invasion into Afghanistan, how we apparently intentionally let bin Laden get away,” Hinchey said during an interview on MSNBC.




“That was done by the previous administration because they knew very well that if they would capture al Qaeda, there would be no justification for an invasion in Iraq,” the Democratic congressman continued. “There’s no question that the leader of the military operations of the U.S. called back our military, called them back from going after the head of al Qaeda.”




When host David Shuster followed up to ask if Hinchey really thought Bush “deliberately let Osama bin Laden get away,” the congressman responded: “Yes, I do.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/30020.html

[Brenus]

“What better way to sabotage their mission before it even starts?”
I’ve got one:
The former administration started this to catch a criminal, no idea how to do it then missed him. Then we bombed with B 52 rocks and mountains and started few things we really didn’t know where it would lead.
As the Army will tell you, we don’t know where we are, we don’t know where we go, but we go, lost but grouped (from the French Mechanised Units Motto, Paumés mais groupés).

We’ve got a mess to clean up. When I say “We” I think “You”.

So, boys I sent you in a far far away country to fight for, er, I don’t really know now, for an certain amount of time and to achieve something for er, I don’t know for whom and what.
And be good boys…
I hope you understand the Mission because I don’t.

But don’t worry Mission will be Accomplished. And it is not because we have nothing to say that we have to shut-up…

God bless G. W. Bush and America etc etc.

[KukriKhan]

I do not consider it against my dignity to pass up on the opportunity to clean up after Bush.

The mess to be cleaned up was made by alQueda. Bush was assigned the cleanup, and got bored halfway through and went elsewhere. The new guy now has to finish the original job, and clean up the smeared floors left by Bush's lackluster cleanup effort. Sux, but he did volunteer for the job.

NATO allies invoked Article 5 (an attack on one, is an attack on all) to provide assistance. I'm sure everyone hoped, back when it was crafted, that that article would be used when Iceland (for example) was attacked by the USSR, and everyone else, especially the US, would rush to aid. But it worked out the other way around: the US got attacked, so the others are obliged.

Any and all assistance provided so far is appreciated, and the US is grateful for any further help, however substantial or symbolic.

Get binLaden
dismantle his network
deny his assets of manpower, money, and materiel
come home

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I am very unhappy about the impossible position we're now in. Both options are :

A -Increase troops. But what for? They'll arrive in 210, and will have to be withdrawn in 2012. What's the point in wasting a billion euros and getting a few dozen deaths to make a political point?

As Blackadder would put it: it would be easier to just take a few dozen French recruits and shoot them at the Champs-Élysées.

B -Keep them at current level. Then you let Obama down. If not personally, then at least it will be a blow to multilateralism and transatlantic co-operation. Of which so many complained that there was so little of under Bush.

I'm inclined to simply say "lack of backbone", but the issue here is that NATO has insufficient forces on the ground, French and German troops engaged in the fighting directly alongside, British, American, and Canadian ones would remedy the problem and increase the chances of success. In the end Obama is less likely to withdraw if he recieves meaningful French and German support, because this will bolster his position at home considerably.

If the Frenmcha and Germans matched the British contribution, that would be an extra 13,000 troops aproximately, or a whole Division's worth of men.