PARIS -- Once every five or six weeks, a French presidential adviser named Maurice Gourdault-Montagne flies to Washington to meet with his American counterpart, national security adviser Stephen Hadley. They spend several hours coordinating strategy on Iran, Syria, Lebanon and other hot spots, and then the Frenchman flies home. In between trips, the two men talk often on the phone, usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Welcome to the French Connection. Though the link between the top foreign policy advisers of Presidents Bush and Jacques Chirac is almost unknown to the outside world, it has emerged as an important element of U.S. planning. On a public level, France may still be the butt of jokes among American politicians, but in these private diplomatic contacts, the Elysee Palace has become one of the White House's most important and effective allies.
It's not all that surprising. While the political and media classes of the two nations may be embittered at one another, the spooks and the lower-level diplomats have a good working relationship. Read between the lines of the reports on pre-Iraq War intelligence, and you'll see, for instance, how helpful France was in discovering Saddam's uranium overtures to Niger and alerting the U.S. agencies (which promptly screwed the pooch).
Look, we can work with France. So long as the U.N. remains, and it's not going anywhere, we have to work with France. It's the difficult but indispensible team member. It is one of the few nations left willing to use force, when it suits it to do so; more importantly, it has contacts around the world that America is too isolated, or too lazy, to cultivate.
I think we've mostly played them wrong for the past two generations. France doesn't ask that much: she asks that you treat her like a serious figure, and that you say it like you mean it.
The whole modern (post-1944) history of France is incomprehensible without reference to honor, specifically to the French need to maintain the fiction that their country remains in the first tier of world powers. And this is understandable; to accept demotion would be an irrecoverable slight to honor and a consequent reduction in France's power to protect itself, or influence world affairs.
France will in one moment taunt the United States, and the next turn around and waggle its nuclear fig leaf in the direction of the Tehran mullahs. As de Gaulle once put it, "France cannot be France without grandeur." What but honor, and fear of losing it, is at the root of that? "The surrender of life is nothing to sinking down into acknowledgment of inferiority," John C. Calhoun once wrote. De Gaulle, if he had read that, would have nodded in agreement.
Pricking the French ego may be amusing for a while, but where does it get us in terms of our world goals? Suffering the snubs of their insufferable media-philosophes may be grating, but if that's the price of their cooperation, I'll take it.
je suis d'accord.
Kind of assumed that was going on.
I’m actually more impressed that France Soir is running the Muhammad cartoons – along with papers in Germany, Italy, and Spain.
Europe found some spine overnight? What happened?
Okay, it's not so hard to understand the French need to preserve honneur national. It's just so annoying when they pretend that being ruled by wounded pride is a superior worldview that we're too philistine to understand.
I can also understand France's desire to preserve their power and prestige - although they have tried to do it at our expense by rallying the rotten status quo of the Arab world against us. But it's very annoying to listen to simultaneous lectures about how European sophisticates have given up all worldly ambition and accepted their post-great status.
Also, I believe our collaboration with France will carry a future political price. Right now leftists play at being Gallic wannabes, because it suits their momentary whim. Their grandchildren, though, will accuse us of supporting a corrupt and anti-democratic regime for strategic purposes, just like we did during the Cold War. We'll be accused of practically creating France. Chirac will be "our" Chirac. And so on.
More seriously, future generations of Arabs and Africans may not be as fond of France as their current regimes are. They'll blame us for condoning French imperialism and neo-colonialism, and this time they'll be right.
Future generations of Africans and Arabs will
" France doesn't ask that much: she asks that you treat her like a serious figure, and that you say it like you mean it."
Wow, serious revisionism here! Lets be honest, all France looks for is eternal gratitude when she goes along with you and forebearance when she leaves you out in the cold to go her own way. How many times did France leave NATO? Anybody recall that Libya incident (Gadhafi bombs our people in a nightclub in Germany and France wont let us use her airspace for flyover to teach him a lesson). Thats before we even get into the disingenous (if not outright corrupt) game France played with Saddam and the sanctions all those years. There is a strong argument that we would never have invaded Iraq had the international community in general and France in particular not been playing wink and nod with Hussein for so long that he never actually thought he'd be held to account. And the final blow was actively working against us in the Security Council before the invasion- if you disagree with an ally fine, but going behind their back to work actively against them is a different ballgame.
Yes, work with France when it is useful to do so. But dont for a second think that all the American lives spent on France's behalf in the last century or so, nor whatever 'intimate' ties you think you have will mean jack if France sees a nickels worth of profit selling you out. Recognize that and you'll be fine.
And yet, on the other hand, we also see things like this. That isn't just about honour, it goes deeper.
I'm inclined to accept any real and substantive help offered, and cooperate on common goals when those actually exist, without being lulled. France has an agenda, they have stated it repeatedly, and it is not friendly on the whole. There are places where interests converge, like their former colony in Lebanon. And the united approach re: Iran is nice - but the bottom line must be that it solves the problem. Otherwise, it's just a wank-off that could have a death toll of millions.
And the Ignatius piece seems to conflate "effective" with diplo-talk and not results on the ground (spooking Assad into assassinating Hariri is not what I'd call overwhelming success). Not convincing.
This era is about results. The 1990s are over.
France may WANT honour, but if the country forgets that this must be earned through achievement then no-one can hand it to them and make up for that. As Mark Buehner points out, neither is honour something that can be handed France at the price of our own honour and goals.
What about the oldest treachery from our oldest enemy? 'No, not a sixpense -- millions for defense but not one cent for tribute.' I submit that this particular psycholodgy is more deaply rooted.
Ho ho ho ho
Nihil novum sub sole
Two things:
Result: some kind of Sado-Maso relation, with occasional pasionate transfers of nuclear technology and seats in important world forums.
The whole modern (post-1944) history of France is incomprehensible without reference to honor
honor? National pride, I guess. And Colonialism.
specifically to the French need to maintain the fiction that their country remains in the first tier of world powers.
You know the difference between reality and fiction. Reality is what hurts you when you run into it.
And this is understandable; to accept demotion would be an irrecoverable slight to honor and a consequent reduction in France's power to protect itself, or influence world affairs.
Too late. I think it already happened at the begining of the Second World War, well, it also happened in the First, oh Godness!, it occured in 1870...
"There are places where interests converge, like their former colony in Lebanon. And the united approach re: Iran is nice - but the bottom line must be that it solves the problem. "
yes, but thats true for EVERY nation. Including Britain. Including Australia. Including Israel.
Nations have interests, thats in the nature of the beast. France's interests depart from ours somewhat more than those of the 3 nations I mentioned above. To some degree that makes France MORE valuable - its interests diverge in part because its a more powerful nation (certainly vis a vis Israel or Australia, marginally and arguably vis a vis Britain) "Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting attack" Allies that are powerful enough to be difficult are the ones most worth having. And at bottom France's interests and values are much closer to ours than are Russias or Chinas. And with China growing, and the Islamic world a mess, we need to take the friends, especially the strong ones, that we can.
And yes, spooking Assad into murdering Hariri WAS a huge deal. It may be what sets the ball rolling in Mideast change.
Liberalhawk, you csannot sit here and tell me that getting Hariri murdered was France's plan. Which makes it a botch job with unexpected consequences. We'll take it, but it no more proves their value than having me run over your best friend by accident just before he runs off with your wife would make me your valuable ally.
