please stop bashing France

The Europeans have lived in a protected little green house so long they
seem to think that if all the nice people just agree to be nice there
will be nothing but joy for all of us. Someone has to shoot the wolf at
the door, even if the loud noise disturbs your garden party.

The Wall Street Journal noted this morning that the reason UN
peacekeeping forces are more and more drawn from poor nations is that
they alone have the surplus troops for this sort of mission--troops
who moreover are thrifty to maintain and proud of the job. With the
exception of Britain's, European armies have been drawn down to the
point where they are essentially useless. From what I've read earlier,
that would also appear to be true of Canada's.

So not only is the U.S. the "sole superpower," it is very nearly also
the only democracy with an army. Think of NATO's war against
Yugoslavia. All of continental Europe couldn't manage a war against a
small Balkan nation, without the U.S. and Britain to do the heavy
lifting.


all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

Cub Driver wrote in message
...

The Wall Street Journal noted this morning that the reason UN
peacekeeping forces are more and more drawn from poor nations is that
they alone have the surplus troops for this sort of mission--troops
who moreover are thrifty to maintain and proud of the job. With the
exception of Britain's, European armies have been drawn down to the
point where they are essentially useless. From what I've read earlier,
that would also appear to be true of Canada's.

So not only is the U.S. the "sole superpower," it is very nearly also
the only democracy with an army. Think of NATO's war against
Yugoslavia. All of continental Europe couldn't manage a war against a
small Balkan nation, without the U.S. and Britain to do the heavy
lifting.



Exactly right. All the bed wetters in that smelly nation beginning with
"F" keep whining about the hyper-power. The truth is the US forces are
about half of what they were during or just after the Reagan years. As
you note, it's less that the US has rushed ahead of everyone else, we've
just withered a lot less quickly while we've seriously upgraded key
components.



--

Scott
--------
"Interestingly, we started to lose this war only after the embedded
reporters pulled out. Back when we got the news directly from Iraq,
there was victory and optimism. Now that the news is filtered through
the mainstream media here in America, all we hear is death and
destruction and quagmire..." Ann Coulter
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2003/091703.htm