JavaFox

Mike, if you're curious as to what I'm referring to (I hope this doesn't seem condescending; many people are unfamiliar with this incident), I was talking about the Israeli raid agains thte Osirak reactor. In 1981, Iraq was building, with the help of French knowledge, funding, and engineers, a nuclear reactor in Baghdad. When Israel's intelligence apparatus, Mossad, found this out, and found that the Iraqi dictator's intention was to use it to create weaponry, the Israelis were presented with an tough decision.

They knew they would have to do something quick, as the reactor was not yet active. Destroying it, then, would present no radioactive risk to the surrounding people. On June 7th, in the middle of the afternoon, American-made F16 and F15 Israel Air Force fighters took off from a southern Israeli air base. They flew 1,100km, deep into Iraqi airspace, and destroyed the reactor.

There is a general consensus that had the Israelis not made this strike, Saddam Hussein would have had a nuclear bomb ready for the Gulf War.

Many people criticize the US for having ties with Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. Many people blow these ties out of proportion, and make claims about the US selling Iraq weapons, but have no facts to back them up. They are thinly-supported accusations, indeed. On the other hand, there is clear evidence that the French sold Saddam Hussein both the materials and the knowledge (not to mention personnel -- there were French engineers that witnessed the Osirak raid) with which to build nuclear weapons.

You can say the US sold Iraq WMD, but there is no evidence to support that. On the other hand, everybody knows the French gladly sold Iraq the tools with which to craft a nuclear bomb. I know it, the US knows it, the Israelis know it -- and the ruins of the nuclear reactor in Baghdad are a testament to it.

Smoothdrive

Too bad we don't have any French on this board..would love to hear their story.
I know the US side story is very much cocloured..still i also am aware of the israeli strike against the reactor ..if this reactor truly was meant for weapons or just for electricity we'll never know. In the case of Saddam i'ld rather be safe than sorry so i can agree on that strike.

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JavaFox

Why would a country whose oil reserves are second in size only to Saudi Arabia need a nuclear power plant for electricity?

I am very glad that you would err on the side of caution on that matter, Smoothdrive. Many anti-war people are so obsessed about doing the "right" thing in the "right" way that they probably condemn that strike. It's very dangerous thinking.

radTube

Why is it that americans blame the whole of Europe for the actions of the french government? You did notice that your strongest allies in Iraq were european, didn't you? Europe's not a federation that can be compared to the US in it's organization (sadly, it seems that the EU is becoming one).

I'll just say this once more, lest it slip your mind once again: Europe is a continent, not a country. Try to see the difference.

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Smoothdrive

Told them that many times already radtube..from my view ironically enough the French and Germans are the least liked even within Europe.

We get the blame for countries we don't even like

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Smoothdrive

PS i'm not an anti-war demonstrator Java..i'm just trying to make up my own opinion..which is getting harder and harder in todays media-culture where only radical pro and radical anti seem to be presented for the public...who cares about facts and truth these days..public opinion is all that counts; something is true when the masses say so.

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JavaFox

Well, yes, admittedly, we Americans do have a tendency to lump all of Europe into one big megacountry.

HawK

RadTube, Smoothdrive:
This is just how the majority of N.Americans think;
Europe is one big country which you can visit in 5 day’s and know all about it,
and in which we all have the same Idea’s.
I don’t like France, if they think it is save to test an A.bom under a tropic island, why don’t they do it under Paris ?
German’s? well in a ironic twist of faith , we are selling them for over 50 yrs the tulip bulbs, my parents had to eat in the winter of 44/45, because our “liberators” let half of Holland starve, because they where in a hurry to get to berlin first, and didt bother about them.

If you look at another thread here (Dell dude busted) they have been going on for weeks about someone with some marijuana, if that same guy would have been driving, and killed a kid while driving drunk, it would have barely been on news, let alone talking about it here….

So never mind the unknowing….. they are kid’s, funny enough most of them are Europe’s kid’s

Smoothdrive

Hawk, i share some of your toughts..be it that yours seem a bit more radical than mine.