Your construct seems to be that powerful allies are more difficult, and the difficulty is an indication of their value. Aside from being an expression of masochism, it is simply false. France was by far a more difficult ally than Britain in World War 2, for instance - and was far less powerful and far less valuable. Are we noticing a pattern?
The allies worth having are the ones that can produce results, and can be depended upon they sign on. Period, full stop. If France wants "honor", France needs to produce results that make for a safer, better, freer world - and it's even fine by me if they produce those useful and important results without the USA.
Right now, not happening as far as I can tell. And David Ignatius offers little evidence for this proposition outside of "meetings are taking place." Not enough.
I read a few months ago that the government of France uses its intelligence services to spy on US firms.
OCSteve: // Europe found some spine overnight? What happened?//
This comment and most posted here seem to reflect the belief that the French are finally waking up to Islamic terrorism and are at long last falling in line with the Americans on what to do about it.
That line of thinking as a matter of fact appears to me to be a pretty common one in the US.
There’s just one problem. It’s completely bogus.
The French have understood what islamofacism is all about for a lot longer than the Americans have. Since 1995 to be exact. When a series of attacks by extremist militants killed 16 and injured hundreds.
Just because the French have not felt the need to invade a country unrelated to that Islamic extremism does not mean they have not done anything about it. They have.
May be those who hold this belief are confusing us with the British…:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_islamist_terror_bombings_in_France
Davod, the French have used their intel services for commercial espionage for a very long time. Nothing new there, and in fact it's not uncommon for many countries to do some of that. The French do more of it than usual is all, as do the Chinese, as did the Russians.
Joe Katzman: _//the French have used their intel services for commercial espionage for a very long time
The French do more of it than usual is all, as do the Chinese, as did the Russians.//_
Any fact to back that up?
This, on the other hand, seems to be factual:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/819210.stm
Anti-Semitic bastards. Screw 'em.
Robert Schwartz: //Anti-Semitic bastards. Screw 'em.//
I supposed the insult is addressed to the French.
There too, any fact to back that up?
Here are some:
In a study from the Pew Institute measuring various countries’ sympathies towards the Jewish people, France placed second with 82% having a favorable view of the Jews, right after the Netherlands at 85%.
The US? 5th with just 77% of Americans having a favorable view.
Pew study
Just because the French have not felt the need to invade a country unrelated to that Islamic extremism does not mean they have not done anything about it. They have.
Well, except for the little matter of invading the Ivory Coast, a country which actually was 'unrelated to Islamic extremism.' Unlike, say, Iraq, whose leader was paying bounties to Islamist terrorist groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas for murdering Israelis. And sheltering Islamist terrorists. Pesky little details like that.
Perhaps the smoke from all those burning cars just got in your eyes.
Wasn't the report on yellowcake in Nigeria a French-created forgery? Something about them making it up and presenting it to US spooks, hoping at the last minute to embarrass the US (again) into giving up on plans to invade?
I cannot see France as an ally. Either its leadership nor its people. I also don't take either of those entities seriously, and I certainly don't honor them.
I like it the way it currently is, which is with France being alternately ignored and derided by the rest of the world, and America just goes ahead and does it, whatever "it" we have decided needs doing, without asking the EU and certainly without asking France.
Re: the article itself it's not like newspapers on both coasts (and world-wide, come to that) don't routinely make up whole-fabric wishful-thinking lies in an effort to stamp their world-view on reality.
Achilea: //except for the little matter of invading the Ivory Coast//
Huh? France has invaded the Ivory Coast?
For info, French troops have been sent to Ivory Coast within the framework of Operation Unicorn and under UN mandate (UNOCI). They are there as a peacekeeping force with the White Helmets, also sent under a UN mandate.
NahnCee: //France being alternately ignored and derided by the rest of the world//
Again, any facts to back that up?
Here are the facts on popularity in the rest if the world, which you may not like too much:
In a poll conducted by PIPA in 23 countries around the world, France was seen by 20 of them as having a positive influence in the world. The study concluded that “France [was] most widely seen as having a positive influence in world”. In only one country (guess which one…) was this influence viewed as negative, and it was a mixed view in Turkey.
By contrast, 16 countries saw the US as having a mainly negative influence, and only 6 see it as having a positive one.
Looks like some of you are pretty strong on insults, and a bit short on facts!
NahnCee: // Wasn't the report on yellowcake in Nigeria a French-created forgery?//
First of all, it’s Niger, not Nigeria. I know, I know, those pesky facts! And so many countries with foreign names to keep up with...
What actually happened in Niger however is this :
More than a year before President Bush declared in his 2003 State of the Union speech that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear weapons material in Niger, the French spy service began repeatedly warning the CIA in secret communications that there was no evidence to support the allegation.
The previously undisclosed exchanges, described in a Los Angeles Times interview with Alain Chouet, the retired chief of the French counterintelligence service, happened on separate occasions in 2001 and 2002.
Chouet’s claim — that the French repeatedly investigated the Niger claim, found no evidence to support it, and warned the CIA — was corroborated by a former CIA official and a current French government official, who both spoke on condition of anonymity.
Yet the idea that France, supplier of Saddam's FIRST nuclear program and the Osirak reactor, could be relied upon is laughable at best.
France has consistently supplied nuclear technology and equipement and materials to hostile regimes, including Iran and Iraq. As a nuclear proliferator they are right up there with AQ Khan.
Why do they do this? Money/greed is one motive, to stick their finger in the eye of the US which can be relied upon not to react most of the time is the other. Chirac went to Vietnam and declared that the nations of the world must unite to push back the Americans and Brits from the commerce and culture of the world. The Vietnamese being smart ignored him.
France is pretty much useless with any military help; not only are their military incapable of fighting their way out of a paper bag (as proved by their craven, "run away run away" response in the Balkans and elsewhere for over 130 years) but their sneering, "this eees your 'elicopter" response for assistance in Afghanistan and elsewhere proves their uselessness. They can't even admit they don't have any helicopters to send to Afghanistan.
Where France has some utility is their spy network and saboteurs. The French (as Greenpeace found out) are very good at blowing things up, particularly of unarmed NGOs and have spies everywhere. Of course you can't trust 99% of what they tell you but there it goes. Even a lot of bad info mixed with some good info is better than none at all.
At the lower level of Ministry to ministry, spies and policemen are the same all over. They have the same interests in seeing that terrorists don't blow their citizens up on their watch, with themselves taking the blame. This tends to provide more co-operation than not because they collect and call in favors to cover themeslves politically.
Jim Rockford: //France is pretty much useless with any military help//
That's apparently not what your military thinks :
Support to the Global War on Terror (Operation Enduring Freedom):
Historical perspective:
French commitment to OEF has been strong and resolute since the beginning of the operation.
[…]
As soon as United Nations Security Council Resolution 1378 was issued on 18 October 2001, France forces were sent in Afghanistan.
[…]
Indeed, France was the first country, along with the United States, to have flown bombing missions over Afghanistan in direct support of American ground troops. French forces arrived on the ground as early as 2 December 2001, securing Mazar-e-Sharif.
In total, some 5,500 French service members were sent to the region.
