Dang it I KNEW this would happen in Iraq. Screw the political fallout and do the job right, please!

What a crock of shit. Politics cannot get in the way of winning the WoT. It will cost us our way of life.

On topic/off topic

My brother-in-law is being shipped out in February to Iraq.

A Joooo in Iraq in the US military. I know there are many. But there is a conspiracy theory here somewhere, I just am not sure I am smart enough to put the pieces of the puzzle together. ;-(

Can you imagine the bunched panties on the left if we actually did return fire?

bloody hell....typical

...the Iraqis are firing from a village.

How typical of the treacherous kind.

It is, I have to say again, sadly true that the only thing that is going to put paid to the war big time is for the US to get hit again like 9/11 -- only, probably, harder. It is extremely upsetting to me that we are going to have to lose civilians and perhaps a city in order for this country to get in gear, but I have concluded that that is what it is going to take.

And for all my admiration for Rumsfeld, I don' think he's on the case as hard as he should be. I take a few issues with his memo here:
[Link: americandigest.org...]

Not because I don't like the man. I do. But it seems to me that more and more the wavering and vacillation is increasing.

Were we expecting anything different? We know (or we should know) that it is the political reality that shapes the kind of war we have to fight. This is elementary Clausewitz, ladies and gentlemen. The political reality is that collateral damage is unacceptable to the US public, almost as much as Coalition military casualties are. Thus, US soldiers fight the war with half-measures.

There is no way, without being utterly ruthless, to win a guerrilla war. The US military is not going to do it. What will do it is the successful and speedy reconstruction of Iraq (and Afghanistan), despite the low level conflict going on.

Josh

Good reason to take the war to (insert adjacent terror state here). Give the jihad-supporting Dems (and Dem voters who choose leaders that support the jihad) something else to worry about while we take care of grown-up business in Iraq.

On the strategic karma side, taste a tiny slice of Israel's supper, USA. The harsher we are up front will ultimately save the most lives on both sides, and give Iraqis a chance for lasting freedom and prosperity. Instead, we're needlessy shedding our blood and fighting on the jihadis' terms.

Matter of fact, we're still at war in Iraq. Pick one of these towns and treat it as such. Send in some artillery, JDAMS and gunships. Let the townies have something to think about in between the goat milkings. Do you really want the jihadis operating next door to your house? We don't have to level the town, but we don't have to pull our punches either. Getting Iraqis out of the mindset that they can get back to despotism and fanatacism soon enough is crucial.

"The political reality is that collateral damage is unacceptable to the US public,"

Really? I know this is bantered about a lot, but what makes everyone so sure.

In a lot of America that I go through, I think the answer to the question "Would you rather one American got killed if it meant saving 10,000 Iraqis? would be "No, thank you."

When will we learn how to f*cking fight a %^*&%^&*% war? Someone uses civilians as a shield and our troops die because of it. Fight the f*cking war to a logical conclusion. Either fight it to win or retreat in loss. Don't just do a holding action because that sends the wrong message to the goblins.

Totally OT,

I went to the reuters website and visited their "video section", while waiting for the video to load, my firewall went off. I looked at the security log and it said Denial of Service attack detected.
Can any computer savy lizaroid enlighten me on whats going on? Should I block the remote host IP address?

#7 Josh

The American people consistently side with Law Enforcement in cases where they are accused on using improper measures to deconstruct a situation involving firearms or what resemble the response that a firearm entails.

Are you suggesting that the American People would somehow abandon our troops if some civilian casualties were incurred because some civilians are not acting as civilians but instead as supporters of guerrilla forces?

As much as the media paints the military as a bunch of extremist, uneducated, dunces, the US Military is not the North Korean or Russian Military. These troops are well trained, morally constructed men and women of honor, courage and character. Our assumption that they are incapable of assessing a situation and taking the proper measures to disarm a conflict is a severe undermining of our Military as a whole. If 700 billion dollars a year in education can muster thousands of honor students every year, what do you think 400 billion in Defense spending is creating?

