92%
Posted on 10/08/2001 5:51:16 AM PDT by l33t
PARIS, Oct 8 (AFP) -
France's commitment to the US-led attacks on Afghanistan prompted grumbling Monday within the ruling left-wing majority, with Green and Communist deputies urging the government to keep its distance from Washington.
The most vehement criticism came from Noel Mamere, a Green deputy and a likely candidate for next April's presidential elections, who said the strikes amounted to an "act of war" against the Afghan people.
"The military response launched by the Americans is an act of war against the Afghan people, a people who risk paying a high price for international terrorism," Mamere said.
"This riposte runs the risk of being disproportionate," he added. "George W. Bush is well and truly his father's son." Bush's father, former president George Bush ordered US-led attacks against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War.
The Communist Party, another junior partner in the Socialist-led coalition, also urged caution on the government.
"France must not appear to be a simple appendix of the United States which makes decisions for the entire world," Communist deputy Jean-Pierre Brard said. He called for an emergency debate in the National Assembly on France's role in the conflict.
Meanwhile Socialist Party spokesman Vincent Peillon said parliament would be consulted in the coming days on French participation to the US-led strikes, thoguh he said it had not been decided whether to put a motion to the vote.
"We consider these strikes to be legitimate and we back them. It would be a grave error to consider that these strikes are aimed at the Afghan people," he said, referring to Mamere's comments which he described as "curious and confused".
Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine and Defense Minister Alain Richard were due to appear Tuesday before the assembly's defense and foreign affairs committees to outline France's involvement in the military operation.
The interior ministry announced Monday that French intelligence agents were already on the ground in Afghanistan working with the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance.
"The US knows that we can join in the action with dozens of planes or boats and thousands of men, to participate in operations on terrorist targets in Afghanistan. It's a matter of days," Richard told Le Monde newspaper.
The strikes that began Sunday are in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States that killed nearly 5,500 people. Bin Laden has been accused of organizing the attacks.
President Jacques Chirac gave his full-hearted support for the US attack in a nationally televised address Sunday and said French forces would take part.
As opposed to the enlightened and superior intellectual atmosphere of your typical communist/socialist mega-state or two-bit, third world theocracy. There's some "pyramids" of brainpower for you!
The appearance of the anti war crowd so early in the game is a true marker of the speed at which these things will come...The alliance against terrorism appears to actually be paper thin, with only Bush and Blair having any real commitment to it.
For someone so smart, you sure write some dumb things. Who cares if this "alliance" doesn't last long? The alliance serves its purpose and then we move on to create a new one, to serve the next purpose. As Bismarck said, "We have no permanent allies, only permanent interests."
but I have always despised stupidity.
You shouldn't be so hard on yourself! Considering some of the opinions I've read around here lately, I think you fit right in!
They have finally found the Arabic word for Kommeradan.
It isn't the French people it's their government and not all of their government just the commies and leftists. Remember, most of us on FR didn't agree with the Clinton and his policies, but that was the official position of the US Government during his administration. Don't blame the French people blame the government.
However, I'm sad to say that my infatuation with the French has departed years ago, along with their best souls and bravest hearts. Now all the seems to occupy France is a shallow, insipid shadow of what once was. People so narcissitic and anti-intellectual that it defies imagination. A country so bent backwards on itself it would not recognize its own former greatness if it came back and kicked them in the @ss.
Sigh...What a sad nation they have become. The last time I visited France, the airport Customs officer stamped my Passport with "We Surrender", translated into 318 different languages. I wasn't aware that I was an invading force until that moment. I'm still trying to decide what to do with my "invasion" booty. :)
Pathetic.
You're full of it, "darlin'" But then, I knew that when I responded to you. Thanks for confirming the obvious.
Oh, by the way, Mr. Brilliant, -- that's "Staten Island." I see that your literacy is on par with your reasoning powers.
There was an excellent article in Command magazine, Issue #22...you might be able to find it at a wargaming shop somehwere. The article went into areas of World War II that were really under-researched--it was more along a set of questions than a set of detailed answers to those questions. One thing that the author was curious about were patterns of behavior: for example, why the Imperial Japanese Navy could manage to be quite competent at the tactical level, adequately competent at the strategic level, but quite INcompetent at the operational level once the war was on in earnest--planning operations that required the Americans to act in the fashion that the Japanese plan needed to succeed, that sort of thing.
The pattern of behavior he observed with the French is that they fought as best as they were able against the Americans, the British, and the Australians--in fact, they turned in a quite credible record against all comers except the Germans and the Japanese. Again, it's not the question of an isolated incident, it's a long-running pattern.
France also didn't let us overfly their sorry-assed "country" when we bombed Libya, either. We had to fly around that nasty armpit of a country.
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