[…]
In addition to its OEF commitment, France is one of the main contributors to the NATO International Security Assistance Force. Since French Lt. Gen PY became the new ISAF Commander on 11 August 2004, France increased its troop strength. Today, out of approximately 6300 personnel in ISAF, 1000 belong to the French armed forces.
France is thus the United States’ second-largest partner in Afghanistan with a total of 1670 French troops.
Other than that, you are absolutely right that helping build Osirak was stupid! I agree with you.
Jim Rockford must have skipped Western Civ. when he attended junior college:
France is pretty much useless with any military help; not only are their military incapable of fighting their way out of a paper bag (as proved by their craven, "run away run away" response in the Balkans and elsewhere for over 130 years)
Hey, Jim: ever heard of a place called Verdun? Hell of a lot of Frenchmen died there. They threw the Germans back and took 750,000 casualties doing it.
The French lost more men in World War II than the USA did. Oh, and they were fighting the Nazis a year and a half before FDR could get the isolationist Republicans on board to join the war.
Gee, and there was the matter of Vietnam, where the French warned us what we were facing. In 1956! But they were French! What did they know about Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese?
superfrenchie:
First of all, I said Europe, and did not single out France:
Next - I have to change that to Germany, Italy, and Spain found some spine, as France backpeddled.
The owner of one of the papers to reprint - France Soir - has now sacked its managing editor over the matter.
Like what? Integrate them into their society? Uhm, no. Crack down immediately in the face of riots? Uhm, no. Can you elaborate on what they have done about it?
//Next - I have to change that to Germany, Italy, and Spain found some spine, as France backpeddled.
The owner of one of the papers to reprint - France Soir - has now sacked its managing editor over the matter.//
So let’s see. France is defined by the actions of one single individual?
Can I do the same for the US? I'll pick Pat Robertson!
//Like what? Integrate them into their society? Uhm, no. Crack down immediately in the face of riots? //
Are you saying the riots had anything to do with Islamic extremism? Again, time to get informed.
//Can you elaborate on what they have done about it?//
Sure.
Well, I’ve already talked about the war in Afghanistan, the prosecution of the 1995 bombings culprits over the objections of the UK (and a total US indifference) and the help of the special services in Niger. The WaPo article referenced in the main post also talks about what the French are doing to fight terrorism. I may want to add the strictest anti-terrorism laws and policies in Europe, the expulsion of Islamic clerics and the prosecution of former Guantanamo inmates. For or against (I’m against) one could even add the “veil law” as a policy designed to curb Islamic extremism.
As this Washington Post article titled "French Push Limits in Fight On Terrorism" says, "When it comes to counterterrorism operations, France is hard-core”. I'll let you read the article for many more examples of what the French “have done about it”
In response to: from NahnCee on February 2, 2006 02:25 AM
"Wasn't the report on yellowcake in Nigeria a French-created forgery? Something about them making it up and presenting it to US spooks, hoping at the last minute to embarrass the US (again) into giving up on plans to invade?
I cannot see France as an ally. "
Yes, the French are knee deep in their own exrement on this one. First of all, their own multinational owns the two mining subcompanies in Niger. The press loves to keep that hidden from the public. France loves to claim " It could have never happened", without of course disclosing their GIGANTIC conflict of interest.
A few links for our French fiend to brush up on:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html
"According to the former Niger mining minister, Wilson told his CIA contacts, Iraq tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998. "
"Wilson said that a former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, was unaware of any sales contract with Iraq, but said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him, insisting that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq -- which Mayaki interpreted to mean they wanted to discuss yellowcake sales. A report CIA officials drafted after debriefing Wilson said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to UN sanctions on Iraq."
"
OOPS. So Joe Wilson lied, and so did the French.
There's more of course.
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/19/wniger19.xml
"Agent behind fake uranium documents worked for France"
Oh, that doesn't look good.
"by commissioning "Giacomo" to procure and circulate documents - France was responsible for some of the information later used by Britain and the United States to promote the case for war with Iraq."
I suppose Frenchie can giggle now. Those in the know - clearly see the intelligence hit France created, of course besides the various power hunger reasons, the fact that their multinational owns the mining co.'s in Niger was reason enough, plus the hit on Bush and USA intel and military power and reasons for war. It was very effective with the sick left, to say the least.
Wilson's wife bragged up his French contacts.
"The CPD reports officer told Committee staff that the former ambassador's wife "offered up his name" and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002, from the former ambassador's wife says, "my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity."
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/congress/2004_rpt/iraq-wmd-intell_chapter2-b.htm
Rocco Martino sheds some light:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=rocco_martino
France cannot be trusted.
Silicondoc:
Again, I'll offer this :
PARIS — More than a year before President Bush declared in his 2003 State of the Union speech that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear weapons material in Niger, the French spy service began repeatedly warning the CIA in secret communications that there was no evidence to support the allegation. The previously undisclosed exchanges, described in a Los Angeles Times interview with Alain Chouet, the retired chief of the French counterintelligence service, happened on separate occasions in 2001 and 2002.
Chouet’s claim — that the French repeatedly investigated the Niger claim, found no evidence to support it, and warned the CIA — was corroborated by a former CIA official and a current French government official, who both spoke on condition of anonymity.
It was not the first time a foreign government tried to warn U.S. officials about dubious prewar intelligence. In the notorious "Curveball" case, an Iraqi who defected to Germany claimed to have knowledge of Iraqi biological weapons. Bush and other U.S. officials repeatedly cited Curveball's claims even as German intelligence officials argued that he was unstable and might be a fabricator, the Times reported.
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald continues to investigate whether the Bush administration unmasked a covert CIA operative in a bid to discredit her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former diplomat whom the CIA dispatched in February 2002 to investigate the Niger reports. Wilson, like the French, said he found little reason to believe the uranium story.
The CIA requested French assistance in 2001 and 2002 because French firms dominate the uranium business internationally and former French colonies lead the world in production of the strategic mineral. "In France, we've always been very careful about both problems of uranium production in Niger and Iraqi attempts to get uranium from Africa," Chouet said.
Chouet, who directed a 700-person intelligence unit specializing in weapons proliferation and terrorism, provided the French-U.S. communications to the Times. He said his agency was contacted by the CIA in the summer of 2001, shortly before the attacks of Sept. 11, as intelligence services in Europe and North America became more concerned about chatter from terrorist sympathizers. CIA officials asked their French counterparts to check that uranium in Niger and elsewhere was secure. The former CIA official confirmed Chouet's account of this exchange.
Twice in 2002, Chouet said, the CIA contacted the French again for similar help. He dispatched a five- or six-man team to Niger to double-check any reports of a sale or an attempt to purchase uranium. The team found none. The information was contained in formal cables delivered to CIA offices in Paris and Langley, VA.
When Bush gave his State of the Union address in January 2003, citing a British report that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium in Africa, French officials were flabbergasted. One government official said that French experts viewed the statement attributed to the British as "totally crazy because, in our view, there was no backup for this."
Chouet's comments come as the FBI and the Italian government re-open investigations into the origins of the documents that surfaced in 2002 purporting to prove the Iraq-Niger link. The documents in question originally surfaced in Rome.
