In The News Today…

“The point was that clearly, had you noticed, I had moved away from the belligerant anti-French stance I had previously taken. Had you read one of the other and more recent threads you’d have known that. I also think that maybe you are taking issue with one particular statement, and have ignored the intelligent debate that resulted over the coruse of the thread.”

You might have moved away from the “belligerant tone” but as far as I was aware, you had not qualified your first post. I found it hard to believe my eyes when I read it. I had not seen that you had since altered that post but for all it is worth, it is appreciated.

“SOC, the thread might have been inactive for a while, but that doesn’t mean that the contents of your post didn’t register.”

“I’ll concede you that point. If you want to go back into the archives even and respond to all of the posts there, that’s your right, and enjoy the reading.”

No need for that. I can remember other threads where other issues brought about similarly heated exchanges, with posters who carry a lot more kudos than I do. And it’s not like the present thread was 2 years old, is it?

“When it seemed clear you were continuing in the same vein in other topics”

“Explain that.”

The topic containing a “humourous” summary of the wars France fought. In view of your earlier posts, it did not come across as that funny. I might be guilty of a major sense of humour bypass here, but as people say, a joke coming from a friend does not have the same effect as one coming from somebody who seemed (and I stress the word “seemed”) to have an axe to grind with the French.

“I thought it was more than a one-off and with the greatest respect, I think what you wrote was outrageous.”

“Actually it was a one-off. And apparently I should have made the sarcasm more clear. It was merely an overly violent expression designed to demonstrate my clear and precise disdain for the French position on the issue. I do not necessarily want to obliterate France, in a response in this thread I even go so far as to state that I have no issue with the French people. I do think their position has never been adequately explained, and when French weapons are currently threatening my fellow servicemembers, I reserve the right to develop a degree of animosity towards the adminsitration which allows said weapons to be illegally exported.”

OK, I take your point. You raise very interesting and important issues. I apologise if I overreacted but once again, what would you have said if you had come across a post expressing similar thoughts anout the USA and in a similar way?

“…and enjoy the trouble you stir (which would be pretty childish)”

What trouble have I stirred? Differing opinions is not a definition of trouble.”

People reacting to what you wrote for a start.

“…or whether you genuinely hold these beliefs (which would be a very sad reflection on you).”

Well, I do genuinely hold the belief that the French government is despicable. No, I do not actually advocate a thermonuclear exchange with France. As to how it reflects on me, your opinion is obvious. If I am making this such a bad experience for you with obviously inflammatory remarks, so be it. Consider this my last post.”

OK, that is something different. It’s the gratuitous attack on France as a whole and its citizens which rankled so much. I see it every day in the papers… “The French this, The French that”. Some might argue that it is obvious that some of these acerbic pieces of criticism are only addressed to the French government, but after a while the rehtoric takes a more general tone. The least said about some of the British tabloids the better, but I find it worrying that the whole of France is tarred with the same brush and that at every hint of disagreement between France and the USA or the UK, the same insulting cliches and the same old tired grossly inaccurate statements about France reappear. It’s saddening to see that year after year the same lies and caricatures are spread by some parts of the media and that they are actually taken on board by some people. If a lie is repeated enough times some people start to believe it. During a short stint I did “teaching” at university I actually had a student of mine ask me “so do you think there was really a resistance in France?” in the same way as if he was asking me whether I thought there was life on another planet.
This probably explains why some people are a tad oversensitive about what is said in the media on on discussion boards such as this one.

I get as irratated when French people have a go at the UK for gratuitous reasons and start churning out ill-informed rubish about it. And if truth be told, I do not care much for blind and rabid anti-americanism either. There are clearly quite a few negatives things to be said about those three countries but it is senseless to do it outside a rational framework…

As for this being your last post, obviously it’s up to you… But why would you stop posting because someone took exception to one of your remarks, which you say yourself was a one-off, particularly somebody who does not get involved so often? Your messages are clearly interesting to the majority of the regulars here.
You have said and shown you were willing to engage in more productive exchanges. What would be the reason for not doing that?

I hope this post has clarified things and I look forward to enlightening discussions on various topics.

