Posted on 11/04/2001 8:38:50 AM PST by 11th Earl of Mar
Edited on 09/03/2002 4:49:30 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
PARIS (Reuters) - Nearly half the French public believes the four-week-old U.S. military action in Afghanistan is failing, a poll released Sunday showed.
The survey by pollsters Ipsos for the Journal du Dimanche weekly showed 47 percent thought the campaign was failing, with just 17 percent confident of success.
The remainder of the 969-head sample, interviewed on November 2, gave no response or said the outlook was unclear. No definition for what constituted success or failure was given.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
This is amazing! I never thought that in my lifetime I would ever see the number so low.
Bravo!
Huh? We have total air superiority and have lost 2 helicopters and 2 drones in the process, all in less than 2 months after the terrorist attacks in a place almost directly on the other side of the world from our country.
Logistically alone, I find this to be an amazing feat. After all, how can we insert ground forces if we don't have any over there yet, and no established platform from which to attack?
I say bomb them into dust and worry about whether we're "winning" or not later.
In November, 1939, the French public and news media were ridiculing the "Phony War" with Germany.
In June, 1940, the victorious German Army marched in a victory parade along the same route through Paris that the French Army had taken on their victory parade at the end of World War One.
As to the "success" or "failure" of this campaign--how will Americans guage the outcome?--Those who are still sentient enough to want to know what's going on, that is.
And, by the way, what IS the goal? Is it the childishly fatuous goal of rooting out terrorism in the world? Vanquishing Evil? Smoking out Osama and his--perhaps tens-of-thousands--of toadies.
If so, then the French--rational as always--are correct--so far.
But I'm an American and I know that Shoeless George will have, at the very least, given Evil a bloody nose by the time the calla lillies are in bloom....
We saved their sorry assess? In round One of the campaign to make the world safe for democracy we waited until the end--until the Europeans were bled out. Most of the action took place on French soil. Imagine the soil of Ohio awash with millions of dead humans. Imagine life under those circumstances. And yet, the French maintained their culture.
Had we kept our noses out of Round One, and followed the advice of our Founders, Round Two would not have happened. England and France would have been forced to sign a very different peace accord than the one signed at Versailles. So one could accurately state that the US intervention in WWI made WWII inevitable.
In the midst of your comtempt you might also consider the fact that through all of the twists and turns of their history, the French have managed to maintain a recognisably French culture and French way of living. Has The Last Remaining Superpower On Earth managed to do that--for all our wealth and military might?
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