mimo2005

How to fight insurgents? Lessons from the French



http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070629...YROVYFLdvMWM0F

RedScott

Um, the French left.

We should leave too.

Zazula

Hahaha, after having been mocking the French military and their valor for years, now you're copying their war tactics... Boy, isn't that the definition of despair or what?... At least the Brits are consistent; in that they limit themselves strictly at mocking the French - not copying them.

Drew1369

Never make fun of a countries soldiers... just their government

40sondacurb

Aren't too many Brits left in Burma or Ireland Zula.

koala

No, they're all in Iraq and Afghanistan doing Bush and Blair's dirty work.

Nik00117

I work with soliders who come back from Iraq etc and the general thought of mind is, we need to get out cause America doesn't have the balls to put in what it takes.

Heres how you slove Iraq to be a succes for America (as bloody as it would be)

Send in 750,000 EXTRA troops bringing numbers close to 900k men in the country. You then put the place on lock down, and when I say lock down I mean lock down beyond any ones business.

America doesn't have the stomach to do this, along with the world community therefore we need to pull out.

Zazula

Well, there's a turning point in how the Brits deal with this: They got their lesson with the US independence war where they lost pathetically; after that, they kept their colonies only for as long as they knew they could keep controlling them without a bloodshed. Moreover, they weren't attempting to "Britishify" their colonies; they were mainly interested in exploiting their colonial resources (e.g. crops & minerals) and other side-benefits (like e.g. strategic location), without feeling they're on "a mission from God" to civilize their overseas subjects. Now, when the bloodshed time seemed imminent, they were simply leaving the place, after having secured all the contracts they could get, so that the local resources would keep being exploited (under what was a leonine partnership for the ex-colony) by British interests (so that other world powers would be barred and excluded) till kingdom come. If the ex-colony was weak (you bet it was - ot it could easily be convinced it was), and especially if it bore strategic significance, then a military base could also be left in the place, to secure British military interests (in addition to the financial ones, which traditionally have been the Brits' top priority), too.

As far as Northern Ireland is concerned, this is not a simple matter of the Brits not leaving an ex-colony; it is far more complicated than that. And the core of the issue lies within the fact that roughly half the local population deems themselves UK citizens, and the other half don't (and I'm afraid I'm oversimplifying this). Anyhow, the only territorial dispute I'm aware of, that includes the UK and Eire, is Rockall - which is mainly a "who-fishes-where" issue (extremely common in Northern Atlantic).

Au contraire with the British, the French have historically been attempting to "Frenchify" their colonies, and they were leaving (or ousted) only after the blood flooding the streets was at least one foot deep.

40sondacurb

I meant what is now non-occupied Ireland's war of independence. But I must admit the water gets awfully close to my head when I debate colonization with a European, so I concede the floor.

Defending the French was a lost cause from the start I suppose