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Ariane 5 Deploys French Spy Satellite

Rolo Tomasi writes "An Ariane 5 rocket successfully put the French satellite Helios 2A into orbit today. The 4.2 ton spacecraft, which cost about one billion euros, will be used for surveillance by France and other European countries."

4 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Don't show your ignorance by helix400 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Fifty-seven years later Americans are demanding their pound of flesh from the French with the incumbent George Bush's "You are either with us or against us." Other princes of darkness - and there are many in America -- are crediting the President of France with dozens of qualities and the French with more character traits, all negative.

    So you countered French leader bashing with America leader bashing.

  2. Re:Don't show your ignorance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    The French did not exact any price from America for this assistance, they did it all on the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity.

    Bull-Fucking-Shit

    They did so because they were enemies of the English. Helping reduce English power in the New World was a plus for the French.

    The problem with the French now is that they are some of the biggest hippocrits around. They deride Bush for being cocky, but they are 10x worse. Apparently they don't need UN authority to invade African countries of their choice and none of the leftists say anything.

  3. Re:....hmmm... by Alarash · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    French satellites are better than US'. In Afghanistan, US Army used the French satellites for recon. So shut up and be original for once.

  4. Hmmm... by CodeWanker · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    "successfully launch a French military spacecraft." Unfortunately, I imagine that the French will spend too much time watching North America and not enought time watching the training camps and madrassas that produce the Islamic terrorists that are now pounding continental Europe (Spain, France, Holland so far) as the "soft underbelly" of Christian civilization.

    It's an easy laugh to make surrender jokes about the French, but the real tragedy is that their dreams about themselves have always outweighed their ability to influence politics and military matters. We can all cite the Nazis beating a numerically superior French and British force, or the failure of the French to pay attention and lose at Dien Bien Phu... And then sucker us into taking over their colonial war... And then curse us for doing them that favor.

    What we forget is that in the late 70s and early 80s, the French declared that their nuclear arsenal covered "Every point on the horizon." This was a direct poke at the United States, and the worst insult the French could think of: after all, it was French troops who pulled out of NATO obligations to cower behind the Americans in when the Soviets threatened all of continental Europe. And it was the French who kicked out United States bases from soil the US had liberated barely 20 years ago. Soil that has the graves of tens of thousands of American men who died to liberate the French from the Germans... Twice. But their vaunted sense of sophistication made likening the liberators of Europe to Stalin's butchers a clever bit of wordplay to them.

    Actually, there's not a lot to joke about there at all.

    I just hope that the French will stop pretending that their friends are their enemies and their enemies are their friends. For the slower (and French) readers out there, the United States is France's friend. The Islamofascists are France's enemies. The time for make believe in this war is over, si vous plait.

    --


    "Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer