Dark Predictions For A Post-Withdrawal World
Victor Davis Hanson
NRO
The present Washington parlor game is to argue over the consequences of a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq. Vietnam is often the referent for both sides — the Left claiming that at least American human and material costs ceased after 1975, as Vietnam eventually found a weary sort of equilibrium. The Right replies with the genocide in Cambodia, the Boat People, and the thousands of Vietnamese executed and sent to reeducation camps — and, of course, the three decades of tyranny that followed.
But even that notorious parallel is inexact. Almost all American ground troops were already gone from Vietnam by 1973, in Richard Nixon’s multi-year “Vietnamization” plan of withdrawal that had slowly reduced our footprint from over a half-million soldiers to about fifty. That surreal scene of American choppers on the Saigon-embassy roof in 1975 was an evacuation of diplomatic personnel and loyal South Vietnamese desperate to flee Communism, not a mass flight of American military personnel in the face of battle.
In fact, the military of the United States has never abandoned an entire theater of operations in its history. It lost its army in the Philippines in 1942, but did not flee. The disasters in Mogadishu and Beirut — as hallowed to the architects of radical Islam as the bloody victories of Iwo Jima and Okinawa are to us — were small affairs involving minimal numbers of ‘peace-keepers.” Wake Island and the Kasserine Pass are still infamous six decades after the fact, but both were tactical defeats under fire, not wholesale theater abandonments of the battlefield.
In truth, this country has never quite experienced anything like the French collapse in 1940 or its precipitous withdrawal from Algeria in 1962, or the implosion of Soviet forces in Afghanistan and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, much less the more rapid backpedaling of entire German army groups in 1944 on both the Western and Eastern fronts.
What would be the consequences of such a novel experience? Who knows? But the Left is probably correct — cf. the July 8 editorial in the New York Times — that we could probably redeploy without significant casualties. And it is likewise prescient to anticipate that mass killings in Iraq would probably follow — if not a Cambodia-like holocaust, at least something akin to the gruesome fate of the Harkis, those Algerians loyal to France, but left behind to be disemboweled after the French flight across the Mediterranean.
It is easier to envision post-democratic Iraq as a tripartite badlands: a shaky Kurdistan living under the fear of alternate invasion from either oil-hungry Turkey or an ascendant Iran; a Sunni Anbar serving, like Waziristan or Somalia, as a terrorist haven, effused with Wahhabi money and sharia courts; and an Arab Shiite rump state of Iran, residing in safety under an Iranian nuclear umbrella, that would be the convenient jumping off point for Shiite insurgents in the Gulf States. The sorting out of populations into these various enclaves would be messy and bloody, if not like the Pakistani partition of 1947, at least akin to what we saw in the Balkans during the 1990s.
What would the effect be of all this televised carnage and chaos on the United States? Antiwar critics would turn on a dime — disclaiming their prior assertions that our presence ipso facto had been the chief cause of the violence in Iraq. Instead, when the mass beheadings of female reformers and serial shootings of “collaborators” appeared on our screens, American and European leftists would almost immediately blame our fickleness for the carnage. Theirs would not be entirely a humanitarian critique — that our withdrawal was not handled sensibly or with proper concern for civilian security — as much a damning indictment of our military incompetence, far greater than the 1990s furor during the no-fly-zone years over the Shiite and Kurdish massacres that resulted from our failure to go to Baghdad in 1991. Just as our resolve and stubbornness are now alleged to have resulted in the deaths of thousands, so our irresoluteness would soon be cited for the murders of tens of thousands.
A second effect would be a sort of psychological devastation of the U.S. military, particularly the army. Critics of the Iraq war allege that once out of Iraq, we would not have precious assets exposed in Iraq (where the enemy is), and thus enjoy better options in dealing with, for example, Iran. But what precisely is the point? That our military would flee the messy encounter with al Qaeda to reengage al Qaeda on supposedly better terrain and with better odds? As in Afghanistan? The Pakistani borderlands? Or that a Shiite Iran should be fearful of an America freed up through defeat by Sunni terrorists?
Why would an Islamist cadre bumble into a clean-shooting war with our superior ships and planes when it had previously mastered the blueprint of fighting our foot soldiers house-to-house? If we take out nuclear installations in Iran cleanly from the air, we forget that the retaliation will not be with Scud missiles, but more likely terrorist attacks against our troops somewhere in the Middle East or our civilians at home — as all such deterrence against such terrorism will be lost in the mess in Anbar.