The point was that clearly, had you noticed, I had moved away from the belligerant anti-French stance I had previously taken. Had you read one of the other and more recent threads you’d have known that. I also think that maybe you are taking issue with one particular statement, and have ignored the intelligent debate that resulted over the coruse of the thread.

But, since no-one is willing to drop this, here we go.

“SOC, the thread might have been inactive for a while, but that doesn’t mean that the contents of your post didn’t register.”

I’ll concede you that point. If you want to go back into the archives even and respond to all of the posts there, that’s your right, and enjoy the reading.

“When it seemed clear you were continuing in the same vein in other topics”

Explain that.

“I thought it was more than a one-off and with the greatest respect, I think what you wrote was outrageous.”

Actually it was a one-off. And apparently I should have made the sarcasm more clear. It was merely an overly violent expression designed to demonstrate my clear and precise disdain for the French position on the issue. I do not necessarily want to obliterate France, in a response in this thread I even go so far as to state that I have no issue with the French people. I do think their position has never been adequately explained, and when French weapons are currently threatening my fellow servicemembers, I reserve the right to develop a degree of animosity towards the adminsitration which allows said weapons to be illegally exported.

“I have no idea whether you posted this to shock and provoke”

As I already explained, it was a perhaps ill-conceived use of literate imagery. Pardon if that term makes no sense, my B.S. is in military history and not grammar.

“…and enjoy the trouble you stir (which would be pretty childish)”

What trouble have I stirred? Differing opinions is not a definition of trouble.

“…or whether you genuinely hold these beliefs (which would be a very sad reflection on you).”

Well, I do genuinely hold the belief that the French government is despicable. No, I do not actually advocate a thermonuclear exchange with France. As to how it reflects on me, your opinion is obvious. If I am making this such a bad experience for you with obviously inflammatory remarks, so be it. Consider this my last post.

One last thing-I did go back and edit-out the offending part of my first post to demonstrate that I am in no way purposely attempting to be belligerent or insensitive to any individual.

SOC, the thread might have been inactive for a while, but that doesn’t mean that the contents of your post didn’t register. When it seemed clear you were continuing in the same vein in other topics, I thought it was more than a one-off and with the greatest respect, I think what you wrote was outrageous. You may wish to turn the tables and claim this is an overreaction, but I don’t think you’d have reacted kindly to a poster expressing similiar thoughts about the USA (and you’d have been entirely justified).
Moreover nothing in your post indicated that this was not what you thought.

Garry, thanks for your replies. I remember our earlier discussion very well and I really appreciated the fact we were able to talk things through and the fact you had an open mind as well as an impressive knowledge of military hardware and of modern international politics and history.

Like you say, I am not anti-American in any way, shape, or form. There are too many things I like and appreciate about the USA to mention. Most of the Americans I have met were warm, positive and a joy to be with.
I just think some of the gratuitous insults traded recently were not conducive to any interesting and constructive debate and exchange of ideas.
Newt Gingrich was recently interviewed on the BBC World TV channel by Tim Sebastian. He made an atriculate and forceful case for the US position and, like one of Collin Powell’s TV address broadcast a few weeks ago, it was much more convincing than the debasing name-calling that had been such a feature of some transaltantic media of late.

It has nothing to do with calling chirac names.

It is the anti french humour that seems to be in response… not to any perceived anti american comments or opinions held by posters here, but merely because the French government didn’t vote the same way the american government wanted them to.
Of all the posters here who could be perceived as anti american… I know I am considered by some to be in this group, I certainly wouldn’t include Snowman as one of them.

Even now I wouldn’t add him to that group as I know he isn’t that shallow. Keep pushing the France is weak and can’t win a war line and I’m sure there will be a few more people to criticise the US and its policies… 🙂

Ironic that the US seems to perceive friendship as those who do as we tell them and share all of our paranoid feelings.

Of course the real irony was that because of their excelent work in Desert Storm the French Legonaires were given a special role of protecting the flanks on many attacks. The mutual high esteem led to Stormin Norman being offered honorary Legionaire membership and Stormin Norman accepted it. If he thought they were crap and couldn’t win a war by themselves would he have accepted? Or used them for the rather important role of flank protection?

Crying about calling Chirac names ? That is amusing. People here don’t mind insulting Bush or Blair, so I would say don’t bItch about it.