Before speaking with the Times last week, Chouet had told part of his story to La Repubblica, a Rome newspaper, prompting Italian investigators to resume their inquiry and seek Chouet's testimony. The FBI also recently reopened its inquiry into the documents.
I don't have a problem with France. America can be pretty dramatic from time to time itself. We're quite alike in many areas.
The underlying problem is that they sit on the sidelines and don't help out when we need their help the most. That's not a friend. Furthermore, they sit back and ridicule us and call us "cowboys" and help to drive popular opinion against our efforts around the world.
If they are honest friends and interested in the same things we are, they're acting nothing like it. And that's my problem.
I don't care how annoying they are. Let them bring the accordion to the deer hunt and annoy everyone at the campground with bad music and curses when we tell them to stop playing. I just don't want their antics scaring away the deer, in fact I'd rather that they brought a gun and helped. There is a difference between an annoying friend and an annoying antagonist.
I don't care how annoying they are. Let them bring the accordion to the deer hunt and annoy everyone at the campground with bad music and curses when we tell them to stop playing. I just don't want their antics scaring away the deer, in fact I'd rather that they brought a gun and helped. There is a difference between an annoying friend and an annoying antagonist.
A few years ago a bond trader from New York decided to deer hunting in the North Cascades in Washington State. He hired a guide but was such an arrogant jerk, and the guide found him so unpleasant, that he let the bond trader alone for a few hours. Instead of sticking to his position, the trader wandered off into a ravine. There, to his surprise, was a "pack" of deer! So he shot all five of them at a range of a couple hundred yards.
The "deer" were another hunting party's packhorses, tethered to a tree. When the horses' owners returned and saw what happened, the bond trader was damned lucky to avoid sharing the beasts' fate.
The last thing this guy needed was a "friend" to "help" him shoot the wrong targets.
In reply to the naive: from superfrenchie on February 2, 2006 04:06 PM
So, some French retired COUNTER-INTEL spook yaps out a big quack in France's favor, and just like the utterly reliable CIA we're all supposed to believe him ?
Corroborated, of course, by the left wing #2 paper WaPo, some unnamed US spook, whom of course we know by recent disclosures on WMD, are always correct as well, and not part of the problem in any fashion either. ROFLMAO
LOL - You offer nothing but your own foolishness.
Somehow, one might THINK you were smart enough to realize, that offering the criminal the platform to excuse himself from the crime, was a bit thin on evidentiary matters.
Let's see mr. superfrenchie, the French intel says, for the French mining and somewhat former French colony, that the French , and especially the French intel, just didn't see or do anything wrong.
ROFLMAO.
YOU OFFER NOTHING.
Let's see what chinks in the armor of lies exist there anyway. Let's see how the liars bleed more than they wish to show.
One reason for protesting too much ? Oh perhaps one needs to convince another...
"the French spy service began repeatedly warning the CIA in secret communications that there was no evidence to support the allegation. "
Hmmm, repeatedly warning. Amazing. It's a warning when nothing happened, huh. LOL.
Oh, and that " More than a year before President Bush declared in his 2003 State of the Union speech.."
Wow, a big repeated warning that nothing happened a year before the speech was given. LOL . Gee one does wonder why the French intel was launching desperate "warnings" that nothing had happened with yellowcake, and by golly- is good enough to know and tell the CIA repeatedly, discounting any foolish rumors that dashed about long before Bush even made a speech with referrence to the fact.
One also wonders how the French would explain the words of the Niger mining minister I posted before for you.
Well, they can't. They won't. You can't, you won't, and of course there sits your foolish response.
That of course, is not the goal of COUNTER - INTEL, even the happy go lucky off the hook "retired", to offer up their multinationals for sanctions at the UN. LOL
Yes, the dark forces of French intel, we are led to presume, suddenly turn on their former agency when hitting the bricks for scones and wine, so ready to tell the world how they failed to properly report overtures from a sanctioned UN madman Saddam, even as the FRENCH BANK housed the spoils and distribution of the Oil for Food scandal monies. LOL
Will mr. swindle frenchie mibman tell us that never happened as well ?
Let's see more blood, even though on the basis of the very first paragraph, one can clearly surmise the ridiculous slant the writer has, as frenchie warns a year before a speech that wasn't even written at the time.
"by a former CIA official and a current French government official, who both spoke on condition of anonymity."
Ahh, yes the other spy, a CIA, former, perhaps fired, perhaps old and grey and out of the loop, and still unnamed. That's an imaginary phantom for all we know. Ditto on Frenchie official.
"Wilson, like the French, said he found little reason to believe the uranium story."
Wilson found * LITTLE *, but not nothing.
Wilson then lied about little, as have the French.
At least the jackass typing it up found himself incapable of totally fudging the truth as well.
The US SENATE investigated this fudging of Wilson, and found him to be a REPEAT LIAR, AS HIS OWN REPORT BOLSTERED THE CLAIM THAT YELLOWCAKE SALES INQUIRIES WERE MADE.
We have too many LIARS about don't we mr superfrenchie.
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html/
Further problems with fools and loose lips and empty craven noggins hoping to let the criminals convince others of their lack of guilt.
LOL - Oh man, you almost have to be asleep.
" French firms dominate the uranium business internationally and former French colonies lead the world in production of the strategic mineral."
Ahh, so at least the frenchie won't argue what he left out initially, that I had to point out to the rest of the readers, since he falsely attacked one who had already heard the truth.
This next bit is classic:
"In France, we've always been very careful about both problems of uranium production in Niger and Iraqi attempts to get uranium from Africa "
LOL. So- you KNEW Saddam would make attempts to purchase uranium from Africa. LOL.
DID YOUR STUPID REPORT WANT TO MENTION THAT IN FACT SADDAM HAD PURCHASED URANIUM FROM NIGER IN THE PAST? I GUESS NOT.
The tone about the danger of production in Niger is noted as well. This means crimes, and plenty of trouble keeping track of missing things.
So, in the end, we have the French doing the mining, taking the inquiries from Saddam as stated by the Niger mining minister Joe Wlson lied about and the French tried to cover up for, and the French buying the forged documents and paying for their distribution then openly criticizing the USA for using them, while helping to expose them as forgeries, and then sending their foolish retired intel services to chatter up the brains of deadhead morons who are so dumb they'ell ignore all the evidence and take the word of the enemies spy agency instead, especially when they are French.
Please, YOU OFFER NOTHING, AND EXPECT ME TO BE STUPID AS WELL !
I AM NOT AS STUPID AS YOU HAD HOPED.
No need to put another stupid reply. I hate to have to rip apart more wasted crap from the enemy.
Super -- my point stands. The total of 1670 French troops is pathetic in Afghanistan. Please note that ALL logistics have to be provided by the US; when the US at a NATO meeting at Afghanistan requested more French Helicopters the French Minister attending held up a toy helicopter and sneered "here is your helicopter," but in any case they had none to send anyway.
In French relief operations in Pakistan after the Earthquake RUSSIAN helicopters of dubious airworthiness had to be chartered, France has no logistical, almost no air, no helicopter/close air support, artillery, naval, or any other component of a modern, western military, and French forces work VERY poorly if at all with other Western militaries. France has SOME military forces, which don't fight very well, and are controlled by the Ministerial level in Paris rather than given autonomy.