Our country puts much trust in trained professionals. Let's stick up for the troops and let the professional do what it is they are trained to do.

The political reality is that collateral damage is unacceptable to the US public, almost as much as Coalition military casualties are.

You're wrong there. My take is that most of the public doesn't give a shit about collateral damage, as long as we're not going out of our way to needlessly cause it. Especially when it's our boys that are getting shot at and blown up for the "priveledge" of trying to drag the Iraqis into the civilized world.

Yes, the political class is fearful and the press will be rabid. But the first pol that breaks through the PC haze to say "We'll win the peace, and give as much fight to our enemies as they want" will be met with a large swell of real support, the kind that shows up at the polling booth.

This is precisely the reason why the gov't should not be calling the shots for the military. This is the exact sort of situation that left 18 men dead and 84 wounded in Mogadishu. The gov't worries more about popular opinion than it does the men who're fighting for this country. They're going to keep letting men die over worries about political backlash until that same popular opinion forces us to leave the job half-finished. The jihadis know this, realize this is a war of attrition, and making every effort to speed up the process.

We can't afford to keep worrying about collateral damage and still expect to win this war.

D*mn politicians are losing the peace!

The politicians are afraid of civilian casualties and collateral damage. You know what? Those damn villagers shelter, feed, and protect the bastard mortar crew who's attacking us. They deserve to get a few high explosive rounds dropped on their heads. They deserve a taste of their own medicine.

This kind of “useful idiocy” is what caused us to lose in Viet Nam. Our so called “leaders” are doing their best to create a “quagmire.” I am a Viet Nam era veteran and I do NOT want to see this kind of cr*p all over again!

The Arabs are the world's experts at basing military units in civilian populations, provoking counter-attacks, and milking the inevitable civilian casualties for world sympathy. The PLO developed these methods in Lebanon in 1982; the Lebanese Shiites, their eager students, refined their techniques in the 80s and 90s; and the fruits of this collaboration are now on display in the WB, Gaza, and Iraq. A key side-benefit of this strategy is that, while your soldiers sit around waiting to make martyrs of their civilian neighbors, they can intimidate the civilians from complaining.

Who says Arabs aren't capable of innovation?

Remove dictator... clean up... get out.
Repeat as necessary.

I never would have thought the US army would be forced to act the way the IDF is forced to act. Such a damn shame. No doubt the terrorists love that.

#19 Judith Gordon:

No doubt. Gives them plenty of targets that don't move and don't shoot back.

#17 BC: The Soviets that instructed them.

This is a gross misreading of Rummy's comment. His memo shows him with his eye firmly on the strategic horizon, wondering if we shouldn't be launching broad novel initiatives to, e.g., undermine the jihadi ideology (that anti-Wahabbi "private foundation" is a great example). This sort of ground-level rules of engagement stuff is painful to live (and die) with, but not remotely what he's talking about. He has much bigger fish to fry.

Indeed, it's not Iraq he's worried about, politically driven ROE and all.

Fighting meaner may be right, but it isn't "bold", it's old hat. And surely something they've discussed already.

This is going to be my last post tonight.

If our military did counter battery fire into a village in Iraq or the 'stan and killed women and children on any sort of large scale needed to stop the hostile fire, American support for the war would fold over-night. The L³ would get a vital edge in the next election. The NYT, WaPo, and Al-Reuters are doing their best to defeat America already, they could blow this so out of whack that any Dem could win, even Sharpton.

#21 Model4 -

Good point. The PLO had a lot of training from the Soviets and the Viet Cong. There was recently a spate of articles on the 50th anniversary of the No Gun Ri (sp?) incident in the Korean war, when N Korean soldiers mingled with civilian refugees and provoked a bloody US response, reaping a propaganda bonanza. I was too quick to anoint the Arabs as innovators - guess their only real contribution to modern life was, as others have pointed out, the skyjacking (though even in that case the Cubans ...)

Whoever developed this tactic, it could only have happened in the 20th century, when rapid communication made "world public opinion" into a big factor in warfare. Before that soldiers tried to stay away from civilian areas, because of funny archaic attitudes like honor and decency (except for cases such as the Nazi-Soviet front in WWII, when both sides saw killing huge numbers of civilians as a strategic objective).