As for Chirac, I am not interested in anything he has to say.

Come on SOC, I don’t think Snowman posts here to get attention… look at his post count.

We have had a few chats… me and sno and he doesn’t come across to me as an attention getter. He even cured me of my general hate for all things French. (They did blow up a ship in the harbour of our largest city and kill one man… and just like America we lost men fighting in WWI and WWII to help them and other countries there… admittedly we only went to help Britain but our efforts indircetly helped them too.)
…he actually got me to change my mind!!!!
I think you and Vort and PhantomII will appreciate what that means!

Remember SOC, that the statue that welcomed many of those who settled America, that symbol of liberty and freedom… is a French Chick

It’s ok. You have my permission to take everything I say seriously and as 100% fact. Feel free to overreact to draw attention to yourself and a thread which was clearly not active recently.

SOC,
Even bearing in mind the disclaimer you used in another post warning readers not to take your messages too seriously, I really cannot let your anti-French rants go without saying anything.

In the first post of the present thread, you said

“More sense, actually, then my preferred option-a 200kT, 30-minutes-or-less-or-the-next-one-is-free bombarding of Paris. People would say “oh, but what about the people?” The people are the problem. They voted for him and are encouraging him by not looking outside their wallets, giving huge numbers in an anti-war poll. Level France, I say. Payback for all of this crap (…)”

So in other words, you advocate launching an unprovoked attack on the capital of a democratic country leading to massive loss of innocent lives. Why? Because the president of that country disagrees with the president of yours. Sounds like terrorism to me.

You say the French voted for him. You do not appear to be aware of the circumstances surrounding Chirac’s election. The French electoral system is such that in Presidential elections, after the first round the two candidates with the most votes go through to a second round. Many candidates stood for office in that first round (too many one would say). As a result of that, and the fact pollsters kept telling every one the two candidates in the final round would be Chirac and Jospin (mainstream left-wing party), many people seem to have chosen to vote for a minority party, in order to voice their displeasure with the main parties. Others did not vote (and will live to regret it for a long time). As it turned out, to everybody’s utter surprise, the French far-right wing candidate, Jean-Marie le Pen, edged out Jospin to face Chirac in the second round. Most of the country reeled from that result and then proceeded to elect Chirac because they felt it was the only choice possible.
There are many French people who do not support Chirac and his policies, but voted for him as they felt it was the lesser of two evils.
Even today, not everyone in France is behind him and there are dissenting voices in France saying that the war on Iraq is justified and even desirable. But that is the hallmark of a democracy. People have the right to disagree and express their concerns.

There is another thing you conveniently forget in your utterly outrageous post: Paris is not only populated by French adults who voted in the election. It is also home to a lot of children and to a fair amount of foreign nationals (including Americans). Would you think nothing of obliterating them?

I have no idea whether you posted this to shock and provoke and enjoy the trouble you stir (which would be pretty childish) or whether you genuinely hold these beliefs (which would be a very sad reflection on you).

Whatever the reasons, the ideas you expressed are disgraceful.

“Do you count the Kurds as part of the unimportant ones? Or the Iraqi civillians? “

They were screwed in 91, but I also believe the international community ignored them when they were being gassed in the 80s as well… in fact the US tried to blame the Iranians for the gassing!!! Now they want to go in and save them… They must be feeling very Polish about now.

“At least two members of the forum have advocated that President Bush be killed. “

Just Two? During one presidency he has changed the government in Afghanistan… that the US created in the first place, Managed to upset a reconciliation in Korea with his stupid axis of evil rhetoric, and now he wants to kill another leader of a country the US once supported and his entire regime… because the fine print in UN 1441 could be read to mean force is an option…

Shrub is a halfwit and will never get my respect… and SOC you can call Chirac or Putin or Gadaffi anything you like… Bush jnr is a moron.

“Can you list the weapons that the US has supplied Iraq with? “

The most valuable thing the US supplied the Iraqs was satellite photos of Iranian troop concentrations so that Saddam could use chemical weapons more effectively.

“and France seems alright with violating that embargo to keep them F-1’s and Gazelles flying. “

Please lose the holier than thou tone… the US has violated many sanctions for its own convenience. Oliver North Ring a bell?