Example: the refusal to act to stop genocide in the Balkans by French troops who were controlled by the Minister in Paris afraid of casualties (much btw like the Dutch). See also Bill Clinton in Mogadishu. Or Cindy Sheehan. This is not an exclusive French phenomena, many other nations including the US suffer from it. What makes France generally useless is that in military affairs they cannot contribute say an independent brigade with full support, and the experience of US forces in Afghanistan with French forces has been negative (the knock being that French forces stick in their garrison and never venture out to avoid politically costly casualties that encourages Al Qaeda and the Taliban even more).
Stickler: The French were decisively defeated by the Prussians in 1870, and during WWI were bled dry. Verdun was a disaster, really a German victory since they lost as you say nearly a million men to hold fairly useless territory. After Verdun the French Army ceased to exist as an effective fighting force and was on the verge of continual mutiny (of which many local mutinies broke out) for the rest of the War. The French at the first sign of actual conflict in WWII collapsed like a wet paper bag in absolute panic. De Gaulle in his War Memoirs wrote that he advocated a fighting retreat to the South, with as many French Military units as possible remaining intact, embarking on the French Med fleet (which the Germans did not have), and fighting on from Algeria with a promise of independence at War's end. Instead the French surrendered completely and collaborated throughout the War at all levels of society with very few exceptions. The idiocy of Dien Bien Phu "hey let's set up camp where the Vietnamese can ring us with artillery while we sit as sitting ducks in a valley" contrasts with the decisive victory at Khe Sahn were the Marines destroyed the NVA. The US was never defeated in Vietnam in the field, but rather constrained by Soviet/Chinese nuclear umbrellas (invasion of North Vietnam was off the table for this reason) and politics at home which sympathized with the Communist regime of North Vietnam.
The French have had no military victories after Napoleon. Their military is simply useless (and a reflection of their culture). Their spy services however are first rate, and on counter-terrorism issues where they have mutual interests of great usefulness. Which is also a reflection of their culture.
As for Niger, ALL French intelligence in Africa is suspect because of their habit of using Africa as their own private playground, hooked up with Nasties such as Interahamwe in Rwanda, or various West African strongmen, including the latest in Niger. Given the long history of France supplying Saddam with many forbidden weapons and being his original nuclear supplier, relying on France for uranium intel in West Africa is like relying on Tony Soprano for an unbiased assessment of the Mob. However counter-terrorism is different because all Western nations have a pressing mutual interest to see terror cells that might blow up Paris today and NYC tomorrow stopped.
HackerDuck: //The underlying problem is that they sit on the sidelines and don't help out when we need their help the most. That's not a friend.//
I don't have a nice parable like Stickler but I'll offer this: in the mind of most Frenchies, we were acting as the best possible friends when we offered that in our experience (Algeria, Vietnam,) Iraq would not turn out to be a walk in the park.
What kind of friend would we be if, after we had in good faith assessed that Iraq was a bad idea, we had told you to just go ahead? Not my idea of a real friendship, at least!
See, Chirac, for all his flaws, and he has many, is good at at least one thing: he knows the Middle East pretty well. As many have noticed, often derisively, he has plenty of friends there. That might be a bad thing at times, but at others it ain't that bad.
Look, I realize many of you do not see it that way. Yet, since things have turned out almost exactly as we said they would (no WMDs, Middle East situation becoming more unstable), maybe you should reconsider.
Don’t worry, I’m not holding my breath ;)
Jim Rockford: //Super -- my point stands. The total of 1670 French troops is pathetic in Afghanistan.//
Well, since they’re the US’ second-largest partner, what does that say about all your other friends?
// Please note that ALL logistics have to be provided by the US//
I’m not an expert so I rely on what your own military says:
Several French war ships are operating along with the allies to fight against illegal maritime smuggling. French contribution accounts for approximately a quarter of the OEF naval force.
Maritime patrol aircraft deployed in Djibouti (ATL2) under national control are participating daily in Intelligence, .
two French C-160 perform regular missions to Kabul and Kandahar for logistical support. .
French reconnaissance aircraft and air tankers have contributed to the air campaign. They were reinforced between the winter of 2001 and the summer of 2002 by French naval aviation forces and French air force transport planes and fighters. Indeed, France was the first country, along with the United States, to have flown bombing missions over Afghanistan in direct support of American ground troops.
What do they fly with? Paper airplanes?
//After Verdun the French Army ceased to exist as an effective fighting force//
They still declared war to Germany when it invaded Poland, while the US chose to maintain an ambassador in Berlin. And waited several years for Germany to declare war to it.
//Instead the French surrendered completely and collaborated throughout the War at all levels of society with very few exceptions.//
For my take on Vichy, see this.
Look, between WWI and WWII, 1,385,000 French soldiers died, 361,000 were declared missing and 4,200,000 were wounded. 10% of the active population and 3,5% of the total population died on the battlefields. As a comparison, if this were to happen now in the United States, the number of casualties would reach 10 million. There would also be 680,000 widows and 760,000 orphans. Throughout Europe, the number of crippled soldiers amounted to 6,500,000. Between 1914 and 1918, the drops in births in France is estimated at 1 million. During WWII, between 1939 (when war was declared by France and the United Kingdom) and 1940, 120,000 soldiers died, not to mention the number of French citizens who died as war prisoners, forced laborers, deported civilians or in acts of resistance against the Nazis during the German Occupation.
The amount of suffering occasioned by WWII in France is impossible to assess and should not be forgotten. Indeed that has amounted to a reluctance to go to war (and the birth of the EU).
Yet, the French never had a zero casualty policy as the US had in the 90’s.
superfrenchie
Why is ETA based in Southern France?
During WWII, between 1939 (when war was declared by France and the United Kingdom) and 1940, 120,000 soldiers died, not to mention the number of French citizens who died as war prisoners, forced laborers, deported civilians or in acts of resistance against the Nazis during the German Occupation.
Did Petain die? No, he surrendered.
not to mention the number of French citizens who died as war prisoners
You mean those Jews uncovered by their own neighbours?
in acts of resistance against the Nazis
The great myth of the resistance!!
The truth is that the French army quickly surrendered when the German Panzerdivisionen began to roll over northern France no matter the destroyed bridges, and most of the population did not oppose the German occupation.
The amount of suffering occasioned by WWII in France is impossible to assess and should not be forgotten.
I agree, the country was absorbed into Great Germany, with even a satellite government operating under their orders. If cardinal Richelieu would have seen it!!!
You only have to go to France and see the rests of Second World War:
- "To the left a fortress built by the Germans in 1943, took over by the Americans in 1944. To the right the German Radar Station destroyed by the RAF just before D-day. In front of you the rests of the 5 mile, 3 meter-wide wall, built by the Germans in three months and crossed by the Americans in a few hours during the battle of..."
Indeed that has amounted to a reluctance to go to war (and the birth of the EU).
Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho
Indeed the French are masters of manipulation.
The EU was built because it was clear the balance between European powers, a balance well maintained by Britain since 1580, was broken forever. Germany had evolved as the major power, impossible to contain by England, France or any other intra-European alliance. What the Wehrmacht had proclaimed in a brutal way during all the Second World War is that Europe will be united, in one or another way or won't be anything at all.
