Hollande to ask Obama to step up attacks on ISIS
The Guardian reports that François Hollande will ask Obama to get serious about attacking ISIS in Syria and Iraq when they meet next week. According to a “European diplomat”, Hollande believes that US’ attacks on ISIS aren’t as successful as the Obama administration would have us believe and that lack of success is destabilizing Europe. This is where I remind my readers, once again, that Hollande’s first act as president of France was to announce the early withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan – the fulfillment of his campaign promise to get France out of the war against terror – much like Obama’s campaign promise to get US troops out of Iraq.
Noting the debate raging among governments over how to handle the biggest movement of people to Europe since the second world war, he added: “It’s the foreign fighters but it’s also the migrants crisis which is dividing the Europeans, destabilising the continent, so we have to act quickly, telling the US administration the core interests of the Europeans, your best allies, are at stake.”
Funny how a scant months ago everyone was telling us how there was no military solution to the problems in the middle east, that the diplomats would have to solve it, you know, so we didn’t need a large military intervention in Iraq and Syria, but now, suddenly, the diplomats are calling for more military action.
Because the West squandered their opportunities to solve the Syrian civil war years ago, no matter what happens there now, it will end in a blood bath. And, the Europeans are calling for US troops to be in that blood bath, without any offer of their own military beyond some airstrikes, for their own political benefit.
While I stand with France against terrorism, they need to step up for themselves, too.
Category: Terror War
Does Prime Minister Hollande intend on shipping troops 1:1 with the States? If not, this sounds like political posturing to me.
Bomb them until there’s nothing bu 4′ of rubble everywhere.
Then bomb the rubble until it bounces.
THEN bomb the bounced rubble until it’s fine enough to go through a flour sifter.
Then nuke the entire place until there’s enough stained glass to decorate every house in church in America that wants it.
/screw you Lars.
Hama rules, it’s what the Arabs understand. Assad the elder reduced the town of Hama to fine power to quell an Islamic terrorist insurgency. Total, unadulterated destruction and it broke the back of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. Just the way Moe Hammed would have done it and the what Daesh wants to do in the West.
I remember when the French Foreign Legion was heavily involved in this sort of thing – at least in the 70’s. Do they still exist?
Mais out, m’sieur!
Maybe it’s too much of a stretch, but I wonder if certain recent events have stirred up any extra interest in joining the Foreign Legion among the refugee population.
Sure. If M. Hollande cleans up his own nests of cockroaches, those in France first and those in the Low Countries, then I think it’s…. pour le merde!
Um, what say we sell them all the planes, missiles, and arms they want to get the job done. They have pilots and, I’m guessing, access to Google Earth. Go for it, Hollandaise, you saucy frog.
Guys, France did a whole 10 air strikes!
I remember a few days ago Dave Hardin was getting all sorts of shit in the comments about his legit comments regarding their unwillingness to really do anything. Looks like he’s already been vindicated again by these hilariously pathetic actions of an alley which apparently cannot find their balls any longer.
Please don’t stir the nest! He gets vicious when he’s aroused!
That’s ten air strikes that wouldn’t have been made if the French hadn’t made them. They are only now waking up to the fact that, yes, terrorism is their problem, too. That it can and will kill their people, too. Don’t put them down on their first tentative steps to action — encourage them to take more!
I tend to agree, PN. And while I can understand Dave Hardin’s point that the French can be a major pain in the ass, it seems to me they have always somehow managed to stand beside us when push comes to shove, even if we have to listen to them complain about it the entire time.
Something that might be pointed out is that a lot of the friction with the French is a culture clash. They don’t want a Starbucks or McDonalds on every other corner in Paris. Personally, I can’t say I blame them.
I doubt if we’ll do anything, but either go all out or don’t go at all. Guess our “leadership” doesn’t follow the Just War Criteria anymore. I taught that course at OCS for years, bit it must have been shelved.
It’s saying something when even a French liberal says the Glorious Leader is full of shit.
Mais, oui. Le President des Etats-Unis – qu’est-ce que je peus dire? Il est si beau… si grand… si… plein de merde!
Oui, c’est vrai!
In all respect to the French, they have been heavily involved fighting Islamists in Northern Mali since 2013. This is a front of the GWOT that we are not involved in at all.
Europe’s reluctance to defend themselves is all our fault. We assumed responsibility for their defense at the end of WW II. Their ruined economies made defense expenditures nearly impossible. We held the soviet Union at bay for over fifty years so europe got out of the habit of paying for their own defense. They also got out of the habit of fighting and dying for their own national survival. France bombs ten ISIS sites because that’s all they could do. They have no strategic bombing capability nor the will to use one. We have the capability, but lack the leadership to use it. Even our capability is limited by our aging bomber fleet. Fewer than half of our B-52 fleet is combat ready at any given time. Sixty year old bombers take a lot of work to keep them flying. Even the younger planes were purchased in such small numbers as to be ineffectual in a large scale bombing campaign.
Bombing ISIS is not the answer. Nuking ISIS is the answer.
Maybe a couple of magicians would do the trick…
POOF, you’re a pile of shit !!!
I dunno. France vs Syria sounds like a pretty unfair fight already. On top of it, they’re probably not even planning on fighting all of Syria. Best America stay out of this one, IMO.
Last I heard, airstrikes also didn’t take ground–so we should probably knock those off too.
This sounds like it’s going to become a rough door-to-door kind of war for somebody. If we insist on helping, I say we limit ourselves to airlifting France a few thousand pallets of Rip-Its and a good luck card. I don’t really know what our (realistic) desired end-state is for Syria anyway.
It’s probably a little shitty, but there is more than a little schadenfruede in observing that, well, gee, when we wanted multinational assistance in combatting enemies in the mideast, who was the most vocal European critic?
I have a feeling that this is going to be harder than people imagine.
For example, a few days ago Poetrooper wrote an article wondering why as we had an image supplied by the group “Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently” that allegedly showed the location of ISIS headquarters in Raqqa we hadn’t bombed it back to no bricks atop each other.. (post: http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=62843)
Someone in this thread mentioned that the French have only flown 10 sorties against ISIS and to confirm that number, I went looking and came upon an article from this past Monday on airstrikes in Raqqa. (http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/16/middleeast/france-raqqa-airstrikes-on-isis/)
The quote that caught my attention is this:
A group of anti-ISIS activists in Raqqa reported 24 bombs dropped and 30 explosions overnight into Monday. Mostly the suburbs were hit, but in the city, the stadium and the museum were also struck, said Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently.
ISIS uses the museum and the stadium as jails. Its headquarters are also in the stadium, the activists said.
Go back and look at the image from the post ant the linked DailyMail article. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3316497/Has-Jihadi-John-killed-drone-strike-Officials-claim-British-ISIS-fanatic-targeted-Raqqa.html)
Is the building labeled “ISIS Main Headquarters” anything like a stadium?
I wonder if we are getting played by so called “allies” and “anti-ISIS” groups.
Are the French running out of ordnance already. Just like Libya.