“France supplied and is supplying components WHILE sanctions are in place. That’s the difference. And another example of undermining the UN’s authority.”

Well when playing international politics if there is one big bully that gets most of the defence contracts, to survive you take what else is on offer… I believe the US uses the CIA and the foreign nationals they recruit for deniability… it seems the French and other violators don’t have that level of finesse.
Considering the US still hasn’t dropped cold war sanctions on Russia I guess sanction dodging has become a sport.

The US likes to support its allies, but when other countries do the same it is bad?

Talk about history repeating… WWI happened and the unreasonable demands created WWII. The US was smart enough… or perhaps I am giving them too much credit for rebuilding their former enemies… maybe it was just to rebuild the wall around the new enemies that they corrected the mistakes made after WWI.

More fuel for the fire. Makes for a very interesting read, and brings up a few suspicions regarding the motivations of a few Security Council members…

New York Times
March 13, 2003

The French Connection

By William Safire

WASHINGTON — France, China and Syria all have a common reason for keeping American and British troops out of Iraq: the three nations may not want the world to discover that their nationals have been illicitly supplying Saddam Hussein with materials used in building long-range surface-to-surface missiles.

We’re not talking about short-range Al Samoud 2 missiles, which Saddam is ostentatiously destroying to help his protectors avert an invasion, nor his old mobile Scuds. The delivery system for mass destruction warheads requires a much more sophisticated propulsion system and fuels.

If you were running the Iraqi ballistic missiles project, where in the world would you go to buy the chemical that is among the best binders for solid propellant?

Answer: to 116 DaWu Road in Zibo, a city in the Shandong Province of China, where a company named Qilu Chemicals is a leading producer of a transparent liquid rubber named hydroxy terminated polybutadiene, familiarly known in the advanced-rocket trade as HTPB.

But you wouldn’t want the word “chemicals” to appear anywhere on the purchase because that might alert inspectors enforcing sanctions, so you employ a couple of cutouts. One is an import-export company with which Qilu Chemicals often does business.

To be twice removed from the source, you would turn to CIS Paris, a Parisian broker that is active in dealings of many kinds with Baghdad. Its director is familiar with the order but denies being the agent.

A shipment of 20 tons of HTPB, whose sale to Iraq is forbidden by U.N. resolutions and the oil-for-food agreement, left China in August 2002 in a 40-foot container. It arrived in the Syrian port of Tartus (fortified by the Knights Templar in 1183, and the Mediterranean terminus for an Iraqi oil pipeline today) and was received there by a trading company that was an intermediary for the Iraqi missile industry, the end user. The HTPB was then trucked across Syria to Iraq.

Syria has no sophisticated missile-building program. What rocket weaponry it has comes off the shelf (and usually on credit) from Russia, so it therefore has no use for HTPB. But cash-starved Syria is the conduit for missile supplies to cash-flush Saddam, as this shipment demonstrates. We will have to wait until after the war to find out how much other weaponry, for what huge fees, Saddam has stored in currently un-inspectable Syrian warehouses.

The French connection — brokering the deal among the Chinese producer, the Syrian land transporter and the Iraqi buyer — is no great secret to the world’s arms merchants. French intelligence has long been aware of it. The requirement for a French export license as well as U.N. sanctions approval may have been averted by disguising it as a direct offshore sale from China to Syria.

I’m also told that a contract was signed last April in Paris for five tons of 99 percent unsymmetric dimethylhydrazine, another advanced missile fuel, which is produced by France’s Société Nationale des Poudre et Explosifs. In addition, Iraqi attempts to buy an oxidizer for solid propellant missiles, ammonium perchlorate, were successful, at least on paper. Both chemicals, like HTPB, require explicit approval by the U.N. Sanctions Committee before they can be sold to Iraq.

Perhaps a few intrepid members of the Chirac Adoration Society, formerly known as the French media, will ask France’s lax export-control authorities about these shipments. U.N. inspectors looking at Iraq’s El Sirat trading company might try to follow its affiliate, the Gudia Bureau, to dealings in Paris.

Is this account what journalists call a “keeper,” one held back for publication at a critical moment, made more newsworthy by the Security Council debate? No; I’ve been poking around for only about a week, starting with data originating from an Arab source, not from the C.I.A. (Anti-Kurdish analysts at Langley have it in for me for embarrassing them for 18 months on Al Qaeda’s ties to Saddam, especially in the terrorist Ansar enclave in Iraqi Kurdistan.)