Yet, the French never had a zero casualty policy as the US had in the 90’s.
Well, I think you had it already on D-day when those evil Americans came and liberated your oppresed citizens from the German rule:
American (found) casualties (St James and Omaha Beach cementery): 13,797 [more than an entire division]
British (found) casualites: 21,855 (in sixteen cementeries + a memorial for 1800 brave men missing forever)
Canadian (found) casualties: 5007
Polish (found) casualities: 650
German casualties (also from earlier bombings): +55,000
French casualties: 17 [yes, seventeen]
The French government behaviour is simply shameful, motivated by greed (those weapon sales, oil contracts and Colonialism even toward other European countries) and a obstacle for European and World development. And that is a fact, no matter your propaganda units (Euronews, The Economists), your Americans in love, your leftist friends, your dictators, your secret services and your lodges.
I have seen the French as Allies, during the Balkan nonsense. Especially when a Compartmented Codeword operation was broken to Newsweek. (You should have seen the Sh$* storm, when the senior Officer's on the US side were trying to identify the leaker)
I see some of the well thought out arguments on this page.
My cut is this: I like smashed sandwiches in Toulon. Especially at 0200, when I have a serious buzz. Cannes in the Summer, or the whole Southern coast. Calais, in May/June, when the locals are feeling patriotic.
I also like visiting France, in general. Nice folks.
I even think that individually, a person might be able to count on individual French military types to help in a tight situation. Just don't count on the French Government, or for that matter, the whole of the French Country, to pull your bacon out of the fire when you most need it.
J Aguilar: //Why is ETA based in Southern France?//
I don't know. Nice weather?
Seriously, where do you expect a Basque nationalist organization to be based in, apart from the Basque country? Salt Lake City?
superfrenchie,
We must ask ourselves why is ETA based in France instead of Spain, though it is a Spanish Terrorist organization. Why are their logistics, training, lead members based in France?
Come on, tell me.
dc,
A quote from the Wall Street Journal during the Iraq war about the French government: "They're there when they need you."
Well, it looks like they are going to ask you something.
J Aguilar: //We must ask ourselves why is ETA based in France instead of Spain, though it is a Spanish Terrorist organization.//
ETA, a Spanish organization?
Obviously, some people are as good at geography as in history, around here!
ETA is a Basque separatist organization. The Basque country is a cultural region that extends over both Spain and France.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA
ETA is a Spanish Terrorist group, they target and kill Spanish people, haven't you realize this yet?
Why is ETA based in France then? Their objectives are not there...
Come on, superfrenchie, tell me.
J Aguilar, open a geography book or something.
Also, read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA
Pierre Meets Al Qaeda
There once was a boy named Pierre
Who only would say
I don’t care!
Read his story, my friend, for you'll find
At the end that a suitable
Moral lies there
. . .
Now as the night began to fall
A hungry lion made a call
He looked Pierre right in the eyes
And asked him "Would you like to die?"
And Pierre said
I don’t care!
"I can eat you don’t you see "
I don’t care!
"Then you would be inside of me"
I don’t care!
"Then you’d never have to bother"
I don’t care!
"With a mother or a father"
I don’t care!
"Is that all you have to say?"
I don’t care!
"Then I’ll eat you if I may"
I don't care!
So the lion ate Pierre
I hope to be forgiven one day.
Ah, cowardly French bashing.
Yes, the French sometimes are defeated, and sometimes surrender. Why? They sometimes fight an stronger enemy; something the United States hasn't done since 1783 (even in the War of 1812, "on the basis of available resources the two belligerents were rather evenly matched" (ch. 6, American Military History).
The Scots and the English have been fighting with and against the French for centuries. They've found them difficult often, rash sometimes, craven never.
For three generations, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, France faced an aggressive neighbour, superior in population, economic power, and technology. It also happened to be militarily the most efficient power on the planet. The United States has faced such a situation never.
In the Great War, most observers considered France militarily the most efficient of the great powers on the allied side. Incontestably, she was the most essential to victory. She bore a heavier casualty rate than any other country that lasted the war; the only higher rate was that of Serbia, overrun by the Central Powers in 1915. Yes, the army mutinied for a time in 1917; Russia, Germany, and Austria, with lower casualty rates, collapsed altogether.
French casualties, killed and wounded together, represented 17 per cent of the population. It's difficult (no, impossible) for this generation of westerners to grasp. The South felt it was beaten heavily in the Civil War, and its casualties were 8 per cent of the free population (5 per cent of the total population). Double that, and that's what France endured -- unlike the Confederacy, without surrendering.
Twenty-one years later, they came back for more (twenty-one years after the end of the Civil War, the devotees of the Lost Cause were taking their defeat out on the Negros). In their declaration of war on Germany in 1939, Neville "cowardly appeaser" Chamberlain and Edouard "cheese-eating surrender monkey" Deladier made a braver choice than any United States president ever made or ever could make -- because the United States has never faced such jeopardy (facing the redcoats is not the same thing as facing Nazi Germany).
In the war that followed, France was rapidly defeated by a foe that had leaped ahead in the art of war -- and that defeated with similar rapidity every other country that it attacked. Unlike the British and the Soviets, France didn't have a channel to retire behind, or 600 miles of space in which to regroup. Still less, unlike the United States when it suffered its initial defeats, did it have an ocean between its metropolitan area and the enemy. Both France and the United States ended their first campaign of the war with a surrender; the United States surrendered the Philippines, France, through the malice of geography, herself.
As for what followed; people who've lived secure all their lives may like to imagine that they'd never collaborate, that they'd risk death by torture from the likes of the Gestapo, that they'd be willing to fight using "antiquated equipment" against "modern armour" and a "desperate enemy". Hopefully they'll never find out if that's true.
There's exactly one reason why French cowardice is the favourite theme of the United States' fighting keyboarders; that compared to other countries, France fawns less, curries favour less, is more willing to say no and mean it. If that's cowardice, the world could use more of it.
I think you miss the point Robert,
The question that has to be asked is, if France has lost so many wars, why was and still is a power?
The answer to that question is the key to understand French foreign policy. What they can not get in the battlefield they manage to finally obtain it on a table.
Indeed France fought very well during the First World War, they developed advanced aircrafts, for instance, though they would have not resisted the German advance withouth help from the British, the Americans, and the stupidity of the Prussian generals that changed the Schlieffen plan, a masterwork in strategy. This makes more striking the next point:
France was defeated in WWII before the war actually began. Then Britain and France did the only thing they could do after Hitler broke the Munich agreement (that agreement that was the condemantion of Checoslovaquia). Later, during the so called phony war, they left both armies standing still, not invading Rheinland and occupying the Ruhr region when the German armies were in Poland fighting.
France had decided much before to build a trench, called the Maginot line, and hide underground, a surely receipt for disaster. France was defeated before the war began, her politicians had joined full Socialism and had no arguments to fight German Nationalsocialism. They did not even develop new weapons programs (that antiquated equipment). In many ways they had accepted that Germany would prevail.
It is striking, it has never happened before in human history, such a Nation-wide hara-kiri.
they'd risk death by torture from the likes of the Gestapo
So did the Polish, and 650 graves remind us all their sacrifice during D-day operations. They never accepted the German rule.