AG, good luck to your brother-in-law!

Somewhat OT, UN-appointed panel finds that the UN (NOT the US) is to blame for security failures in connection with the bombing of its headquarters in Iraq in August:

The United Nations' "dysfunctional" security system led to unnecessary casualties in the August bombing of its headquarters in Iraq, and the world body inappropriately shunned protection by U.S.-led coalition forces, a U.N.-appointed panel examining U.N. security reported Wednesday.
........

The report said U.N. senior management in Baghdad asked coalition forces — the only credible security force in the country — on several occasions to remove military positions and equipment from the vicinity of the Canal Hotel, apparently because they wanted to distance the United Nations from the occupying force.

Well, if the US public is not concerned about collateral damage, the Bush administration and the Pentagon certainly are. And they must be concerned for a reason. So, I submit that the US public is actually unwilling to be supportive of a war in which there is a large amount of needless civilian casualties, hence the average US soldier is fighting with their hands tied. It sounds like a circular argument, but no one has sufficiently addressed the fact that the US is fighting the insurgency in Iraq by half-measures. These half-measures are dictated by the political necessities of the situation. US troops ARE honourable, moral and well-trained. I would never imply otherwise. But they are being prevented from fighting effectively (a fight which would put their morals and training to the test, that's for sure, but that's another story) by the political realities of Iraq.

I am rather thankful that politicians are in charge of the US military, just like they are in charge of the IDF, and the former Soviet army. I am happy that politics shape war. Otherwise, war would be considerably more gruesome than it already is!

Like I said, the sooner Iraq is on the road to westernization, the sooner the insurgency will lose support from the Iraqis, and the easier it will become to destroy the remnants of the Ba'athist regime in Iraq.

Josh

#6, vanderleun:

It is, I have to say again, sadly true that the only thing that is going to put paid to the war big time is for the US to get hit again like 9/11 -- only, probably, harder.

I'm beginning to think that not even that would do it. Maybe if we lost a city to a nuclear attack, but I have my doubts about even that situation.

More people died on 9-11 than died at Pearl Harbor. At Pearl Harbor, only 48 of the dead were civilians; on 9-11 I believe better than 95% of the dead were civilians.

Our reaction to Pearl Harbor was to take on an enemy that had carved out an empire spanning about 1/4th of the globe, and another that had control of most of Europe, and beat them both. The treachery of the Pearl Harbor attack and the cruelty of the Japanese armies were repaid in part at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Yes, there were pacifists and isolationists during WWII. But they were utterly drowned out by the decisiveness and commitment of the American people. Our concession to pacifists was that they weren't required to take on combat roles -- but they still had to serve when they were called.

Our response to 9-11 has been to eliminate one of our enemys' colonies (Afghanistan) and remove one of the hostile governments arrayed against us. Every step of the way, there has been a politically significant portion of the population has opposed the war effort!

And it's only gotten worse. The Democrats have decided that their best political chance against Bush is for us to face disaster after disaster; they and their allies in the press amplify every negative event into a disaster and allow every positive event to disappear down the memory hole.

The pattern was set in the days immediately after 9-11: any attack on the US will be declared our own fault -- we upset the child savages, rather than appeasing them, so anything that they do is our own fault. It's just kept going and going -- to the point that Paul Krugman felt it acceptable to blame Matathir's antisemitism on our prosecution of the war!

I'm afraid that if a nuclear bomb was set off in San Francisco bay tomorrow, the usual suspects would declare it was Bush's fault -- he didn't "engage" the North Koreans in diplomacy; he didn't bow and scrape to the French enough; he refused to sign the latest treaty that gets the tranzis hot and wet. It wouldn't be seen as an attack; it would be seen as an "event" or a "disaster", as inevitable as the tide coming in.

I don't think most on the left actually want Americans to die in a lost war, but I do think they consider their political power more important than the common defense. They certainly consider their idologies more important than human lives; look at the absolute horror with which they greet any real attempt to even name our enemies. Look at who they consider their enemies -- Bush and American Christians, not the Islamists who bay for our blood.