To be fair..most of us Europeans also talk about "the Americans" weither they are from the nort, south east or west. Still don't know if that is fair or not.

But at least when discussing international politics we can since the US has one government..which of course in Europe is not the case.

The marihuana bit..in some areas the French and the Americans aren't that much different

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HawK

you'r right about the French thats true.
about North Americans; that's why I said majority..

All i'm saying is: look in your own yard, before shouting at the neighbors

Falstaff

that bears the brunt of my criticism....I am grateful for the Statue of liberty, French Food, and support during the Revolutionary War and WW1 and WW2, but since Korea, French politics has become more difficult to understand, It is like burning a candle from both ends. And Chirac and Vilipin? I hope they don't last long. Because they have interests in Africa, that bothers me. I know it is arrogance that drives much of the criticism against the French Govt. but it has never impressed me at all.

Israel has publicly warned Iran that it considers the Bushehr plant, which Germany began building in 1974 and Iraq bombed three times in the mid-1980s during the Iran-Iraq war, a threat to its national security. Last year the Hebrew daily Ha'aretz reported that Israel's National Security Council was reviewing its policy on Iran and quoted one official as saying "that everything must be done, including using force to prevent Tehran from achieving nuclear weapons capabilities".

Germany clearly has a stake in the nuclear race in IRAN too, they built a similiar light water facility there, that could be easily modified to product weapons grade material, just as the plant in IRAQ.

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FuNsTeR

not Korea Jeff Suez Canal in 1956 America humilated both France and the UK that was the main reason why we could not support the USA in Vietnam ... it wasn't till the Falklands in 82 that the UK/USA could become allies again ..,. and it still rankles with a fair portion of the elderly here

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Falstaff

yep...I believe your right...had to open my history book, ha ha...

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JavaFox

The French have been against the US since way before both Korea and the Suez Canal. The French waged an undeclared naval war against us from 1798 to 1800 because they were jealous of a trade agreement we had with the UK.

That was when we still had little more than a fledgling navy... and we still managed to beat 'em (admittedly, we did get some help from the Royal Navy)!

Anyway, interesting bit of little-known American history -- the USN's first challenge.

Falstaff

constellation vs the insurgent? or the vengeance?

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raid517

As for the letter at the head of this topic, I don't know what that guy is going on about. I mean common, all these Americans jumping up and down and shouting about 'betrayal', when the motivations behind the war turned out to be bogus anyway??? If you will recall France, Germany, Belgium etc, said they weren't going to get involved in the war because they thought the reasons behind it were bogus. (Although I don't doubt they had other motivations too). So what, they betrayed the US because they were right? Because they have their own intelligence agencies and they decided to take what they were telling them at face value and not try to read anything more into it? So being right is now considered arrogant and is more of an issue than going about the world and doing things without any sane justification or reason for doing them? That letter talks about America taking a jump off a precipice. Well it sure looks like Bush took that leap for you, and sadly it appears he has landed firmly on his ass. Are you so sure Iran looks like a good prospect now? How will you know if he is ever telling the truth anymore? Oh well, it looks like GW really is fallible after all...

Q

JavaFox

That's total misrepresentation. Nobody ever maintained that Iraq was weapon-free. That simply wasn't the BelgianFrancoGerman argument. The argument was NEVER, EVER that Saddam had adequately disarmed -- it was just that an UN-led inspection regime could disarm Saddam better.

Remember, the UN said that they "deplor[ed] the fact that Iraq has not provided an accurate, full, final, and complete disclosure." The Security Council also resolved that "Iraq repeatedly obstructed immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access to sites designated by the United Nations Special Commission." You erroneously suggest that someone of any importance actually maintained that there were no weapons in Iraq. This was not the case. Both the coalition and the United Nations ostensibly wanted a disarmed Iraq, and nobody ever maintained that Iraq was disarmed. All this tension between the US and Old Europe was the result over a spat about the means, not the ends.