J Aguilar:
if France has lost so many wars, why was and still is a power?
Meaning I suppose that she isn't.
The protasis is strange. Is the idea that past defeats are a proof of present weakness, or is it that past defeats are a cause of present weakness? If proof, then, it's true, France is intrinsically weaker than Germany. But that's consistent with being stronger than most countries in the world. If cause, then, no, whatever France lost in past defeats she subsequently regained.
As to whether France is still a power, obviously she's not a superpower, much less a hyperpuissance, as she herself is first to insist. Obviously also she still matters enough to attract a lot of bile from the sole superpower's citizens.
Who does France still matter? A few reasons come to mind: She has the sixth largest GDP in the world, is one of five nuclear powers, has the second strongest military of the European NATO members, is the third largest arms exporter in the world, is one of the two most influential members of the EU, exercises some cultural attraction over many francophone former colonies, cultivates assiduously an interests-based not ideology-based diplomacy. You may be able to think of others.
France was defeated in WWII before the war actually began.
From such military history as I've read, my impression is that the Allies had good chances, until and unless for their failure to anticipate the Ardennes manoeuvre. If there's expert opinion for your position, I'd be interested to see it.
. . . [Britain and France] left both armies standing still, not invading Rheinland and occupying the Ruhr region when the German armies were in Poland fighting.
Again from what I've read, e.g. in Liddell Hart, not prone to charitable judgements of British strategy, Britain and France were quite incapable of mobilizing quickly enough to affect the outcome of the Polish campaign.
France had decided much before to build a trench, called the Maginot line, and hide underground, a surely receipt for disaster.
France has been often faulted for heeding too much the lessons of the last war; surely a grosser error would have been to ignore them. The effectiveness of the Maginot Line is vindicated by the German need to end-run it, with a risky advance through the Ardennes (risky because based on untried logistic concepts, and therefore opposed by much of the German High Command). The great error of the Allies was their failure to anticipate that; if they had anticipated it, the Maginot Line would have allowed them to thin their eastern line and to devote more forces to frustrating the Ardennes manoeuvre.
Contra Jim Rockford, the French didn't "[collapse] like a wet paper bag in absolute panic" "at the first sign of actual conflict". On the contrary, with the British, when they saw that the Germans attacking through Belgium, they themselves moved promptly into Belgium to forestall them. To their misfortune, this promptness just made the Ardennes manoeuver that much more effective in outflanking them.
The Allies didn't lose the French campaign because of any pre-war decisions; they lost because of one great strategic error made during the war, and because, with the Germans' new blitzkreig tactics, that single error was fatal. No "nation-wide hara-kiri", just a small but critical lag in the art of war against a very good (and somewhat lucky) opponent.
[France's] politicians had joined full Socialism and had no arguments to fight German Nationalsocialism.
Bizarre. Have you any evidence for this at all? Through the pre-war build up of tensions, amongst the Western European countries it was the left (socialists included) that were most eager to oppose the fascist powers (as shown in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War). The right meanwhile were reluctant on ideological grounds to ally with the Soviet Union against the fascists; it was this that frustrated all attempts at building a coalition to contain Germany (and that in turn that led to the German-Soviet Pact).
The question that has to be asked is, if France has lost so many wars, why was and still is a power?
The answer to that question is the key to understand French foreign policy: what they cannot get in the battlefield they manage to finally obtain it on a table.
You are missing entirely the point. I do not say that France is not a power. I say that its achievements are not obtained in the battlefield.
the Ardennes manoeuvre
May 1940. The war was declared September 3rd 1939.
Liddell Hart, not prone to charitable judgements of British strategy, Britain and France were quite incapable of mobilizing quickly enough to affect the outcome of the Polish campaign.
That is not the point, again. France and Britain could have occupied Rheinland and the Ruhr area in the fall of 1939 because German armies were fighting and then occupying Poland. There were no soldiers in Western Germany!
France has been often faulted for heeding too much the lessons of the last war; surely a grosser error would have been to ignore them. The effectiveness of the Maginot Line is vindicated by the German need to end-run it, with a risky advance through the Ardennes
Well, the last war ended with rapid advances of French, British and American armoured units... The Maginot line had no other vindication than absolute surrender before Germany: wait nailed into the soil seeing armoured forces and air power unleashing all its potentialities around you into your country.
they themselves moved promptly into Belgium to forestall them.
Well, the world had to wait nine months of war to see them moving promptly. Too late.
No "nation-wide hara-kiri", just a small but critical lag in the art of war against a very good (and somewhat lucky) opponent.
ho ho ho ho ho ho "somewhat lucky". You know what is said in the army: luck helps those
who are audacious.
What France's and Britain's army could not pretend is that after nine months doing NOTHING, good luck would save them. They lost before they began to fight. Moreover, in your previous post, you have told us about: using "antiquated equipment" against "modern armour"
You know, modern armour were the Renault tanks at the end of the First World War. France had done nothing to keep the pace of military improvements. They simply built the Maginot line, a strategy to disaster.
[France's] politicians had joined full Socialism and had no arguments to fight German Nationalsocialism.
Bizarre. Have you any evidence for this at all?
Ludwig von Mises, Omnipotent Government
Mises was one of the first analysts…to show that nazism and fascism were totalitarian collectivist systems which had far more in common with communism than with free-market capitalism. And, what is more, they were the logical out of the galloping statism and militarism of the pre-fascist societies. Mises's linkage of fascism with Marxian socialism was a shocker in the Marx-laden intellectual world of the 1940.
it was the left (socialists included) that were most eager to oppose the fascist powers (as shown in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War).
No, it was the left that was trying to carry out a Socialist revolution in Spain and it was the Spanish army which opposed it.
The right meanwhile were reluctant on ideological grounds to ally with the Soviet Union against the fascists
Ribbetrop-Molotov pact, a great alliance between Socialists and Nationalsocialists to conquer and divide Poland. You know, poor Joe Stalin, he only wanted to save the world from Fascism but the evil right did not want him as ally!
Don't make me laugh!
France had surrendered to Socialism before WWII, and Hitler simply offered to many french people another kind of Socialism, that is, Nationalsocialism. This is a remarkable fact unique in modern history, a country ideologically on its knees before the war actually began.
J Aguilar:
You are missing entirely the point . . . I say that [France's] achievements are not obtained in the battlefield.
You could say the same now of every Western power other than the United States. And the point of your point?
May 1940. The war was declared September 3rd 1939 . . . France and Britain could have occupied Rheinland and the Ruhr area in the fall of 1939 because German armies were fighting and then occupying Poland. There were no soldiers in Western Germany!
There are two separate issues here: whether the Allies could have attacked Germany in time to affect the conquest of Poland, and, if not, whether they could still have attacked before Germany attacked them.
First, it is true that they were reluctant to attack quickly. Both, and especially France, were traumatised by the losses of the Great War; they believed (rightly) that Germany had the greater military potential; they had been taught by the Great War in modern war the defensive was dominant.
Furthermore, French military doctrine precluded an early offensive. It relied on a mass conscript army, which could be mobilised only slowly, and on careful preparation of the offensive by heavy artillery, which also could deploy only slowly. It favoured the use of tanks, not as a separate arm, but as aids to infantry; it had no inkling that an attacking force could move faster than infantry could march.