And, no, the right isn't completely innocent. I hope Grover Norquist is drummed out of the Republican party for his deep-tonguing of Islamist activists and his recent love-fest with lefty idiotarians. I hope Bush stops treating the Saudis with kid gloves and starts kicking their asses.

Yes, the Administration has been strangely reluctant to be open about what's going on. But we all know what the State Department's like, and the Wilson/Plame business suggests the CIA has some similar problems. The FBI is a mess, more interested in proving it's not actually targetting the people we know are our enemies than in getting the job done. Sometimes I wonder if the government wouldn't completely come apart if the administration tried to be honest.

Hell, look at how the press is treating Rumsfeld's memo. We're not even letting our officials talk honestly and openly amongst themselves.

But the left's our biggest problem right now. They're doing their damnedest to keep us from solving -- from even acknowledging -- our problems, because they see their best hope in our failure.

When Phillipine [bigoted word]s were attacking General Pershing's troops, he captured 50 of them, executed them with bullets dipped in pig's blood, and wrapped their jihad filth corpses in pig entrails. He left 3 alive so that they could spread the bad news. The muslimaniacs put away their swords.

[Link: masada2000.org...]

[Link: www.ourenemies.org...]

[Link: www.ourenemies.org...]

SIEGE FALLUJAH! AND BURY THEIR JIHADIS IN PIG SHIT.

Charles;

I'm blushing, and I'm sending this link to my husband. We all want a hat tip, but this...

Also, just to address something that was said earlier in the posts -

On the Rumsfeld thread I also stated something else my husband had said - he now understands even more what they have to go through in Israel every day with one big difference... he can leave and come home.

And reaganite is right - the media wants us to fail, so if we did allow fighting back it might cause even worse ramifications. The other side knows this, and they work it with all they have.

Note Brian Mulroney's remarks on the importance of reforming the UN: [Link: www.opinionjournal.com...]

Every time I read letters from our soldiers over there, I keep going back to this article from the Ayn Rand Institute:

By any rational standard of morality, any wartime harm to the most innocent of Iraqis is entirely the responsibility of their government. Our moral right, and responsibility, is to do everything possible to safeguard American lives, however many civilian casualties that goal may require. We may lament the loss of innocent Iraqis during the war, just as we lament the loss of innocent Americans. But we should not apologize, since the blame, in both cases, rests entirely with the enemy, who made it necessary for us to wage war to defend ourselves against his threat.

Stop Apologizing for Civilian Casualties

I cringe at the thought of taking a life, but I won't hesitate to do so in order to protect those I love.

I wrote about this a while back, well really I screamed about it, some accused me of having my caps lock set to "jihad", this has been mentioned on Bill Oreilly, the field commanders are not in control, washington is, and thus the guerilla war is prolonged. There are two ways of winning the war in Iraq, you can win the political war and thus win the guerilla war, or the other way around. The former methodology is currently being used, and it might work, but letting our boys win the guerilla war would let us win the political war must faster.

Hey hey now people, we're liberating an entire country and soon enough we won't have to deal with this shit because we're training a new Iraqi police force and military. In the mean time, we can't just go around lobbing explosives at unconfirmed targets and killing shitloads of Iraqis just because somebody used their village to shoot at us from. If these Iraqis weren't Arabs you people would have an entirely different opinion of them. You just want blood, you don't want to see us win in Iraq.

To win Iraq we must win the political battle, which means minimizing civilian casualties.

I'm a Camel Prophet fan!

Where do I sign up!?

The US hasn't fought a war properly, since WWII...

It takes a no-holds barred rage to win a war properly. You have to convince the enemy not that they are wrong, but that they have no hope...

In WWII the Allies destroyed Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to make this point clear.

If the Islamo-fascists are stupid enough to hit our homeland again, they might see that kind of rage, but too date, since WWII, the US hasn't got it right once. Not even GWI is what I would have considered a "victory" since the aggressors, stayed in power, only for the US to have to finally deal with them in the end.