So we forget that armies are living, breathing organisms in which, as Napoleon warned, the moral is to the physical as three is to one. In other words, an exhausted American public and a defeated U.S. military would not for some time be either willing or capable to face another enemy — any more than France after 1962 could be a reliable NATO ally, or Argentina was a renewed threat to the Falklands in 1985, or Britain after Suez could play a prominent role in the Middle East.
Militaries that are beaten and flee take decades to reconstitute and regroup. Command, the mood of the rank-and-file, an army’s self perception — all that is recast in the shadow of recrimination, no more capable of quick resurgence than a boxer recapturing the championship after a surprised, terrible beating.
Indeed, even after the five-year withdrawal from Vietnam, the American military took twenty years to regain its own confidence. If we blame a Jimmy Carter for the Iranian hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the unchecked Cambodian genocide during 1977-79, or the communist infiltration of Central America, he can at least claim he was a mere epiphenomenon of the times — that a war-weary American public and a demoralized military were in no shape to engage in another disastrous foreign adventure.
One of most surreal sound-bites of the First Gulf War was President Bush’s assertion that the “ghosts of Vietnam have been laid to rest” — this a half-world away, and some 18 years after the last combat troops had left South Vietnam! And if we worry that our new president in 2008 will have to worry about thousands of soldiers still in Iraq, we should worry even more that he will immediately be challenged by all sorts of enemies emboldened by the nature of our flight from Iraq.
In fact, “redeployment” is a euphemism for flight from the battlefield. And we should no more expect an al Qaeda that won in Iraq to stop from pressing on to Kuwait or Saudi Arabia than we should imagine that a defeated U.S. military could rally and hold the line in the Gulf. Would the IEDs, the suicide bombers, the Internet videos of beheadings, the explosions in schools and mosques cease because they now would have to relocate across the border into Kuwait or Saudi Arabia?
In essence, the American military would be reconstituted for a generation — and recognized as such by our enemies — as a two-pronged force of air and sea power. The army at best would stay capable of fighting non-existent conventional wars but acknowledged as incapable of putting down increasingly frequent insurgencies. If Vietnam, Beirut, or Mogadishu left doubt as to the seriousness of American guarantees, Iraq would confirm that it is a dangerous thing to ally oneself with an American government and military. Aside from realignment in the Middle East, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines would have to make the necessary “readjustments.”
The “surge” would be our high-water mark, a sort of 21st-century Pickett’s charge, after which skilled retreat, consolidation, holding the line, and redeployment would be the accepted mission of American arms.
It is not easy securing Iraq, but if we decide to quit and “redeploy,” Americans should at least accept that the effort to stabilize Iraq was a crushing military defeat, that our generation established a precedent of withdrawing an entire army group from combat operations on the battlefield, and that the consequences will be better know
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1knqJ5QS_g&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fanarabscontemplations%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F
seems the soldiers are over tired
In truth, this country has never quite experienced anything like the French collapse in 1940 or its precipitous withdrawal from Algeria in 1962
french army did win the Algeria war ; it was a referendum with a fair majority pro withdrawing which let De Gaulle to proclam the independance of Algeria though.
“Let’s take the toughest case first: the German invasion, 1940, when the French Army supposedly disgraced itself against the Wehrmacht. This is the only real evidence you’ll find to call the French cowards, and the more you know about it, the less it proves. Yeah, the French were scared of Hitler. Who wasn’t? Chamberlain, the British prime minister, all but licked the Fuhrer’s goosesteppers, basically let him have all of Central Europe, because Britain was terrified of war with Germany. Hell, Stalin signed a sweetheart deal with Hitler out of sheer terror, and Stalin wasn’t a man who scared easy.
The French were scared, all right. But they had reason to be. For starters, they’d barely begun to recover from their last little scrap with the Germans: a little squabble you might’ve heard of, called WW I.
WW I was the worst war in history to be a soldier in. WW II was worse if you were a civilian, but the trenches of WW I were five years of Hell like General Sherman never dreamed of. At the end of it a big chunk of northern France looked like the surface of the moon, only bloodier, nothing but craters and rats and entrails.
