georgeob1 wrote: Germany is doing this to a degree now (but only around Kabul).
I couldn't find any English graphic - but I'm sure, at at least Geotg and nimh will understand the German text:
Additionally, there are more than 100 soldiers in Faisablad - as you may know by the recent critics on them (not helping civil aid agency members to get out etc).
The French as usual missing in action. The must be busy defending the Maginot line or possibly attempting to control the EU..
George and au
Why are you disregarding the French troops and the many French civil aids groups there?
(Kabul Multinational BDE ~ 1,900
2 Canadian Mechanized BDE Group HQ
3rd BN, Royal Canadian Regiment
U/I German Unit
U/I French Unit )
Walter Hinteler wrote:George and au
Why are you disregarding the French troops and the many French civil aids groups there?
Beats me. Perhaps because they have never bothered to perform a Google search on
"French Troops Afghanistan"?
Most of the logistiques/transports in Afghanistan were done until recently by units from the "801th Transport Bataillon" [from my hometown] and the "4ème Régiment de Chasseurs (unité de commandement et de logistique)".
Well, I openly concede my error. I guess it was just laziness and prejudice that led me to fail to check on the details. No excuse for that.
If I have it correctly there is a French contingent within a 1,900 member international group that includes a Canadian regiment (usually about 1,200 men) a separate Canadian headquarters group and a German unit. Just how many Frenchmen are there? (according to Thomas' link the number is FIFTEEN !!!! ) I hardly think this is a significant contribution to the effort in Afghanistan. Germany is indeed contributing very significantly to the effort there - however, the French are merely spectators and, as usual, critics.
France has for about 20 years maintained a Naval force in the region, based in Djibouti. Often this includes one of their aircraft carriers. (We actually cooperated quite a bit - I refueled my aircraft carrier -aviation fuel - in the Arabian Sea from the French logistic ship "Var" several times - a very modern ship. We also occasionally did joint air operations, but the limited range & endurance of the French aircraft limited the benefits to both of us.) The occasional liunch in the Captain's mess in Clemenceau was exceptional.
Does any of this materially alter the arguments above?
Walter Hinteler wrote:georgeob1 wrote: America did the world a great service by rejecting the ill-conceived Kyoto treaty.
Thank you.
You know that even the US government last month did a (little-publicized) withdrawal of its position and acknowledged climate change? It was in the paper here a while ago, I wanted to post it but forgot it ...
I don't think any serious person doubts the earth's geological record of more or less continuous climate change, and, as well, the facts of accumulating greenhouse gasses and contemporaneous slight temperature change. It is not yet clear what will be the net effect of this and other operating factors over the next few centuries. However, it is quite clear that the remedies proposed in the Kyoto treaty would add to the total of hiuman misery more than they would reduce it, and would have only a slight effect on an already small phemnomenon.
George --
the Google link you hit was probly one of those about "the first French troops coming to Afghanistan". Looking a bit closer, I found
this notice on the website of the French defense department. It appears that there is an international force of 7000, called the "Eurocorps", deployed in Afghanistan. It is under French command. This doesn't tell us what the actual share of French troops is, but if the French really had only 15 people in Afghanistan, I doubt that the nations who contributed the other 6985 soldiers would have ceded the command to France. Following the links on that page, it turns out that the Eurocorps is a "joint venture" of German French, Spanish, Luxemburgish and Belgian forces. Considering the size of the nations involved, 2000-2500 French soldiers seems to me like a reasonable estimate for French soldiers from Eurocorps alone.
But I haven't done any thorough research on this either.
Thomas,
Thanks. I'll do some checking too.
I still believe that the key point here is that, if some in Europe believe the United States has shortchanged the effort in Afghanistan to support our effort in Iraq, then they have both the resources and the option to correct the problem themselves.
Europeans have become accustomed to the (false) notion that they have and deserve a voice in decision-making for the US government, and that we should always subsidize their desires and policies, before, or as equal to, our own. Those days are over.