This detail about the France-China-Syria-Iraq propellant collaboration makes for dull reading, but reveals some of the motivation behind the campaign of those nations to suppress the truth. The truth, however, will out.

Originally posted by Bhoy
Alastair, bring on the Scousers… they’re next on my rubbing it in campaign… 😉

I’m a Motherwell fan based in Bothwell so most of my workmates are Celtic season ticket holders , even though we beat you earlier this season I think you’ll beat the Scousers , Bobo’s Gonnae Get Ye !!

Well, I see the world in this moment is like being ruled by a powerful tyrant (I’m not saying that “he” is a evil or good tyrant…) which calls itself democratic!! :confused:

Regards,
Primer

Originally posted by ELP
I had a LOT more respect for you Geforce when you had the avatar of that marxist “Che” Guevara. At least that guy had something he believed in. 😉

I never believed in Che Guevare and in communism as a whole. I`m a capitalist selfish western *******. And I have something I believe in: 100% anti-war at this moment.

(b) All ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres and related major parts, and repair and production facilities;

Is Saddam going to start doing this any time soon?

(a) Iraq shall submit to the Secretary-General, within fifteen days of the adoption of the present resolution, a declaration of the locations, amounts and types of all items specified in paragraph 8 and agree to urgent, on-site inspection as specified below;

See, this is how it is supposed to work. No one is paying attention to this key issue. By having the inspectors actually have to search for the crap in Iraq, Saddam is already in breach. He is supposed to present the UN with either a pile of anthrax, etc, or a list of where everything is. If the UN inspectors walk into a building and find some banned item, and it waasn’t presented outright at the beginning, breach. People seem to ignore this quite easily and would rather talk about having the inspectors search Iraq with microscopes on their own, but that is sadly not what is supposed to happen at all.

UN Resolution 687 dated 3 Apr 1991

Articles 7 through 13…………….

7. Invites Iraq to reaffirm unconditionally its obligations under the Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, signed at Geneva on 17 June 1925, and to ratify the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, of 10 April 1972;

8. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of: (a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities; (b) All ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres and related major parts, and repair and production facilities;

9. Decides, for the implementation of paragraph 8 above, the following:

(a) Iraq shall submit to the Secretary-General, within fifteen days of the adoption of the present resolution, a declaration of the locations, amounts and types of all items specified in paragraph 8 and agree to urgent, on-site inspection as specified below;
(b) The Secretary-General, in consultation with the appropriate Governments and, where appropriate, with the Director-General of the World Health Organization, within forty-five days of the passage of the present resolution, shall develop, and submit to the Council for approval, a plan calling for the completion of the following acts within forty-five days of such approval:
(i) The forming of a Special Commission, which shall carry out immediate on-site inspection of Iraq’s biological, chemical and missile capabilities, based on Iraq’s declarations and the designation of any additional locations by the Special Commission itself;
(ii) The yielding by Iraq of possession to the Special Commission for destruction, removal or rendering harmless, taking into account the requirements of public safety, of all items specified under paragraph 8 (a) above, including items at the additional locations designated by the Special Commission under paragraph 9 (b) (i) above and the destruction by Iraq, under the supervision of the Special Commission, of all its missile capabilities, including launchers, as specified under paragraph 8 (b) above; (iii) The provision by the Special Commission of the assistance and cooperation to the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency required in paragraphs 12 and 13 below;

10. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally undertake not to use, develop, construct or acquire any of the items specified in paragraphs 8 and 9 above and requests the Secretary-General, in consultation with the Special Commission, to develop a plan for the future ongoing monitoring and verification of Iraq’s compliance with this paragraph, to be submitted to the Security Council for approval within one hundred and twenty days of the passage of this resolution;

