Non, ce n'est pas "la vie".
It's not a matter of playing some sort of silly game.
The American war effort in Iraq right now is having the very foundations pulled out from it by political problems within the UNITED STATES. Nothing going on has anything to do with France at all. It has to do with problems in America, between Americans.
The Gulf War was an allied tactical victory, which was stopped too soon.
The Cold "War" was not a war.
The Algerians have assimilated better than you understand. It is why the protests in the French banlieux looked like French labor unrest, and not like Madrid and London train stations. The Beurs HAVE BEEN assimilated, culturally. They have NOT been assimilated ECONOMICALLY, and that is the problem. They're frustrated by that, and rightly so (to an extent).
But it's not germane to the issue, is it. It's a sidebar. France annoys you, apparently, so you're going to generate a series of beliefs for yourself by which France is defeated and humiliated, in your mind. Meanwhile, out in the real world, the PROBLEM is that AMERICAN resolve is cracking in the Middle East well short of victory.
There are reasons for that, but if it isn't addressed, America's going to have another awful defeat and retreat to hang on the wall next to the pictures of the last helicopter out of Saigon, the last boat out of the Bay of Pigs, the transports leaving Beirut, the burnt out carcasses of the US transports in the Iranian desert, and Blackhawk Down.
There OUGHT to be lessons learned from these strategic blunders and humiliating defeats, but the lesson seems to be "Well, at least we're not as bad as the French!"
To which my response is (1) That's not claiming much, and (2) Since the foundation of the Fifth Republic, in my lifetime, actually the US has a much WORSE military track record than France does. The US overcommits militarily but undercommits politically, such that exposed forces get taken by surprise and killed, and the US pulls out and looks weak. In Vietnam, and it looks more and more like it in Iraq, the US committed militarily to full fledged war without, however, politically committing to legal, properly declared war. And now, as before, the American colossus' feet of clay are falling in again on the POLITICAL front.
You would THINK we would learn. France actually DID learn after 1940. That's why France has nuclear weapons, and was willing to break with NATO in order to develop an independent nuclear arsenal under its own command. No matter what the Americans did or didn't do, if the Soviets were surging over the Rhine, France was going to take out the USSR and the Soviet forces with nukes, to wreck them and wreck it. The Maginot Line was designed to make France militarily secure, but it failed because it could be gotten around. Mutual Assured Destruction is a hell of a lot harder to get around. The Soviets would have had to RELY on France being unwilling to actually USE its nukes to devastate Russia in the event of a Soviet attack that was heading into France. The French lived for four years under the Gestapo. Had the Russians made that bet, it would have been the last one they ever made.
So no, the United States did NOT "save Western Europe's ass yet again". The US may have saved West Germany's ass. The Soviets had no greater capacity to take out France without being burnt to cinders than it did to take out the USA. Nukes is nukes, and France had (and has) an ample supply of them to destroy the USSR. Sure, the Soviets could have bounced the rubble in France many time over. So what? They'd still be shattered and gone as a nation.
France learned from 1940.
But did AMERICA learn from Korea and the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam and Beirut and Mogadishu? Did we? From the looks of Iraq, no, we did NOT. And THAT'S the real tragedy, and it doesn't have one damned thing to do with France.
Strange, you cite the "American losses" in Vietnam and Korea (both Cold War miltary battles) as evidence of America's lousy military track record since WW2, but downplay our overall Cold War victory as "not a war." It was indeed a war, and one in which we lost a few military battles. .....but ultimately prevailed.
The Algerians have assimilated better than you understand.
Delusional, but oh so French. The Islamics are 10%-15% of the "French" population as it now stands, and with their birthrate outdistancing the "Old Europe" French by a country mile it's just a matter of time before the surrender is complete. Let's just hope the French nukes are destroyed before that happens.
the PROBLEM is that AMERICAN resolve is cracking in the Middle East well short of victory.
Concerning Iran, see my post (#141) above. Concerning Iraq, our military victory was complete in about three weeks (in Apr/May of '03). It's the political victory that has eluded us, which isn't exactly surprising considering the barbaric "culture" we're dealing with. So for you to rack this up as yet another "American military loss" is disingenuous.
But we agree about our propensity to overcommit militarily while undercommitting politically. ....usually with tragic results.