Verdun. Just that name was enough to make Frenchmen and Germans, the few who survived it, wake up yelling for years afterward. The French lost 1.5 million men out of a total population of 40 million fighting the Germans from 1914-1918. A lot of those guys died charging German machine-gun nests with bayonets. I’d really like to see one of you office smartasses joke about “surrender monkeys” with a French soldier, 1914 vintage. You’d piss your dockers.
These guys faced the Germans head on for five years, and we call them cowards? And at the end, it was the Germans, not the French, who said “calf rope.”
When the sequel war came, the French relied on their frontier fortifications and used their tanks (which were better than the Germans’, one on one) defensively. The Germans had a newer, better offensive strategy. So they won. And the French surrendered. Which was damn sensible of them.
This was the WEHRMACHT. In two years, they conquered all of Western Europe and lost only 30,000 troops in the process. That’s less than the casualties of Gettysburg. You get the picture? Nobody, no army on earth, could’ve held off the Germans under the conditions that the French faced them. The French lost because they had a long land border with Germany. The English survived because they had the English Channel between them and the Wehrmacht. When the English Army faced the Wermacht at Dunkirk, well, thanks to spin the tuck-tail-and-flee result got turned into some heroic tale of a brilliant British retreat. The fact is, even the Brits behaved like cowards in the face of the Wermacht, abandoning the French. It’s that simple.”
Gary Brecher “The Frenchs”
July 22nd, 2007 at 6:51 ammay-be you could rest on a referendum too, if the majority of your people is pro-withdrawing, then your honor is safe
July 22nd, 2007 at 6:55 amVictor Davis Hanson is great. Why is there only one democRat with common sense about this issue of jihadism? That would be Joe Lieberman, of course. Defeat is not an option in this conflict. Stupid people don’t want to fight.
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:00 amany more than France after 1962 could be a reliable NATO ally
this guy doesn’t know history, De gaulle gave up nato as well he planed for US army going home 1962-1967
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:01 amHelluva sad commentary. But VDH lays out the consequences for abandoning the field very well. What the slumber party and their dailykos kids fail to understand could cost the United States it’s very existence.
These people rate power and hatred far above the safety of a nation. There are no generals in Congress. And we as a nation cannot afford to let these hateful, contemptable swine ruin this nation with their ad nauseum lying ass agitprop.
We the people are still the ones who own this country. We do not work for Congress, they work for us. But if Congress will put their own hate-filled agenda over the security of this nation, then it is incumbent upon the people themselves to rescue this nation from the brink.
Congress and the courts have become tyrants over us. It is high time we the people, start thinking seriously about taking their power away from them.
A few lines written in 1776 are worth a re-read:
….That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness….”
We cannot afford to let this great country be destroyed by a group of foolish, marxist-leaning elitists, be they members of the demedia, the courts or Congress.
The only platform that we should be giving defeatists in the demedia, congress or the paid liars of the ACLU is a gallows. Let them utter their final words as the hangman pulls the lever and just before their evil souls drop into hell.
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:10 amHey Frenchy:
You cry like a girl. (no offense to the great patriotic women in here).
We and the Brits saved your country twice. You have the freedom to use such phrases as you office smartasses joke about “surrender monkeys” with a French soldier, 1914 vintage. You’d piss your dockers.” because of the blood that America and Britian shed.
Trouble is Frenchy there are no more 1914 Frenchman. They’re all dead. They have been replaced by spoiled little pussies.
And we aren’t talking about France or 1914. This ain’t about you or that wimpy coutry of yours. Go smoke some hash or something, drink some wine…don’t worry, when this war is won, it won’t be because your pussy-ass countrymen suddenly turned into 1914 Frenchman or 1941 Resistance people, it will be because once again, the baddest country on the planet crushed another tryant.
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:22 ameheh Dan, you can say what you want, history can’t be only rewritten with your own glasses
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:39 amThat’s right Frenchy. And you aren’t very good at it. So why don’t you stick to drinking wine and eating cheese. You aren’t very good at anything else.
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:43 amDamn good idea - Think through what will happen before you decide that withdrawal from Iraq is the answer.
This message needs to yelled from the skyscrapers in NYC to the cafes in San Fran so that the people who parrot what the Dems are saying without giving it thought can hear it and know what their world will be if they choose withdrawal.
Somehow we need to get these very well thought through ideas into the Main Stream Propaganda Machine (MSPM).
Time to write a letter to some editors.
