US drops 2 million leaflets on Iraq

[GePap]

See Spiff, the problem is that "freedom loving" Americans seem to be unable right now to differentiate between the government and people..unless it is Iraq. Example: if the French government of Petain surrendered to Germany, all French are cowards. If you critizise Bush, you are anti-American, cause Bush is America, so forth and so on.....

Of course, the folks that speak about French cowardice can ahrdly come up with any exmaple of American troops acting in some way far more bravely than. lets say, the defenders of Verdun. They can show examples of being as courageous perhaps, but not more..

Hey Lancer..our boys are only as brave as french soldiers!

[Shi Huangdi]

Spiffor: Le Resistance was not that significant, and a good number of Frenchmen corroborated with the Nazis. Resistance movements in East Europe were far more bloody and costly to the Nazis, particually Tito in Yugoslavia. But moreover the France of that period was supposed to have the strongest army in Europe, and then well you know what happened.

"Somehow, I doubt Fox News will call surrendering Iraqis "[whatever]-eating surrender monkeys". At the contrary, I'm sure they'll praise how right and brave for them it was to surrender.
I can't find an appropriate smiley, because I don't know if I should be saddened or amused by this sheer stupidity"

Different scenarios here. It's good to not fight for a evil totalatarian dictator like Saddam. It's bad to surrender when you are fighting for a democracy and against the Nazis. Also didn't French collaborators help participate in the Holocaust too?

"French 2 bloody decolonization wars"

And how did you fare in those wars?

" lets say, the defenders of Verdun."

Verdun during WWI.... That was a war the French would have lost badly without British intervention and only won after the US interevened and it's forces stopped German soldiers outside Paris.

"Example: if the French government of Petain surrendered to Germany, all French are cowards."

It wasn't just Petain though who collaborated though.

" If you critizise Bush, you are anti-American, cause Bush is America,"

Not all people who don't like Bush or even don't like the war aren't anti-american. However, there are some in the peace movement who could be considered anti-american though.

[Immortal Wombat]

Also didn't French collaborators help participate in the Holocaust too?

Didn't americans join Al Qaeda?

[Shi Huangdi]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat

Didn't americans join Al Qaeda?

Not nearly on the same scale that the French collaborated.

[KrazyHorse]

I wonder why that is.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
" lets say, the defenders of Verdun."

Verdun during WWI.... That was a war the French would have lost badly without British intervention and only won after the US interevened and it's forces stopped German soldiers outside Paris.

Oh, Shi...learn your WW1 hisotry before you make such commnets. Its poor form to try to 'disprove' something with, well, utterly mistaken facts.

Verdun: A German attack directed towards the city of Verdun and the surrounding forts in 1916, with the intent to draw the French army into a battle fo attrition. The attack begun on Feb 4, with what until that time was the most massive artillery bombardment in history. The battle continued until December 18, with the German attacks ending by Jully 11 and the French counterattacks afterwards until the end.

As for your comment: Actually, the French were the ones that bore the most of the fighting from 1914 to late 1915. It was the French overall that won the first maren, and a French geenral who became the Hero of this vital war. Fine, France would have lost the war alone..but so would have Britian, if it weren't for a big ditch that makes it rahter hard for German armies to get there (same for WW2).

[GePap]

Oh shi, then what is your opinion of our alies the Romanians? not only did they colaborate and send all their Jews of to die, but hey, they were German allies during the bulk of the war!

But as long as they are our allies in this war...all that is forgiven, NO?

[Ben Kenobi]

Why die for your 7 virgins?

Flee and live to see another day.

[Lonestar]

Dude, you're going to Hell!

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
Spiffor: Le Resistance was not that significant, and a good number of Frenchmen corroborated with the Nazis. Resistance movements in East Europe were far more bloody and costly to the Nazis, particually Tito in Yugoslavia. But moreover the France of that period was supposed to have the strongest army in Europe, and then well you know what happened.

It is now estimated about 10% of people joined the resistance to some extent, 10% collaborated, and 80% waited to see who wins the war, and lied low. You might criticize the "cowardice" of these 80%, but it is pretty easy to do so when your country has never been occupied by the rumored invincible German army (the myth of its invincibility lasted until Stalingrad), and what you had were hunting rifles and a few guns sent by London. Most people simply wanted to survive the period, how "coward" is that ?