11. Invites Iraq to reaffirm unconditionally its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1 July 1968;

12. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally agree not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons or nuclear-weapons-usable material or any subsystems or components or any research, development, support or manufacturing facilities related to the above; to submit to the Secretary-General and the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency within fifteen days of the adoption of the present resolution a declaration of the locations, amounts, and types of all items specified above; to place all of its nuclear-weapons-usable materials under the exclusive control, for custody and removal, of the International Atomic Energy Agency, with the assistance and cooperation of the Special Commission as provided for in the plan of the Secretary-General discussed in paragraph 9 (b) above; to accept, in accordance with the arrangements provided for in paragraph 13 below, urgent on-site inspection and the destruction, removal or rendering harmless as appropriate of all items specified above; and to accept the plan discussed in paragraph 13 below for the future ongoing monitoring and verification of its compliance with these undertakings;

13. Requests the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, through the Secretary-General, with the assistance and cooperation of the Special Commission as provided for in the plan of the Secretary-General in paragraph 9 (b) above, to carry out immediate on-site inspection of Iraq’s nuclear capabilities based on Iraq’s declarations and the designation of any additional locations by the Special Commission; to develop a plan for submission to the Security Council within forty-five days calling for the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless as appropriate of all items listed in paragraph 12 above; to carry out the plan within forty-five days following approval by the Security Council; and to develop a plan, taking into account the rights and obligations of Iraq under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1 July 1968, for the future ongoing monitoring and verification of Iraq’s compliance with paragraph 12 above, including an inventory of all nuclear material in Iraq subject to the Agency’s verification and inspections to confirm that Agency safeguards cover all relevant nuclear activities in Iraq, to be submitted to the Security Council for approval within one hundred and twenty days of the passage of the present resolution.

so which countries are ignoring their UN duties Ben? Don’t think its just the US and UK do you?

Bhoy,

Dont think your going to get too far away from this topic for a while – opinions too polarised. Talking of polarised opinions I’m a lifelong Everton fan…..I hope you stuff ’em. Ideally I’d have liked them to stay in the European competition as long as poss to give ’em more matches to have to play towards the end of the season. Your lot stuffing them good and proper might just put a good dent in the Worthie Cup arrogance though!

Alastair, bring on the Scousers… they’re next on my rubbing it in campaign… 😉

I had a LOT more respect for you Geforce when you had the avatar of that marxist “Che” Guevara. At least that guy had something he believed in. 😉

The Falklands are British Sovereign Territory , there are few if any Argentinians on the Islands , this is British Territory populated by Brit’s , Argentina invaded the Falklands so we kicked them out . This was no UN decision , us + them -we kicked them out .

Bhoy , just noticed your Avatar Image – never took you long to rub it in !!!!

this is getting boring, really…

Falklands… well, we were invaded (Why Argentina did this, I dunno… the most annoying thing is, it got Thatcher relected), so it was self defence. :s

Anyway… what would the US know about UN Vetos? They’ve only used theirs 53 times (by themselves). Coincidentally, 35 of them were all against resolutions critiscing Israel…

Full stats on UN veotoes…

US and the UN

Perhaps it’s ironic that in spite of the whining about the behavour of the US , it was the US that took the current issue of the inspections to the UN last fall. That’s the inspection regime you some of you seem to think is key now. If it is so important, why did France Germany, China or Russia, not bring it before the Security Council before Bush did?

Could it be that they were all to busy making deals for oil or selling weapons to Iraq?

The US has one of the best ( if not the best) record of bringing such issues before the UN. Korea, the Gulf War with the UK and Afghanistan come to mind.

I don’t recall NATO getting UN approval to attack Serbia a short time ago.

What about the UK/France attack or Egypt?

The UK in the Falklands?

France in Veit Nam (which it then ran away from and left the US to try and sort out the mess) and Algeria?

Russia in East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan in 1979?

China in Tibet?

Iraq in Iran and Kuwait?

The Arab Israel conflicts and all the others including the current nightware in the Congo which the UN is doing nothing about.

By comparison, the US intervention in Grenada, Panama an Lybia were like police actions.

We could also discuss how the US withdrew from Somalia but if we did we would also have to discuss how Belgium ran away from its responsiblitie in Rwanda and left the UN contingent holding the bag or about the UN troops in Bosnia who handed over thousand to be murdered. Lots of blame to go around it would seem.

SOC

Yes, the issue about who provided weapons to Iraq is a side issue now, but I didn’t bring it up and I thought Hand could at least support his claim:)

Regards

Sauron