Upheaval in Ivory Coast, aka 'When France Attacks!'

[Lilaena De'Ville]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6404613/


The government [of the Ivory Coast] took a defiant tone toward France. Ivory Coast will ask the U.N. Security Council for action against France, presidential spokesman Desire Tagro told The Associated Press. “We are faced with aggression by one country against another country. We are going to inform the entire world ... that France has come to attack us.”

Don't they have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?

[Jedi Master Carr]

I am not completely familar with the situation. But I think the Ivory Coast Government is a dictatorship. I think they are worried their regime is going to be toppled by the freedom fighters that control the north. They are just desperate right now and trying to do anything to remain in power.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I think you're missing the humor in the situation.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Lol well I was looking at it from a serious point of view I guess :p

[Charley]

Hopefully John Negroponte takes a smarmy tone and has the US veto every French effort for multilateral action in the UN Security Council :mneh

[TieFighterPilot181st]

next thing you know the French will appropriate the funds to build a giant chain of impenetrable fortifications that will protect the area that is not under threat, leaving their flanks open to assault.

[Pierce Tondry]

Apparently the Ivory Coast Air Force was giving the French a lot of trouble, so they destroyed it. All both of their jets are now gone, in addition to their three helicopters.

[TieFighterPilot181st]

wait! are you saying that the french have actually won? its a miracle!

[Pierce Tondry]

It's like putting 100 monkeys at 100 typewriters. Eventually, you'll get Hamlet. It's just not predictable when.

[Hart]

Although I believe France is partially responsible for creating this situation with their brand of colonialism, but I don't personally think they're wrong in intervening in the situation now. If anything, they should be somewhat obligated to help fix what they screwed up.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I love the mix of humor and seriousness in this thread. :D:thumbup

[Jedi Master Carr]

Well it isn't just France there, it is all the European powers including the U.S who made a lot of mistakes in the third world. But honestly that is all in the past. Also ha ha about the French jokes. Actually the French have won several times in history. WW 1, Most of the Napoleonic wars until Russia, The American Revolution (We owe them other wise England would still be rulling over here or we be part of the commonwealth), etc. It is just WW 2 where that starts and it has to do with a defeatism which was all over western Europe (including Belgium, the Netherlands, and England) which is partly why Germany rolled over everybody (of course there is also the fact they had the most powerful army in Europe)

[Pierce Tondry]

Dude, we have got to fix your joke detector.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Well I was responding to Hart. You got to realize I am historian to the end :)

[TieFighterPilot181st]

Most of the time France wins the US has to fight with them. WWI it was the Americans and Brits who stopped the Germans near Paris when half the French army was fleeing. Militarily Britain would have realized it couldn't have won the Revolution with or without the French helping the Americans. and the german tradition of whacking the French started in like the late 1800s when they overran France in a matter of weeks.

[TieFighterPilot181st]

Most of the time France wins the US has to fight with them. WWI it was the Americans and Brits who stopped the Germans near Paris when half the French army was fleeing. Militarily Britain would have realized it couldn't have won the Revolution with or without the French helping the Americans. and the german tradition of whacking the French started in like the late 1800s when they overran France in a matter of weeks. Ironically during the Napoleonic Wars the leader of France wasn't even French, he was Corsican.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Without France the U.S wouldn't have won the American revolution. That is a fact. Before they came into the war. Britian was winning. The tide turned at Saratoga where the Americans finally won a batte. From 76-late 77 the american forces were getting routed a lot and that was a huge victory because it got the French into the war. They thought now there was a chance England might lose. The British troops were doomed at Yorktown when they were surrounded on three fronts. The French Navy came in and cut them off. Without the French, Cornwails could have left and come back with more troops. As for the other wars, I admit France took a turn for the worst militarly after 1870 with the Franco-Prussian war. But its a myth that the U.S won WW I. The Germans just ran out of resources there was no way they could have won even if the U.S hadn't gotten involved in WW1. Germany was just wasted.

[TieFighterPilot181st]

look anywhere and it will tell you that the final German offensive was stopped in most part by the fresh American troops.

THere is a famous quote where a French officer shouted to an American Lieutenant that "The war is over, we have lost."

and the American replied. "Hell no, we just got here.

[Telan Desaria]

Ahem

The German Army was bled white after Verdun - - the French were also. The only reason we lost the war (First) was because Lundendorff's offensives were ill conceived. They faltered against fresh US troops - - had they not have been there, we would have won.

We all know that in the Second, the French lost horribly - - -the Free French road to victory on the coattails of the US and we abandoned Paris because it lost its strategic sigificance -- and lest we forget,. had its German garrison commander followed orders, Paris would have been raised to the ground - - but we like at and architecture, so we let it stay.

The Americans saved the French in the first world war - - - they never would have stood a chance if the Crown Prince, Wilhelm, had been listened to after the Enthronement of the German Kaiser at Versailles, who said to cancel the 1 billion mark reparation and leave France as the Western German Empire. He was overruled.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Most historians say that the American troops weren't the difference. The Germans were down to almost nothing. They had no allies left and the whole world except Russia were against them. They were doomed.

[Darth Viscera]

Originally posted by Jedi Master Carr
Most historians say that the American troops weren't the difference. The Germans were down to almost nothing. They had no allies left and the whole world except Russia were against them. They were doomed.

That the 1918 offensive took the newly-reinforced German army to the very outskirts of Paris is irrefutable. The allies were barely hanging on. Had it not been for the added manpower provided by the US entry into the war (US troops were just then beginning to arrive in large numbers, more than a year after war had been declared), Paris would have fallen, and the French would have had to sue for peace on terms favorable to the Germans. The German offensive of 1918 came right down to the wire, and it was the presence of US reinforcements that tipped the balance in the favor of the Allies.

[JMK]

But its a myth that the U.S won WW I.

It's a well known fact that Canadians did what the British and French couldn't do - take Vimy Ridge and turn the tide in the war. In 8 hours. ;)

[Telan Desaria]

Here here - - - I have a copy of a letter sent from my great grand father to his brother in High Command in Berlin emphasizing the fighting ability of the Canadians. When the Canadian Corps, moved so did the Strosstruppen - - the only of the German Army that would stop them.