Maybe the problem is that the new pre-emption policy architected by the neo-cons after GW1 did not go far enought. It's not just enough to pre-empt, you must vanquish.

Blowback, you are not talking about a realistic solution to the problem. Technically we could just nuke the entire Middle East or invade them all and conquer them, but politically we could never do that because:

A) I hope you like waiting in very long lines to pay $5 a gallon for gas.
B) I hope you like waiting in long lines for everything else as well, since the US would get the shit boycotted and embargoed out of her.
C) We absolutely do NOT have the ability to wage war on and conquer all the Middle Eastern countries without a renewal of the draft and a quintipling of current military spending, which either means we get our income taxes raised to astronimical levels or we cut shitloads of money from education, social security, etc.
D) We would have to abandon all other theatres, leaving Taiwan and South Korea open to the hungry jaws of the Communists.
E) We would lose all allied support from any Coalition nation, including even Israel.
F) Imagine all the guys dying in Iraq and times that by 10,000 and that's what would happen with us occupying the entire Islamic world, no matter the tactics used.
G) This invasion would never have the support of anyone but a tiny majority of the American people, and whoever launched it would get voted out of office and some hippy peacenik asshole like Carter (Kucinich?) would get voted in.

But what am I talking about? Let's just invade the whole Arab world and use scorched earth tactics! Who needs logic on their side when we have blind rage?

The problem with the positive or explanatory tone some are putting on this is that the same half-assed process is occuring on the political front.

We thus run the very real risk of allowing unfavorable developments, such as an Islamist presence, to occur in the formation of the new Iraqi government structure.

The bastards will damn us no matter what we do. I say do what must be done damn the consequences.

MGlazer #34:

Hard line views remain very much the minority. Muslimaniacs, ancestors to the worst mass murderers in history, still manage to play the victim card. Whatever happens in Fallujah over the next few weeks, will turn the corner.

Blowback #35:

Democraticization worked in occupied Japan and Germany. It can't work in islamania, because these savages believe that democracy seizes sovereignty from their fake deity ("allah"). Total integration of church and state is well established in the unholy koran, and reinforced in the unholy hadith. There is no doctrinal basis for reform in islam.

The Bush Pseudo-Abrahamites still believe that "jihad" (obligatory muslim aggression) is a personal improvement strategy.

[Link: www.state.gov...]

And his boss? Alcohol has severely warped his brain:

[Link: www.whitehouse.gov...]

[Link: www.whitehouse.gov...]

#23, Reaganite and #33 Allah Puncher have it right. It's not in our interests right now to incur excessive civilian casualties. Yes, it pisses me off, too, to read stories like this, but that's the nature of this current war. We can't go around trashing Iraq if we want to convert it into a (relatively) shining counter-example to the others nations in the region.

Now, if we had declared this to be a war of annihilation and attrition, as we did in WWII, we'd be fighting differently. No quarter given. We probably wouldn't be putting up with this crap. But it's not a war of annihilation.

#40 OL' Southern Boy,

...we want to convert it [Iraq] into a (relatively) shining counter-example to the others nations in the region.

It's not going to happen. To try is a waste of lives, time, and money.

There have been a lot of discouraged comments about the psychology of the US public. Here's a quote from Phylip Wylie, Introduction (written in 1954) to Generation of Vipers:

"Vipers" ... was written ... between the twelfth of May and the fourth of July in 1942. That was the year after Pearl Harbor. World War II had commenced. But the period of "phony war" prevailed in Europe, action in the Pacific had hardly begun, and the American people were apathetic.

I find it somewhat encouraging to hear that the generation of Americans who won the war were "apathetic" six months after Pearl Harbor. It did not require another Pearl Harbor for them to psychically mobilize, it required visible action. The US public may not be as unprepared for this war as we think.

Pardon, I should have clarified that that was the introduction to the _20th printing_ of "Generation of Vipers".

