[smiley]

Can anyone of our Freepers please explain to me how France and Germany can strong arm the peace process? I just do not understand it. Thank you.

[snooker]

Sure the Frenchies have a veto over anything else. Cold war relic.

[AntiGuv]

Because the active-duty Army cannot maintain an occupation force above 60,000 beyond March - according to the Congressional Budgeting Office... We don't have enough soldiers..

[Bikers4Bush]

They still have a veto despite the fact that they aren't qualified to.

[ohioman]

F*ck France and Germany.

[Austin Willard Wright]

Simple. Our troops are spread thin in the world as a result of being thin spread in Iraq. Hence, even a brash fellow like Rumsfeld is forced to go begging to the UN for more troops. The problem of world policing overextension was made repeatedly by antiwar freepers in their predictions before the war, of course.

[GraniteStateConservative]

Because we are desperate. It's quite reasonable. If you are a crack dealer and a crack whore comes to you for a fix, the crack whore doesn't have much leverage in negotiations.

We need help. We can't get help without UN suppport (because that's what India and Pakistan and Turkey require). Therefore, we do what we must for UN support.

We have plenty of resources to defeat armies. We don't to occupy nations. It is absolutely a failure that we didn't line up help from other nations to support us in the occupation before the war. It's harder now to get help (with the affirmation that these foreign troops would be in harm's way) than before when such a notion was just speculation and not a fact. We've also hurt our military, too. Don't be surprised to see recruiters having to work harder to meet their quotas-- particularly for the National Guard.

[bushfamfan]

Well, Chirac and Shroeder are encouraged because all President Bush does is give them pats on the back and praise them. All's well with France, with Germany. They have been emboldened by our soft tone with them.