"Somehow, I doubt Fox News will call surrendering Iraqis "[whatever]-eating surrender monkeys". At the contrary, I'm sure they'll praise how right and brave for them it was to surrender.
I can't find an appropriate smiley, because I don't know if I should be saddened or amused by this sheer stupidity"

Different scenarios here. It's good to not fight for a evil totalatarian dictator like Saddam. It's bad to surrender when you are fighting for a democracy and against the Nazis. Also didn't French collaborators help participate in the Holocaust too?

Please read Marc Bloch's Strange Defeat if you are interested in the debacle (I mean, the history behind it, not preconceptions used to easily bash the French). March Bloch was an historian serving as a liaison officer in 1940, who eventually died resisting. He has written a book on how the defeat occured. In short, French strategists thought WW1-like, and didn't understand the mobility of WW2. For example, they believed, as taught in military school, that Panzers would only move by night to remain discreet (which they obviously didn't). A bad allocation of Tanks on the French side (only one experimental Tank divisions, other tanks were dispatched among the infantry WW1-like) made battles hard. However, when French soldiers fought (and we have lost 400.000 men thank you very much), the French were as worthy as soldiers as the Germans.
But the real reason behind the constant running away was a poor strategy by retreating : Generals retreated on small distances like taught in military school, were suprised the Germans arrived before their position was solid, and retreated the same short distance... Great
In the end, the French were desperate of being beaten so hard by the "invincible" German army, who took Paris in a matter of 4 weeks. Add the strong anti-war sentiment which came directly from the horrors of WW1 on our very ground 20 years before, the cease fire was considered the only option.

Let me surprise you : French history books -yes, those in high schools- talk about as much of the collaboration as of the resistance. As said earlier, roughly the same part of the population was engaged in one or the other side, the big majority remained undecided.
But Pétain's regime was a government actively collaborating (hence reflecting the views of about 10% of the population), because it was the power given to very French fascists : to Pétain and co, the failure was due to the Republic and its terrible Parliament, antisemitism was obviously part of the Pétain's government. I heard in history course the Germans were actually surprised by the zeal shown by Pétain's regime in collaborating. I suppose you are intelligent enough to differentiate a government with a people, even though a government has a significant but not majoritarian share of supporters ?

"French 2 bloody decolonization wars"

And how did you fare in those wars?

As I said earlier :

Originally posted by Spiffor
A whole generation of strategists was terrible, and believed in a WW1 immobility approach (hence the Maginot line, the incompetence facing fast German panzers, sheer stupidity like Dien Bien Phu).
It doesn't make the French people and soldiers more or less brave their counterparts under Napoleon.

Basically at Dien Bien Phu, our strategists awaited a rag tag army attacking with spears, like in the old days. They have done a huge series of mistakes due to their overconfidence in their superior technology. For example, Dien Bien Phu was a hole in the Jungle where the French built a fortress for the very occasion. They built this fortress at the bottom of the valley (I don't know the word when a place is completely surrounded by hills). Of course, Giap fired his artillery pieces from the hills
The errors made by strategists doesn't make French people more or less coward.
I'm speaking about Dien Bien Phu because it was the wargasm of 8 years of conflict (46-54). The aim of Dien Bien Phu was for the French military to give France bargaining power at the independance negociations some months later, as demanded by the new Premier Ministre.

Algeria war : military strategy was much better, and the military side of the war was overall a success. Algerian resistors were ruthlessly killed or tortured, and even urban terrorism in Algiers came to an end IIRC. The war ended after 8 years too. The end of the war was caused by the political turmoil it created, and by the feeling colonization was a thing of the past, and there was no way to avoid Algerian independance.
For this very reason, France made a decolonization framelaw for subsaharian Africa, and the decolonizations there (in 1960 mostly) were nearly bloodless because directly negociated rather than fought for.
Same here, it doesn't make our troops any more brave or not.

" lets say, the defenders of Verdun."

Verdun during WWI.... That was a war the French would have lost badly without British intervention and only won after the US interevened and it's forces stopped German soldiers outside Paris.

See Ge's answer.

"Example: if the French government of Petain surrendered to Germany, all French are cowards."

It wasn't just Petain though who collaborated though.

Same here, the government talked for a significant part of the population (10% estimated), but definitely not for its majority.


I'm sorry if I look defensive, but this "coward" reputation is completely wrong. Call us jingoist if you want, say we are rude with tourists if you want (I've never been a tourist in France, so I cannot tell), call Chirac a noisy runt if you want, criticize our holier-than-thou attitude if you want, but please do not believe this completely mislead reputation of cowardness.

