Um, France is mad that the US is "occupying" Haiti.
Heh.
What this really means is - "Haiti was ours! We get first dibs on rescuing them, even if it will take weeks longer and we could never mount an operation from scratch like you guys are doing in-stride, in the middle of fighting two campaigns across the globe and that hurts our feelings. We should at least be in charge and telling you what to do. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! My soft parts hurt!"
Memo to the French gov't. This is why you are sidelined at the moment. We're bringing this to the table:
You got this. You want to play with the big boys, you need big boy toys.
Mind you - this isn't a slam on the average French serviceman. It's a slam on their senior leadership and government. I know the French military would love to be leading this effort, if they had the wherewithall to do it.
If we wanted another 3rd World dump, we could just take Detroit. Oh, wait ..... LOL
""very powerful Kiev"? This appears to be a rather different definition of "powerful" than the one with which I'm familiar. As a first step to a real carrier force, a Kiev is understandable. Or, if all you want is an ASW force. As a power projection or sea control platform, "very powerful" doesn't quite cut the mustard. It requires you to refer to ships such as the DeGaulle as "titanic" and leaves you more or less out of adjectives to describe the American carrier force."
In other words... this is a classic UN cluster-f., and the US is getting the blame.
But with the UN and all those other international NGO's involved, and considering Obama's fetish for bending over backward to keep from stepping on their toes, I imagine that critical time has been wasted just trying to get the "coordination" effort worked out.
But thank goodness this isn't Katrina again ...... /end snark.
In a similarly outrageous vein, last night, on the "Russia Today" newscast, one of dear Putin's minions interviewed an American film-maker who accused the old US of A of "criminal negligence" for its "failures" in Haiti.
Mother, get me my hammer. I found a nail that's sticking up.
@11B40, When Mother brings you your hammer, drive the nail until everything is flush. Then you'll be absolutely sure of a few things, you'll know where that particular nail is and is *not*. If you do it right, you won't use a 13 oz. smooth faced finish hammer, you'll want something more like a 22 oz. checker faced, long handled framing hammer. They'll have a torch on those 'soft parts', that'll be with them for the rest of their lives. Getting that fire out will be the center of their lives, for the rest of their lives.