With hindsight, knowing the potential of motorised units, and how far Hitler had stripped his western frontier, we can imagine operations that the Allies might have conducted while Germany was engaged in Poland. Whether they might have been executed effectively, by forces organized according to and trained in Great War doctrines, only an expert can say. But in any case the question is academic; such operations were far beyond the imagination of the competent, limited, conscientious second-raters in command.
[There were no soldiers in Western Germany!
Not true. Also, Germany was assisted by the fact that, without violating Belgium's neutrality, the Allies only had a ninety-mile front favourable to the offensive; here naturally the Germans concentrated their (admittedly scant) forces and sowed their thickest minefields.]
So much for why the Allies' early attacks amounted to very little. As for why they then remained inactive until May: First, they greatly overestimated German strength at the start of the war (being taken in by Hitler's boasting of Germany's rearmament), but believed that they were now catching up, and that time was therefore on their side. Second, the French, not unreasonably in the light of their Great War experience, were determined not to launch any general offensive until the British had a mass army in the field. Third, they considered the winter an unfavourable season for the offensive, a judgement in which the Germans concurred, giving no thought to a winter attack. All this made sense according to the knowledge of the time; so much that the ever aggressive Churchill, who came to power in this time, set his hopes for early initiatives in Scandinavia not the Western Front.
Well, the last war ended with rapid advances of French, British and American armoured units...
This was all under the heading of armour-assisted infantry, not independently advancing motorised units. The modern doctrine of tank warfare was developed between the wars, by young officers in Britain, France, and Germany, though only in Germany did it find favour with the military establishment.
. . . luck helps those who are audacious.
True enough.
[France and Britain] lost before they began to fight.
Perhaps some competent judges agree with you; the histories I've read don't. Keegan for example faults Gamelin for failing to maintain a strategic reserve, for deploying too much of his force to the right, and for refusing to redeploy forces already in the front line; without those errors, in his opinion, the Allies would have had good chances even after failing to anticipate the Ardennes advance.
Moreover, in your previous post, you have told us about: using "antiquated equipment" against "modern armour".
So I did. And as you can see if you reread it and follow the link, that refers not to the fall of France, but to the Free French in the Tunis campaign, equipped with British cast-offs.
You know, modern armour were the Renault tanks at the end of the First World War. France had done nothing to keep the pace of military improvements. They simply built the Maginot line, a strategy to disaster.
France developed its tanks, but on the premise that they were aids to infantry. So they were heavily armed and armoured, but slow, since they were expected to accompany an infantry advance. Worse, they were organized in small units attached to infantry formations, not for independent manoeuvre.
As for the Maginot Line being a disaster, it signified the French resolve not to commit hara-kiri, but to make prepare for future danger. It proved in the event an effective defense, as far as it went. France's problem was not that it had the Maginot Line but that the line didn't go far enough.
France's] politicians had joined full Socialism and had no arguments to fight German Nationalsocialism . . . [See] Ludwig von Mises, Omnipotent Government . . . nazism and fascism were totalitarian collectivist systems which had far more in common with communism than with free-market capitalism.
And yet, Nazis and Fascists attacked Communists most vigorously, and vice versa, both with arguments and with weapons; the Nazis took care to obliterate the German socialists and Communists who were their most effective domestic opponents. If "France's politicians had joined full Socialism" (another bizarre judgement), that would hardly imply that they must be in full intellectual concurrence with "German Nationalsocialism"; socialists were perfectly capable of arguing with each other; some might say it was their main activity. Whatever the strength of Mises' case for affinities between Marxism and Fascism, it doesn't pretend to prove that Marxists and Nazis must be ideological allies much less politial allies; if it did, it would have been utterly demolished by history.
As for France's "full socialism", the Popular Front government included the anti-socialist Radicals, who supplied the Premier, Daladier; campaigned for office on the platform of getting the capitalist economy working again, not abolishing it; and accordingly in office, implemented Keynesian expansionist policies on the model of Roosevelt's New Deal (which, for all I know, you may also consider "full socialism", whatever that might be). So far from being paralyzed by their ideological identity with Nazism, they advocated a "super-patriotic Jacobin" policy of "national defense" (Price, Concise History of France, quoted from memory), directed of course against Germany.
No, it was the left that was trying to carry out a Socialist revolution in Spain and it was the Spanish army which opposed it.
Even your idiosyncratic Fascist-apologetic reading of history refutes your own argument. The Nazis were not inhibited by their supposed affinities with Communism from attacking the Spanish Socialists and Communists, nor vice versa.
Ribbetrop-Molotov pact, a great alliance between Socialists and Nationalsocialists to conquer and divide Poland. You know, poor Joe Stalin, he only wanted to save the world from Fascism but the evil right did not want him as ally!
The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact was plan B for the USSR, plan A was an alliance with France and Britain, an alliance they attempted but which fell through because of mutual suspicion and Anglo-French dithering. Likwise previously, during the Munich crisis, the invasion of Ethiopia, and the Spanish Civil War, Western European politicians . Of course "poor Joe Stalin" had only his own interests in view -- so what?
The point is, Mises' thesis notwithstanding, it was the political right in Western Europe that hoped to find in Hitler a kindred spirit. Many right-wing politicians, Chamberlain among them, hoped that Nazi Germany, properly appeased, might be made an ally and a bulwark against Communism; many right-wing intellectuals, e.g. Evelyn Waugh, believed that in the last analysis, they and the Fascists together stood for European civilization against Bolshevik barbarism.
Robert, J Aguilar: What always amazes me is how France is so much more hated than Germany by the French bashers. Collaboration is a good example. We're always demonized for having collaborated with the Germans (and those who did that deserve the demonization), but yet Germany, which carried the bulk of the actual deed, gets a pass. As if there was some strange fascination with the power that Nazi Germany wielded.
As for French supposed world power, this is also a favorite theme of the French bashers. There are many reasons why France is among the top world powers, but it is a myth that this is something we relish and do our utmost to keep alive. Or how would you explain that for the last 50 years and counting, we have voluntarily relinquished entire portions of our sovereignty to the European Union, which we founded.
"What always amazes me is how France is so much more hated than Germany by the French bashers. "
Well, the French claim the "enlightenment revolution". This makes for the snooty French comments ( in this historical claim, true or not- there is an implicit "credit" that the French know all about "democracy"- which causes the jealousy factor ), and all the related they can't defend themselves ( certainly being overthrown by your citizenry for the enlightenment and democracy is key to that as well - even if not often mentioned ).
Using the words Nazi, and Hitler, is a major German bash, and a theme we often hear, it's almost as common as spending government tax dollars.
The Jews get hammered - although it's not talked about a lot either, for being the leaders in "bringing the One True God " to the world. All the way back to Moses, Abraham, etc. , plus the very much hated claim to being " God's chosen people ", and the oft mentioned "money" issue.
Then the USA gets the hatred for being the " World's superpower ", and we hear referrence to the Holy Roman Empire - and it's collapse ( not it's thousand year reign) all the time.
That is how I see it. Of course, I think I'm right again, and why shouldn't I think so, when I am.
Each of the 4 groups mentioned has a particular claim, which fuels being hated.