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:48 amFrenchy:
And I see you took my advice and are using a translator. Your English is better.
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:54 amDan and France, if I can step in here a second. You’re both correct.
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:55 amDan, you are lacking a bit (?) of imagination
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:56 amOh look, the cheese-eating surrender monkey is back.
Don’t you have some jihadists to collaborate with? It’s a safe bet you won’t be doing anything to _protect_ your country from those swine.
.
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:57 amFrenchy:
What’s to imagine? You’re an idiot. What else is new.
July 22nd, 2007 at 8:01 amHey J.C
Well thanks, I think. However, I enjoy arguing with Frenchy. I come from the same culture as his. So I sort of understand why he’s such an idiot. My relatives are just like him. We argue all the time…Sort of a French tradition you might say…at least in my family it is….
But unlike most of my family, I take after my Sioux ancestors, not the French ones. I love to fight.
July 22nd, 2007 at 8:06 amFracnetheRetour: It is hilarious and very presumptious for you to say that VDH does not know history.
Perhaps you would enlighten us as to your own credentials.
Just to set the record straight; I don’t think VDH even hinted that the French army was made up of cowards. Now, he may have a word or two to say about French political leadership. It is inescapable that throughout the period of the “phony war”, the French army far exceeded the Wermacht in numbers and capability. All that was lacking was the will to use it.
Regarding Algeria, and for that matter all of the European colonies, the die was cast long before the final act. The Europeans, French included, over-reached themselves with their Empires. By that I mean they could not maintain Empire and fight two internecine wars among themselves. The very idea of Empire was doomed. Neither the politians nor the war-weary populace had the will to maintain the status quo. But the vacum left by collapsing Empires set the stage for disaster–for millions of native peoples.
Of course being a Francophile you think EVERYTHING is about the French, so you did not even notice that VDH also refers to the bloodbath in India-Pakistan as the British Empire collapsed.
Where did you dream up that trash about France giving us NATO? You destroyed any credibility you may have had with that one statement. Ask yourself these basic questions; who benefitted from the creation of NATO? Who maintained hundereds of thousands of troops on foreign soil; dozens of airwings; and and a standing fleet in Europe to insure that NATO was viable? Do you think it was France’s minor league nuclear capability that deterred the Russians for a minute? DeGaulle took the French out of NATO militarily because he could not be the dominant figure. But, he was still hiding behind the American shield. DeGaulle may have been a pompous ass, but no one ever said he wasn’t clever–and devious.
Step away from the comic books and pick up a history book.
July 22nd, 2007 at 8:07 amDan, I return the compliment, hehe frenchy who can’t assume
Robert, don’t worry, here, every single jihadist is under big brother glance, that’what you don’t know how to manage without big guns
Oldflyer, seriouly, I wasn’t arguing about VDH intentions, just making some developments on his quotations
as far as Nato is concerned, here is a link you could use a translator (as kindly suggested by my “compatriot” Dan
)
http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/article.php3?id_article=113
July 22nd, 2007 at 10:02 amFrenchy:
See your problem is that you think that this is all some kind of video game. It isn’t. You’re perfect Dhimi material for the Jihadists. And you’ll be the first person to give the Jihadis your national salute…both hands in the air.
Face it Frenchy, you people make great and wine and cheese, but you aren’t any good at anything else.
There is no fight left in you French. You are cowards. If you had any real guts, you’d fight the Jihadis instead of plying them with nice words.
We don’t have that problem here. But you go ahead and spew your socialist propaganda and run your mouth.
The day is comming when you will have to fight or surrender to the Jihadis. And I’m betting you’ll become like your Belgun cousins: collaborators and pussies.
I do like arguing with your sorry ass. It reminds me of home.
July 22nd, 2007 at 10:20 amFrenchy, we saved De Gaulle’s ass and how did he repay us? Stabbed us in the back, dropped out of NATO and decided that France was Great again. Too much ego for such a small mind and large nose.
July 22nd, 2007 at 10:24 amPatton hated De Gaulle. He considered old Charlie to be a complete wimp. If it were up to Patton De Gaulle would have spent the entire war digging latrines.
Patton said of the French: “I would rather have the Germans in front of me than the French behind me.” Patton knew that De Gaulle was just another cheese-eating back stabber. Kind of like Frenchy is.
