France shows her weakness once again

[dazzleman]

I read an article on the BBC site that many Germans are rather jittery about the hypothetical (if very, very unlikely) prospect of German- and Israeli soldiers pointing guns at each other. Apparently there's some history between the two.............

Btw, with regards to France, further down in the article MODU posted it states that they already have 1.700 troops in the region, so effectively they'd be bolstering it up to 1.900 as opposed to just sending 200.

Is that supposed to be considered a huge commitment, commensurate with the level of world leadership to which France aspires?

[dazzleman]

France will increase its deployment to 2.000 soldiers ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/24/AR2006082401106.html

It's about time.  Still, I think Italy should take over the operation since they are showing the initiative.  France is dragging their feet.

Well, I'm afflicted ... but before this a country whose initial ones are U, S and A provided weapons to Israel and encouraged the continuation of their offensive against Lebanon, so you might understand that France is asking itself questions about the legitimacy of USA's position...
Moreover, many French and European people find quite ... shocking, or at least disturbing, that a part of USA's politicians and public opinion is complaining about slowness (2 unhappy weeks!).
After all, aren't France and EU just trying to repair the damages caused by an unclear war nearly officially supported by the USA ? It's a real pleasure,  to hear Bush saying he's deceived that France hasn't send enough boys to clean up USA's mess ...

Well, I'd say that even if this is the USA's mess (highly debatable), cleaning it up will cost France far less in terms of lives and money than the US has spent in dealing with messes that France created by commission or omission (say, Vietnam, not to mention WW II), so we're not even close to being even.

[dazzleman]

France will increase its deployment to 2.000 soldiers ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/24/AR2006082401106.html

It's about time.  Still, I think Italy should take over the operation since they are showing the initiative.  France is dragging their feet.

Well, I'm afflicted ... but before this a country whose initial ones are U, S and A provided weapons to Israel and encouraged the continuation of their offensive against Lebanon, so you might understand that France is asking itself questions about the legitimacy of USA's position...
Moreover, many French and European people find quite ... shocking, or at least disturbing, that a part of USA's politicians and public opinion is complaining about slowness (2 unhappy weeks!).
After all, aren't France and EU just trying to repair the damages caused by an unclear war nearly officially supported by the USA ? It's a real pleasure,  to hear Bush saying he's deceived that France hasn't send enough boys to clean up USA's mess ...

Well, I'd say that even if this is the USA's mess (highly debatable), cleaning it up will cost France far less in terms of lives and money than the US has spent in dealing with messes that France created by commission or omission (say, Vietnam, not to mention WW II), so we're not even close to being even.

France tried to clean up its own mess in Vietnam - ie hand power peacefully over to Ho Chi Minh. They were thwarted by the US of A.

They did it too late.  They should never have gone back in after World War II.  I don't blame the French for the whole mess -- the US obviously had its share of missteps.  But the whole problem would have been avoided if it weren't for the French.

I say all this not so much to bash the French, but in response to the point that the French are being ask to clean up the USA's mess in Lebanon.