If the reasoning and intelligence behind the war was wrong, the reasoning and intelligence behind the UN-backed inspector plan was wrong, too. Both were proposed to solve the same problem.

raid517

Yeah and all that stuff about Hans Blix not really being convinced about the case for war and thinking that more could be achieved via more inspections than a war didn't happen either? At the end of the day I don't know how you can keep arguing about the so called 'correctness' of your case. The reasoning, the intelligence the motivations given for it, practically every aspect of it have turned out to be bogus. In the end old Saddam (who I still think the world is better off without, even though I doubt it was up to us to fix it, given the current mess we're in) more or less simply allowed this myth of his so called weapons of mass destruction to be perpetuated, because at least this way the allies would be a lot more reluctant to invade. It worked for 10 years I guess..

But then again, he didn't perpetuate the myth too much, nowhere near as much as the Americans anyway. But what the hey, I'm sure the right's revisionist branch (the ideology department of the American Republican party) will come up with a story that makes all this seem like some spectacular victory, rather than the complete and utter cock-up it really all is. Funny though don't you think, that a party who is supposed to be so avidly anti-tax, has probably landed us all with one of the biggest tax bills in history? Now it seems those of us who didn't want or believe any of this from the beginning, are going to be made to pay for your mistakes - and the mistakes of the political right in general. Don't expect any thanks.

Q

Falstaff

It was a spectaculor victory in terms of speed and logistics...

revisionist thinking is the domain of the left wing or democratic interests in our government. Gen. Tommy Franks pulled off a major victory that will be studied for generations by aspiring west point graduates..With what D. Rumsfeld gave him to work with, it was an amasing victory...

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raid517

Well what did you suceed in? In the end the amount of enemy resistance was pretty insignificant. Normally I count 'victories' in terms of what was really achieved. What did this achieve? Did it suceed in any of the goals it set out to?

So what, future wars will be fought over virtually nothing, just so our troops can run over empty deserts and end up at their destination, so they can kick sand around? Because kicking sand around is so far the only good motivation there was for this war. It was virtually pointless. Now the Iraqis openly talk about how they hated Saddam, but now they must fight again to get the Americans out of their country. They only see it as yet another stage in their long struggle against opression. We achieved nothing by what we did, not even the love of those we say we want to help anyway, despite failing in all our other objectives. In the old days military victory was about achieving objectives, not just about kicking butt for kicking butt's sake. Name one objective (at least any of those that were publically expoused) in which we have suceeded to date?

Yeah I'm sure this will be studied for generations. But hopefully it will be a lesson not to dive in feet first before being certain that your intelligence is any good. If this is a 'victory' its a very hollow one.

Q

Falstaff

without the body of Saddam Hussien, it may become a pyric victory for the west...Muslims of course will have a completely different view....The military mind ponders only winning the war, rarely winning the peace.

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raid517

Ps,

I still like you Jeff, I still think at heart your a decent fella. Politics is just BS anyway.

Q

Falstaff

once long ago, I wanted to be John Wayne...it wasn't till I lost some buddies in Beirut,and some buddies in Kuwait...and then I got shot at too....mortality,forced into your face, with the prospect of instant death...I thought I was brave, then I saw brave men die in front of our weaponry....what does it all mean....War is Bullshit...but a harsh reality....

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FuNsTeR

i'll think you'll find France was very much pro USA after the 2nd world war right up til the Suez incident .... the french navy was even loaned a US aircraft carrier till France built their own

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Falstaff

have always had a strong relationship for the most part, the idea however that French and American politicians see eye to eye on anything is easily dismissed by their rhetoric. I think it is pointless to argue which country has more sinister ambitions beyond their borders, except to say, except to say the French and American military and intelligence units have cooperated for over a hundred years. I don't believe the French and American people know how deeply engaged both sides are in the same type of activity.....i.e. the recent problems in Liberia and the Congo..

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