Who called the "police" in The Congo???

[LarreeMP3]

F**king HYPOCRITES! HAHAHAHAHA!







German Troops Begin Congo Mission



German Transall cargo planes will be heading for Uganda as part of its Congo peacekeeping mission.







With the arrival of the first Bundeswehr transport plane in Uganda, the German military begins its limited peacekeeping mission as part of the EU contingent sent to maintain stability in strife-torn Congo.



The German military’s first transport plane touched down in Entebbe, Uganda, on Friday, loaded with materials for the French-led EU troops deployed across the border in the northeastern region of Congo. The arrival of the Transall cargo plane marks the start of a limited military mission, which was approved by German parliament two weeks ago.



The German troops themselves will never see the war-torn country they are supposedly helping to stabilize. Although the Bundestag voted nearly unanimously on June 18 to allow up to 350 German soldiers to participate in what is being called the European Union’s first peacekeeping mission outside Europe’s borders, it stipulated that no German will set foot in the heavily-embattled Congo. The mission, therefore, is largely a gesture of goodwill, a hand offered to European neighbors.



Indirect route to peacekeeping



Three to five times a week, the sky over Entebbe will rumble as the slightly antiquated C-160 Transall planes – the German airforce’s only cargo carriers -- descend for landing. They are carrying food, drinking water and replacement parts for EU troops stationed in nearby Congo.



The trip to Entebbe in Uganda is long and laborious for the old Transall machines, which first entered service in the 1960s. From Germany, the planes take off on an indirect route with refueling stops over France, Crete, Egypt and Djibouti, before arriving two days later at their destination. Once in Uganda, the planes turn around and fly right back to their home bases.



The spokesman for the German airforce, Lieutenant Colonel Günter Katz, told Deutsche Welle that Germany has not even set up a temporary base in Entebbe because the airforce crew is only in Uganda for a few brief hours.



"We don’t have any Bundeswehr soldiers stationed in Entebbe. We fly in there with our crew – that’s five men per machine. The unloading of the planes is left in the hands of the French forces, German troops are not involved. That means, we are deployed there for one to two hours and then there is no one," he said describing Germany’s participation in the mission.



That means Germany only provides transportation, and that, in turn, only goes as far as Uganda. The region around Bunia in Congo, where all the fighting is taking place, is still a good distance away. But the German planes are prohibited from flying into the actual field of deployment owing to the area’s poor infrastructure and security reasons.



"It is not possible for them to fly in there nonstop, land and then fly back out," Katz explained. "There are only a limited number of landing fields and these have their own specific limitations," he said.



Katz added that the French, who are overseeing the EU mission which is being conducted within the framework of the United Nations, understood the logistical obstacles and were not opposed to Germany just flying to Uganda and leaving the further transport of materials up to others.



Restrictive mission



Of course security is also an underlying concern. Only a week prior to the vote on the Congo mission, Germany received its first shock connected to overseas military operations: four Bundeswehr soldiers had been killed in a bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, where 2,400 German troops are deployed as part of the International Security Assistance Force. The attack, which also severely injured 21 others, drove home the risks involved with peacekeeping missions in unstable regions.



In the days leading up to the parliamentary vote on Congo, high-level defense officials also expressed their unease over the nature of the conflict, in which countless young children have often been pressed into service as soldiers. "In Congo, we are dealing with drugged child soldiers who have no respect for human life whatsoever, and I don't want our soldiers to find themselves in a position where they will have to shoot at some of these children in self-defense," said Defense Minister Peter Struck in justification for Germany’s limited offer of transport and logistical help.



All totaled there are about 100 German soldiers participating in the peacekeeping mission, far fewer than the 350 originally called for in the mandate. Eight German officers are lending their support in the headquarters for the EU Congo mission in Paris, and one MedEvac Airbus -- a fully-equipped emergency flying hospital -- based in Cologne has been placed on alert.



The German parliament restricted the mandate to three months, a time frame Lieutenant Colonel Katz is certain will not be prolonged. "We are assuming that the mission will be over on September 1."



With such a short time frame and a limited field of operation, Germany has intentionally placed restrictions on its contribution to the peacekeeping mission. In the end it is not much more than a political signal of support to its neighbor France and the other EU members who are sending troops into the battlefield.

[bbchris]

What's so hypocritical? I really don't see your point.



And is asking for help a sin in your books?



Humiliation?

|Blah Blah|Thinking Out Loud|Jane Eliz||Talk Soup |

[LarreeMP3]

America is always happy to help!

[LarreeMP3]

Personally, not that I dig war or anything like that, I hope the situation gets crazy and you have to beg America for help. You deserve the humiliation!

Edited by: LarreeMP3 at: 7/9/03 5:06 am

[bbchris]

HELP WHAT?!?!!?

|Blah Blah|Thinking Out Loud|Jane Eliz||Talk Soup |

[LarreeMP3]

Food, medicine, money, enough troops and military hardware to overthrow whoever. You know. Help.

[LarreeMP3]

"What's so hypocritical? I really don't see your point."

The French and the Germans really have no business involving themselves in the internal affairs of other nations.

"Humiliation?"

Well, if the French and Germans, along with the rest of the EU coalition have to come crawling to America for help in The Congo...

[Galmin]

Kofi Annan asked.

[MIKE BURN]

Larree is drunk from the "the best" attitude....



...and never reads something like this, running in the background:

Quote:

---

Germans are contributing so that American troops are free to deploy elsewhere. German AWACS planes are guarding large parts of the USA so that the US AWACS could be deployed elsewhere.

---

We Germans don't like military involvement, but if we do, we can handle it with what we have, without unneccessary cowboy attitude. That's why the Afghan population continues to oppose any peace-keeping force in Afghanistan, EXCEPT of the Germans.



The U.S. and Israel were always the loudest in demanding, that "Germany should never have an army again, strong enough to harm our security!"



Well, we don't need help.

[bbchris]

Quote:

---

The French and the Germans really have no business involving themselves in the internal affairs of other nations.

---

It's OK for the USA though....

|Blah Blah|Thinking Out Loud|Jane Eliz||Talk Soup |

[MIKE BURN]

BTW.... the Deutsche Luftwaffe will soon get a whole bunch of the new developed Airbus A 400 M transporters...

[MIKE BURN]

And this is the Aircraft, American industry and military fears:



The Eurofighter Typhoon, the world's most capable and dynamic swing-role combat aircraft!



Eurofighter Typhoon is a high-end swing-role weapon system whose operational capability and flexibility by far exceeds a dedicated strike aircraft which eventually might require complementary high end air defence aircraft with all the implications of a force mix of combat aircraft.



Eurofighter Typhoon’s airframe and engine agility will be complimented by its systems agility, with features such as the off-boresight HMSS system, advanced VTAS technology, DVI, and highly lethal short range missiles. The advanced ‘g’-protection system ensures that the pilot is fully conscious and mobile under prolonged agile manoeuvring at 9 ‘g’.







...no other aircraft does such a hard-stop in the air...





...or does the 'swing-role' at such a speed...

[LarreeMP3]

Anywhere, anytime, any reason.

[MIKE BURN]

Like it was "OK" for the U.S. government to set Norway under pressure, when they decided to pre-order some Eurofighters instead of American aircrafts.



The U.S. threatened Norway with cutting nearly all ties...



This was end of 1999.



Norway ordered the Eurofighter though.

[LarreeMP3]

I don't care about 1999. The world ended on 9/11/2001.



We live in a new world now.