July 22nd, 2007 at 10:50 amDr D Semper Fl, who said we don’t repay ?
you are ignorating all the underground help though with renseignments ;and if our army isn’t showing off in Irak, that doesn’t mean she is not operating in places in agreement with our both governments.
as far gratefulness :
http://www.ambafrance-us.org/news/statmnts/2007/omaha-beach_2007.asp
hey, dDanny, speak for yourself whar are you doing for your country behind your computer ?
July 22nd, 2007 at 11:01 amFrenchy:
I talk on my computer shit for brains, because you ain’t in front of me. Unlike you cheese-boy, I already served my country. So yes, I speak for myself amd many of my comrades.
Unlike you we have balls enough to stand up and defend our nation. You on the other hand, like to talk from the safety of your computer.
And you aren’t the return of any Shwartzenager character.
(Folks, that’s what he really thinks he is)
You’ll never be more than another girlie-man french boy.
And unlike you chump, I’m an American first and a frenchman last. I don’t care for the French. I grew up with them. They’re a bunch spoiled, soft, elitist ingrates. Just like you are. They fight like sissies.
And why do you bother to come here anyways? You have nothing in common with us. You have the balls of a chicken and the mouth of a Parisian or a Belgan?
In short, you’re nothing but a fly with shit in its mouth.
July 22nd, 2007 at 11:34 amSo go hang out with your collaborator friends. You don’t belong here.
Frenchy:
PS If you are ever in America, feel free to look me up. I can cuss and fight in French just as well as I can in English. But unlike most of my relatives, I don’t take knives to gun fights. Get my drift?
July 22nd, 2007 at 11:58 amthe argumentation is not what comes in mind when I read your imprecations, eheh missing a play-ground,baby ?
July 22nd, 2007 at 12:19 pmFrenchy:
So I was right you are a liitle chickenshit. And your English still sucks. Try it in French.
July 22nd, 2007 at 12:37 pmFrenchy:
Vous voulez me combattre ou êtes-vous êtes-vous un lâche ?
July 22nd, 2007 at 12:43 pmFrenchy
Where does calling down curses come in to play? What the fuck are you talking about peasant?
I didn’t call curses down on you. I just picked a fight with your garlic-eating ass.
You really should go back to your video games and your Arnold movies. You’ll be safer there.At least until the Muslims take over your country.
No go back to your mother’s basement little man, maybe if you are real good she’ll let you suck her tit and give you some milk and cookies before she tucks you in.
July 22nd, 2007 at 1:00 pmThis Frenchy character is in total denial. France had more than enough warning prior to Germany’s invasion of Poland to prepare for war, they didn’t. Instead they opted for domestic policies. Chamberlain trusted Hitler to stand by his word and when he found he’d been duped, lamented how he had failed the British people. Stalin didn’t sign a non-aggression pact with Hitler because he was “afraid”, he signed the pact because he and Hitler had previously agreed to partition Poland. Eastern Poland for the Soviet Union and Western Poland for Germany. Hitler tricked Stalin (his traditional/idealogical enemy) into believing that Poland would serve as a buffer zone between the two countries. Frenchy’s version of history is one that I’ve never heard or read before, and I read a LOT of history. The facts of history remain, France has lost every war it has gotten into in the last 150 years. Patton once said “I’d rather have 3 German divisions in front of me than ONE French division behind me.” What he meant by that remark isn’t hard to figure out.
July 22nd, 2007 at 1:02 pmAfter reading Mr. Hanson’s article I convinced more than ever that the left is totally clueless what this war on terror really means. They seem incapable of grasping the fact that this IS a war for the survival of western civilization. We cannot afford to allow these Jihadists to even LOOK like they’ve won. Mr. Hanson made from very insightful remarks concerning what would happen if we cut and run now. The American public hopefully will wake up to the reality that this isn’t just a regional squabble we’re involved in, but a real war (if not an unconventional one). Of course you’ll never read articles like this in the MSM. They’re so busy reporting how “badly” the war effort is going and cheering for a Democratic victory in ‘08. If this doesn’t motivate the silent majority to get out and vote, this country is in DEEP trouble. Disengaging and regrouping is the tactic of a beaten army, ours is FAR from beaten. The really sad part is that while our brave men and women are fighting for our freedoms the rabidly partisan left in this country are HOPING for a defeat to consolidate their political power.
