Posted on 08/20/2008 11:21:46 PM PDT by Dawnsblood
France reacted in shock on Wednesday to the death of 10 of its soldiers in an ambush in Afghanistan and questions began to be asked about the country's worst military loss in 25 years.
President Nicolas Sarkozy, who flew to Kabul on Tuesday, said France was committed to its engagement in Afghanistan where it took part in the 2001 invasion to topple the Taliban.
But the opposition Socialists called for a parliamentary committee to meet and doubts were expressed about the official account of the incident in which the 10 soldiers were killed and 21 wounded in a fierce mountain battle.
"Afghanistan -- should we leave?" ran the front-page headline of the Thursday edition of left-wing newspaper Liberation, which is strongly critical of Sarkozy's policies.
The daily Le Monde quoted an unidentified French soldier wounded in the ambush who said there had been communications breakdowns and long delays in relieving the outnumbered patrol.
It also said some soldiers had been hit by the allied air strikes called in to help them.
The Pentagon said there had been no reports of soldiers killed by close air support and the head of the French general staff denied on Tuesday there had been any major tactical errors made by the patrol.
But families of some of the men, whose bodies arrived in Paris on Wednesday night, reacted bitterly.
"We shouldn't have sent these young men to go and get killed," Roland Gregoire, the uncle of one of the dead, told Reuters. "What's certain is that they died in an ambush, like game animals," he said.
Army chief of staff General Elrick Irastorza said lessons would be drawn from the engagement to "improve procedures and our way of working."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
"We shouldn't have sent these young men to go and get killed," Roland Gregoire, the uncle of one of the dead, told Reuters.
That's all al-Reuters can find? One anti-patriot quote from a relative? News flash - one is usually not considered sufficient to be defined as "some." And why did they quote the uncle? Father and mother not left-wing enough?
It's disgusting that the Left is exploiting these tragic deaths to promote their anti-Western Civilization cause. But that's just typical behavior for them.
Calls for a pullout have so far come only from the extremes of the political spectrum -- the Communist party and the leader of the far-right National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Never did understand why so many FReepers love Le Pen. Not only does he not support his own country's troops, he's also vociferously anti-America and anti-Israel. And worse, he's called for the European far right to ally with the Muslims.
P.S. $50 says Roland Gregoire becomes France's Cindy Sheehan.
10 dead? From the weeping and wailing you would think it was the Battle of the Marne.
Considering that they only have about a thousand on the ground there and the fact that they are getting ready to add more I understand it. It is a weird place they are in. I think it best that we try to convince them then to chase them away.
France is always “shocked” about something or another. Should have let the Germans keep it.
Whatever happened to the days of getting mad at the enemy and wanting to kill them back?
Funny, no tears for the murders committed by the rioting “Asian youths” in Parisian suburbs, year after year.
liberalism is what happened. It creates a mindset of “I’ve been attacked, its obviously my fault somehow.”
France lost 1,397,800 men killed in World War 1 and 217,000 in World War 2. A sense of balance might be in order for the French. Did they perhaps think that this was going to be a war where nobody was killed or wounded on their side?
I beleive that the reason France and Great Britain are such messes right now is that almost all of their warrior class (i.e., conservatives) were killed off in two World Wars and what was left is what they’ve got now.
More thn enough reason to “make the other poor bastard die for his country.”
Up. The wars left the wimps, gays, shirkers to pass on their genes.
They also lost over 90,000 in the first Vietnam war
Sounds like a good reason not to fight wars.
Ten soldiers is their worst loss in 25 years!?
Here’s a thread proving out what I was musing about on the thread about the soldiers’ deaths.
About attitudes shown by the country and other countries the NATO soldiers are from.
It shocks and horrifies them because to them, this is not an actual, real, high stakes war for western civilization. And even if it were, they’d somehow like not to be involved.
In no way was my post on that thread placed there to detract from the deaths of the individuals or their units or families that suffered this loss.
It didn’t occur to me that there was a ban on comments re: the larger issues of the war we are in, on that thread.
But here’s a news story thread that says it all, even better than I could.
Sounds like the New York Times.
“Ten soldiers is their worst loss in 25 years!?”
It’s the largest casualty count from ONE SINGLE engagement since 1983 - not the total losses obviously. Unfortunately, more French soldiers died - including in Afghanistan where there alteady were 9 KIA IIRC.
Sorry if you feel that not enough French soldiers are dying every day.
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