Germany has had more casualties in Afghanistan than the French have, even after this attack. (French have lost 22 soldiers, Germany 28.)  There have been 30 Ambushes on German Troops this year already.  I have also finally found a list of incidents involving German Troops on m.p.net :

 

January 21st 1994 - Belet Huen, Somalia - 1 killed
March 14th 1997 - Tirana, Albania - hits "very likely"
July 12th 1999 - Prizren, Kosovo - 2 killed, 1 wounded
April 7th 2006 - Kunduz province, Afghanistan - hits "confirmed"
June 28th 2006 - Kunduz province, Afghanistan - "hits "confirmed"
August 30th 2006 - Kunduz province, Afghanistan - hits "supposed"
December 3rd 2006 - Kunduz province, Afghanistan - Attackers were "repelled" and supposedly suffered casualties
October 8th 2007 - Kunduz province, Afghanistan - ? wounded
October 18th 2007 - Badakhshan province, Afghanistan - "Unknown" number of hostiles wounded
October 22nd 2007 - Kunduz province, Afghanistan - "Unknown" number of hostiles wounded
November 21st 2007 - Kunduz province, Afghanistan - hits "confirmed"
April 9th 2008 - Kunduz province, Afghanistan - hits "confirmed", "no bodies found"
May 20th 2008 - Kunduz province, Afghanistan - 2 killed, up to 9 wounded
July 30th 2008 - Kunduz province, Afghanistan - hits "confirmed"
August 19th 2008 - Badakhshan province, Afghanistan - 1 killed
August 22nd 2008 - Kunduz province, Afghanistan - "very likely" wounded hostiles, "no bodies found"
August 30th 2008 - Kunduz province, Afghanistan - 3 killed, 5 wounded

 

 

To generalize, Germans are self-hating westerners who project their self-hatred on the rest of the west and nuclear power as well.

Sure, they contribute, and they have lots of great people and projects going on, but I'm just '...bleh...', its dwarfed by their contribution to green economy and technology and, to pick a perhaps unfair example, their endless angsting about maybe shooting some bogey somewhere and then forcing their troops through psych-counseling to recover from it. German is a quasi-pacifistic nation and will stay as such until the next great war is well underway.

 

I much prefer the French effort. They show lots of cunning and a will to fight beyond clamouring for 'a responsible theater of operations within Afghanistan to which the new resplendant, super-peaceful Germany can contribute'. 

 

Et tu Angela Merkel? *sigh* Maybe if she had gotten her +20 points converted to power.

Nothing like reading some Germans posting online, berating other Westerners for wanting them to contribute after indoctrining them about the horrors of WWII... sure I see the point, but if everyone had a better IQ we could just realize the absurdity of it!

...

 

 

But yes, France. Sarkozy has a strong back and the French people are proud, not only of themselves, but also of their military traditions. I foresee their cooperation with military, police and their task force doing well in the future.

Sorry for doublepost... I feel the need to color my statements a bit to take some of the edge off.

 

I think I came off too critical there... I don't think Germany or Germans are intrinsically bad, but I believe their 'Zeitgeist' is impaired when it comes to traditional right-wing issues such as military, immigration and economy (such as nuclear power, if it can be classified under economy).

And about the IQ part, I wasn't insulting left-wing Germans, just all anti-militarists in general who don't understand certain arguments (which ironically might make me sound more arrogant).

 .....

What I like about the list, is that it recognizes that the War on Terror is global rather than limited to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Of course it's global - not just a problem the US has, but in places that are cold towards the US as well.  The term "Global War on Terrorism (GWOT)" has always been too general and inaccurate.  For propaganda purposes, the term "Terrorism" can easily be re-defined by Islamics as what the West does to combat Islamofacism.  In addition, we hear this constantly by progressives world wide that the US is the biggest terrorist (conveniently re-defined for their political purpose).

 

A title such as "Global War on Islamic Radicalism" gets to the point but is too "insensitive" apparently, although there appears to be support for less Islamic radicalism as Moslems grow weary of the violence.  So maybe now the best term for the war effort should be the "Global Support for Islamic Reformation" - kinder, gentler...