July 22nd, 2007 at 1:12 pmTK:
And right you are. Good summation. The French just aren’t very good at combat. They got the foreign legion to do their fighting for them. Now those guys are really good. I’d be more than happy to have legionaires fighting and watching my flanks. But the rest of the French army?
Well, a buddy of mine was a Battalion Commander in Europe and he said that the French never bathed, and smelled like garlic all the time. And they did not put up with hardship in the field as good as the US, Brits and Germans could.
His biggest worry was that the Soviets would invade Berlin and he would have to rely on French troops to defend their sector, which he was sure they were incapable of doing.
Patton knew the French well. Aside from the resistance, they weren’t very good. But once we punched into Germany, the French got their confidence up and started treating German citizens they way Germans had treated them. If one French soldier was killed by a sniper. The French would shoot 100 civilians.
I like the idea. But it was the Brits, Canadians, and the US that bore the brunt of the fighting at D-Day, the hedgerows, and every battle in betwwen all the way to the Elbe.
We helped them in Indochina also. We gave them assistance in Algeria, and in Lebanon. And they spit in our faces?
Like I said, they are elitist ingrates. No doubt we’ll have to pull their asses out of the fire again, if the Muslims try and take over France and the low countries.
And no doubt 50 years from hence, they will go back to their video games, their nice warm homes and forget what freedom costs.
And more crosses and stars of david will dot their landscape, while the bones of American, British and Canadian heroes are buried and forgotten.
Hey, but what can one expect from a bunch of spoiled brats? Especially brats that don’t know their own history such as Frenchy.
You can’t teach left-wing socialists anything. Those kind of idiots can only learn when their freedom is taken away from them. It is happening, slowly but surely, one day soon, Frenchy will be paying the jigya while serving as the slave to his Muslim masters.
July 22nd, 2007 at 1:28 pmyour making more fool out of yourself Danny boy
TK, try some continental books instead of your anglo-saxon ones, did we ever read something fair coming out of them ?
July 22nd, 2007 at 2:03 pmTK:
Once again, a sound analysis. The left in this country doesn’t have a clue…much less the MSM. There is no cognitive reasoning going on in the left. They are out for spite and that’s all. They have to be defeated at all cost.
July 22nd, 2007 at 2:39 pmNo Frenchy the Retard, I’m making a fool out of you. And I’m doing quite well. And you’re still a pussy little man.
July 22nd, 2007 at 3:13 pmGo back to your mother’s basement where you belong.
causes toujours, tu m’intéresses
July 22nd, 2007 at 4:14 pmFrenchy:
causes always, you interest me ?
July 22nd, 2007 at 4:25 pmWell good…
Good grief “France the Retour”; you actually have the gall to post a link to that article in support of your agrument.
You must be the world’s most dedicated Gaullist and Francophile; or else you are the most gullible person in the world.
You probably believe that deGaulle actually led the drive to liberate Paris; after all I am sure you have framed photos of his triumph. Perhaps you will notice how clean the uniforms of the French soldiers are. Of course the Yanks didn’t bring their parade uniforms when they went to France.
Excuse me, I am laughing so hard I am in danger of wetting my britches.
The old man was stopped by French bureaucrats at deGaulle airport. They demanded his visa; but he said he did not have one. “How can you be so stupid to think that an American can enter France without a visa?”, barked the official. Have you never been to France?
I was here once before, answered the aging American, but there was no one on the beach at Normandy but Germans, and they did not tell me I needed a visa.
July 22nd, 2007 at 4:40 pmOldflyerBob:
I like the visa line. That was good. France is one fucked up country, we should have let the Germans keep it.
July 22nd, 2007 at 6:05 pmNOW! NOW! France may have finally realized that they fucked up when they socialized everthing, cut down the work week to discourage good work ethics and social and economical promotion, allowed western hating muslims into their country and pretty much cut their penis off in doing so, A least the had the balls to elect someone slightly consevative to try and get the country on the right path, maybe too late old europe seems to be too pacifed to save their own asses. The new europe (Poland, Checs,Romania, etc.) seem to appreciate their new freedom.