Well I didn't really expect detailed answers to my questions about what America has to fear, but thanks George, your answers are most illuminating.
And what they illustrate to me is that you appear to be living on another planet. Or a parallel universe where the laws of physics are different.
How can we use more oil and have more left? Why did Shell recently revise downwards their proven reserves? When demand exceeds supply, what happens to the oil price?
I heard James Lovelock (of Gaia theory fame) say this morning that carbon emissions have to be radically reduced and that nuclear power was the only way to achieve this. He said if average global temperatures reached 2.7 deg warmer than now, it would not be possible to halt run away warming which would result in the death of billions of people. (he did say billions)
As for Kyoto, no one said it was a magic solution. But it was a gesture, an acknowledgement if you like that the world faces a serious problem which calls for serious thought. So I suppose we shouldn't have been too surprised when George Bush failed to face up to it.
You alluded to Europeans only being friendly towards the US when we needed your help. I think that's a bit unfair. Firstly we (I) will always be grateful for those boys from Kansas or Tennessee who were sacrificed in the fight against fascism. Their homeland was not under threat.
But the notion that America joined the war for purely altruistic reasons is simply ludicrous. American interests co-incided with those forces opposed to Hitler. Moreover we in Britain paid every penny (and believe it or not are still paying until 2008) of our war debts to the US Treasury, besides handing over a network of military bases and strategically important bits of territory to US control. We also gave America the draft plan of how to construct a nuclear weapon (the Maud Report), the cavity wave magnetron (arguably the single most important technical development of the entire war), jet engine technology, the code breaking secrets of enigma and machines such as colossus (used after the war against USSR).
You probably think me a hopeless liberal pinko ungrateful europhile....well I'm not, entirely. But I do get my feathers ruffled when Americans play the "if it wasnt for us you would all be speaking Russian, or German or whatever" card. Its a little like the Israelis deflecting all criticism of Israel by making charges of anti semitism.
And while we are on the subject of war debts etc how much does Bush owe Blair over Iraq? Conversely what's Britain gained by being such a close ally of the US? I'd really like to know the answer to that one.
gotta go
georgeob1 wrote: Europeans have become accustomed to the (false) notion that they have and deserve a voice in decision-making for the US government, and that we should always subsidize their desires and policies, before, or as equal to, our own. Those days are over.
Fair point as far as I am concerned. We probably disagree about the wisdom of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan (which had attacked the USA) to invade Iraq (which hadn't). But even if we do and if I'm right, America is entitled to make her own mistakes if she decides to.
re French troops etc:
This Deutsche Welle article sums it up and gives aditionally some good background:
Quote:06.08.2004
Eurocorps Heads to Afghanistan
Members of the multinational Eurocorps military unit left for Afghanistan on Friday to take over command of peacekeeping operations in the country next week. It's the unit's first mission outside of Europe.
Created in 1992, Eurocorps, a French-German initiative that's also backed by Belgium, Spain and Luxembourg, is scheduled to replace Canadian soldiers in leading the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan for the next six months.
They will coordinate peacekeeping operations, overseeing about 7,000 NATO troops from 30 countries currently stationed in Afghanistan. ISAF was set up by the United Nations in 2001, shortly after the fall of the Taliban regime.
French General Jean-Louis Py, who will serve as commander, said Eurocorps troops would be in place by the end of August.
"It's taking so long, because we have to exchange a lot of personnel," he said on Thursday, according to German public broadcaster SWR. "This way we won't have to hit the ground running, but instead can enter the stage step by step."
The new commando will include about 300 people from Eurocorps headquarters in addition to 1,500 French and German soldiers, who are manning the regional ISAF commando in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
Safeguarding elections
The mission's main goal is to improve security in Afghanistan ahead of presidential elections scheduled for Oct. 9. NATO has also said it will send about 1,800 additional troops to the country to help safeguard the elections, bringing the alliance's total number of soldiers in Afghanistan to 8,300. Germany has about 2,000 soldiers stationed there.