Would you like it if a foreign people would overstretch one military failure of your history and call you chickens because of that ? I doubt it.

[Shi Huangdi]

"Oh, Shi...learn your WW1 hisotry before you make such commnets. Its poor form to try to 'disprove' something with, well, utterly mistaken facts."

You are just so desperate to keep your an image as a pseudo-intellectual snob, aren't you? The war has you distressed, doesn't it, hence your snobbish attititude and your patronizing comment towards "freedom loving americans" earlier. So you pull that comment out of your ass that I was disproving something when the only thing I mentioned about Verdun was that it was during WWI, and then I just mention that France would have lost if not for British and American help.

"Verdun: A German attack directed towards the city of Verdun and the surrounding forts in 1916, with the intent to draw the French army into a battle fo attrition. The attack begun on Feb 4, with what until that time was the most massive artillery bombardment in history. The battle continued until December 18, with the German attacks ending by Jully 11 and the French counterattacks afterwards until the end. "

It's funny you fail to mention perhaps the most important thing about that battle, the extreme amount on French casulties in that battle. The French were bled white at Verdun greatly limiting their fighting abilities and forcing the British take up much more of the fighting. Well, the French didn't surrender, but hardly the most compelling story of a French victory either.

"Fine, France would have lost the war alone.."

Yep, like it did in WWII and it did in the Franco-Prussian war.

"but so would have Britian, if it weren't for a big ditch that makes it rahter hard for German armies to get there (same for WW2)."

Britain is a country that can be very proud of its military history during those wars. It wasn't designed to be a continetal power with a big army- it's military was designed to be more fit for an island nation with more focus on the navy then the army. It fought tenaciously during WWI, and held off the Germans alone for WWII until the Russians and Americans intervened, while the Brits suffered courageously the air raids of the Germans.

Spiffor: " You might criticize the "cowardice" of these 80%, but it is pretty easy to do so when your country has never been occupied by the rumored invincible German army (the myth of its invincibility lasted until Stalingrad), and what you had were hunting rifles and a few guns sent by London. Most people simply wanted to survive the period, how "coward" is that ?"

But that wasn't the case in Eastern Europe....


War has started, will finish reply later

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
Spiffor: " You might criticize the "cowardice" of these 80%, but it is pretty easy to do so when your country has never been occupied by the rumored invincible German army (the myth of its invincibility lasted until Stalingrad), and what you had were hunting rifles and a few guns sent by London. Most people simply wanted to survive the period, how "coward" is that ?"

But that wasn't the case in Eastern Europe....

Save for Serbia, I fail to see an occupied Eastern European nation which resisted to nazi Germany more than France. Most have allied themselves with Germany beforhand to avoid being conquered, and I don't remember their resistance to be any significant, except in Poland where some resistance existed (but failed in the bloody insurrection of Warsaw).

[GePap]

Wow Shi, the smalle power looses to the greater one... It is completely unknown in the annals of history, now isn't it? The larger power never, ever wins!

As for verdun: the accusation around is that the French are cowards. Verdun proves they are not, even if how the battle was won shows the mistakes fo the French high command at the time.

As for Britian: yes, the UK held of German airstrikes, but it did not "hold off" that many germans. You forget that once the Germans gave up on invadindg and deiced to strike east, they gave the Brits significant defeats in Greece and Crete. Oh, yeah, and taht ignores their losses out in Asia..poor Singapore.... The brits can be proud, but if they held of until other came into the war it is because the Germans decided to move on and sideline them. The Brits had no better chance of beating Germany alone than France.

But that wasn't the case in Eastern Europe....

Oh, do you mean the brave resistance of Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Rumania, and Bulgaria? Wait, they all allied with Germany..you mean the grave reception the Ukranians and Balts gave the Germans, you know, giving them flowers and such, followed by helping them kill Jews? Or do you mean the over 3 million Soviet soldiers that gave up in the first months of the eatsern campaign?

The question was, are the French cowards..the answer is no. And any utterly simplified view of how the people's of Europe lived under, along side, or with Nazi power is well, crap.

[Uncle Sparky]

Getting back to the topic for a moment...

It should be noted that the "Surrender" leaflets dropped had " Buy One Big Mac, Get One Free" coupons on the back, with an April 15, 03 expiry date.

Very clever !

[Spiffor]

This is a joke, right ?