July 22nd, 2007 at 6:47 pmI have personally met french soldiers in my life time and i am generally impressed with them and especially their foreign legion. what criticism i have of the french is their political will or lack thereof.
we have seen personally with this war the effect of panzy politicians on the morale and welfare of ones military. Those who win wars are those who believe in it the most, and who will willing die to secure that victory. this war as any other is a battle of wills. time limits, benchmarks etc are the tools of the cowards. when is the last time you heard alqaeda issuing benchmarks for victory.
their only bench mark is from the quran ” Kill all who dibelieve until the only religion is Islam” Any questions?
July 22nd, 2007 at 10:53 pmOldflyerboy, are you that man ? I am surprised that a visa was requierred, I didn’t see it on “journal officiel”, but it is on the “today question”, as long a visa is requierred for US in United-States ; I am more inclined to think thatyou are quoting an alien’s adventure then ; as far my supposed de gaulle admiration, I would not say that alike, but he is one of our big historical figures, who had the balls to resist to your twisted president who had the ambition to make of France the show-window of the american way of life for the old world and take over our former colonies ; put in power an ex-Vichy service-man, thus a puppet who would have obeyed to the States ; fortunately a resistant sent that puppet to “ad patres” and in the meanwhile Urss had recognized de Gaulle’s leadership as the true one, so that your government had to bow too ; since then the twisted views on France were spread in your supposed historical books ; and therefore de Gaulle had real good reasons not to trust your anglo-saxon governments ; that is also why he wanted an independant defense ; so that in case of “minor” conflicts (I mean not a mundial war) no US or Urss helps would have been nessecited ; and I expect Sarkosy following that line too, he expressed his admiration to de Gaulle in his last discourse. Though the world has changed since de Gaulle, conflicts have changed too ; the energy challenge is global ; and the last none the “best”, US have changed too ; where are the 1945 GI ? The impression I get when I read this place is that you have turned into gun-machines, with no more space for the “american dream” ; your no more reacting
July 23rd, 2007 at 1:14 amas humans, but like ants,
July 23rd, 2007 at 1:19 amDan, the Infidel, 22Jul, 8.06, be grateful you didn’t grow up a Catholic Irishman. Basic training was just a review.
July 23rd, 2007 at 3:38 amThe 1945 GI is alive and well, Frenchy. Of course you wouldn’t know that, because you have never been in our military. You couldn’t “hang” anyways Frenchy, you’re too soft to endure long road marches, rain, snow, lack of food and water? That’s a job designed for real men and women like the people in here.
So you go ahead and throw your elitist crap around. We’ll just keep making fun of you…and laughing at you…you pathethic Belgun frog.
July 23rd, 2007 at 4:38 amI need the patience of Job to read your posts, Frog. Your broken English is very… whoa!
July 23rd, 2007 at 6:55 amladyAngler keep on the job
well I am not pretending to pass a degree with my “broken english” though ; some may appreciate it that way, some with the best will of the world will never, so, who cares ! Mr Boss seems to get amused with it
July 23rd, 2007 at 7:58 amFrenchy is right about one thing WWI was a total bloodbath. Sadly the French never updated their tactics after that. The Maginot Line was a total waste of resources. It was outdated before the first shovel hit the ground. As for French tanks being superior to the German tanks Frenchy is way off base.
The French people will always be portrayed as cowards when they do not stand up for what is RIGHT and standing up for what is WRONG. (example)
Not letting us fly over their country to smack that bitch Momar Quadifi…..WORNG
Electing Sarkosy as President ……RIGHT
Giving a safe haven for that murderous thug Yasser Arafat…..WORNG
Not standing up to those car burning Muslim punks….WRONG
Not helping us in Iraq….WORNG
Taking a stand for decency and humanity……RIGHT
I hope you are seing a pattern, if not take a deep breath and try again, but hurry you have to make a decision soon. “hmmmmmmmmm should I fight for what is right or should I lay down to Alah and wait for my head to come off”
July 23rd, 2007 at 7:56 pmabout the fact concerning the bombing of Kadafi, I bet our government had good reasons to fear a pay back from him, indeed, we had the Tenere air plane blow-up, just because we had biqueries at the borders between Chad and Lybia, nah ?
helping Bin Laden, right ? not meaning Harafat was better
you could have avoid Irak becoming this big mess, if your government had been a bit wiser and listen to experimented countries on this kind of conflicts ; it’s not the army fault anyway ; it was ignorance of how these ME countries react that your administration missed
I bet punk riots are an epiphenomenal fact comparing to what is on your big cities
July 24th, 2007 at 10:41 am