"It is an extremely important step for Eurocorps, which well shows the synergy with NATO," Py said, describing himself as a "conductor" whose role was to "put to music" NATO decisions, AFP reported.
While saying that the situation in Afghanistan was relatively peaceful at the moment, Py added things could change quickly.
"People are nervous because of the elections," he said.
Source
Quote:ISAF VI Structure
Headquarters ISAF
NATO assumed command and control of the ISAF mission on 11 August 2003. Since 9 August 2004 ISAF is commanded by French Army Lt Gen Jean-Louis PY, with Netherlands Royal Air Force Maj Gen Leonardus van den Born as his deputy. At the Headquarters level, there are 36 contributing nations that contribute more than 600 soldiers to make up the headquarters and its support personnel. The ISAF headquarters serves as the operational command for the mission.
Kabul Multinational Brigade
Germany and France are the lead nations for the Kabul Multinational Brigade, under the command of German Army Brig Gen SPINDLER. Of the more than 30 troop contributing nations, France and Germany provide some 2000 soldiers within the brigade. Under the KMNB are three battle groups. The KMNB is responsible for the tactical command of the troops on the ground.
Troops Contributing Nations
More than 8000 soldiers, sailors and airmen make up ISAF, with contributions from 36 nations. We track individual contributions by each nation but those numbers change on a regular basis due to the rotation of troops.
source:
Eurocorps
Steve,
I didn't say that the amount of recoverable oil reserves on the earth had increased. I said the amount of "proven reserves" had remained relatively constant. "Proven reserves", of course, refers to the estimated quantity of recoverable petroleum that oil companies know about. It is affected both by exploration for new fields and the effectiveness of recovery technology to be applied to new and old ones. The point is that, despite all the claims to the contrary, we aren't going to run out of petroleum in the coming century.
The problem with Shell was that they were cooking their financial books, not that the oil was running out.
I agree that nuclear power technology is one that all developed nations will have to pursue more effectively in the future.
I don't know James Lovelock but I doubt the accuracy of his predictions. There are at least six major ice ages in the known geological record of the Northern Hemisphere. Average temperatures changed a good deal more than 2.7 degrees in each of them. There are many physical influences on earth's climate, greenhouse gases are only one of them. Some others may be contributing to cooling, not warming.
I agree that Kyoto was a gesture, not a solution - albeit a very expensive one. Expensive gestures are generally good things to avoid.
I also agree our participation in WWII was more for our own reasons than an altruistic desire to help our allies. I have never suggested otherwise. However the latter motivation was indeed present to a much greater degree than I have observed from Europe since then. (Britain is the sole exception - I do not include your country in this indictment.). WWI was another matter - we had no reason whatever to prefer one side to the other. We were duped by British propaganda and German stupidity.
Britain did indeed contribute significantly to the early stages of nuclear weapons development both in the United States, and, as it turned out in the Soviet Union, through Klaus Fuchs and other British spies. The magnetron was indeed. a significant benefit we got solely from Britain. The enigma breakthrough came to the British from the Poles who were eventually let down by all the allies, including the U. S.
I don't think you are either hopeless or a pinko. As for the rest
.
Does the U.S. owe Britain anything for its very valuable help in Iraq? Yes, a certain measure of loyalty, but little else. Nations, all of them, act according to their perceived national interests. Nothing more. The British will decide for themselves whether their support for the United States has been worth the cost. It will be interesting to observe how you make this choice. Don't screw it up.
The Populations of France and Germany are 60 and 82 million, respectively. The population of the United States is about 290 million, about 5 times the population of France and somewhat less than 4 times that of Germany.
German participation in the Afghanistan effort is only slightly less than 1/4 th that of the Americans. French contributions are very far below 1/5 th ours.
The point here is that if one asserts that American support of the effort in Afghanistan is too low, then one must also acknowledge that the same is true of these other allies, to an even greater degree.
Think about that for a moment while you comment on the unwisdom of America's decisions with respect to Iraq.