One word: Vietnam, our introduction to low intensity conflict. And this, from a retired U.S. Army officer: don't ever believe that military leaders would automatically be more aggressive. They are, in fact, oftentimes more cautious than the civilian leadership. And it's often for good reason. This is not general war, a la WWII, fate of the nation and all of that, and it is premature to fully unleash the dogs of war. I learned all about "destroying the village to save it" in Vietnam. Didn't work real well there, wouldn't work any better here. Iraq is ours. Now comes the hard part.

Those of you who subscribe to, "go to foreign destinations, meet exotic people and kill them" really ought to try a war sometime.

Mr. Crawford: excellent post. But just who is the enemy?

Gee, Charles, that sounds like so 1968. If the leadership can't close the sale, the firm will go broke just like they did in South East Asia. Iraq is not about making friends, it is about influencing people. If they are not influenced, kill them.

This is the New & Improved Model of The Rules of Engagement first used in Viet Nam.
It was as a participant in the South East Asia War Games that I learned to tell the difference between dying for your country & dying because of your country.
The difference boils down to two words:
"POLITICAL FUCKING EXPEDIENCY!"

The difference boils down to two words

That was three words. But who's counting ;-)

Evariste's Zaide, what do you propose we do? Full squadron of airstrikes on the village for allowing somebody to shoot a mortar from it in the middle of the night?

We aren't losing any wars here. We are kicking the shit out of those stupid bastards, you just don't hear about it because of the media. Trust me, Islamists fold like a pair of twos when you apply pressure and attention to them. They are the most evil-intentioned assholes around, but they ain't got shit and they can't fight worth shit, and they aren't nearly as powerful as they'd like you do believe.

Allah-puncher
"what do you propose we do?"

We have highly trained pilots flying state of the art weapons platforms.

Notify all the Iraqi people that harboring guerillas will unfortunately result in dire consequences for them.
They launch mortars; we drop a smart bomb on that precise location.
Express sincere regrets for collateral damage.
Tell them the policy remains in force until THEY get rid of the terrorists (with our assistance.)
Then keep doing it.

Oh, and Allah-puncher,
"but they ain't got shit and they can't fight worth shit, and they aren't nearly as powerful as they'd like you do believe."

Tell that to our widows & orphans.

Allah-Puncher (#49)

We aren't losing any wars here. We are kicking the shit out of those stupid bastards, you just don't hear about it because of the media.

Then how do you know about it?

The point is being missed.

A mortar attack shows up on systems that can target counter battery fire. Every mortar round should draw 5 105mm in return. Once this is automatic the poplation will "assist" the mortar crews in finding new positions to fire from.

Evariste's Zaide, widows and orphans in the triple digits. We're losing more people to bee stings, and we are totally owning the jihadis. We are going to pull out in another year or so in the full occupation and hand that job over to the new Iraqi police/army. It's not like a village can just organize a police force in a day to stop these little felch-squads.

Many neighborhoods have been chasing the fedayeen from their neighborhoods specifically because they don't want retaliation, but encouraging them to give up the fedayeen because we are the good guys is the best option, and this is why we must minimize civilian casualties. We can't go and fuck some village up just because we're pissed off, and we can't drop a precision bomb on a mortar site if we don't know where it came from. These are peoples' lives you are playing with, and I really think that the vast majority of soldiers don't want to blow up the village they are patrolling just because of a mortar shell. They know that there is a political side to this war that must also be won, otherwise our combat victory is for naught.

We have the support of the majority of the Iraqis, and that's all we need come election time, and in the meantime we can't fuck that up by being sloppy and killing a lot of civilians and pissing people off.

zulubaby, because I read a lot of stuff about Iraq from the soldiers too, and they are generally a hell of a lot more optimistic than the people currently in this thread are. Whenever you read about a firefight, it always involves a crapload of fedayeen dying and maybe one American getting wounded, and we are also rounding them up by the hundreds in massive sweeps.

I'm not a military expert, but would it be fair to say troops are trained more for high-intensity, symmetric warfare than to deal with low-intensity, assymetric warfare?

Brutality and superior firepower do not guarantee instant success, otherwise Chechneya would be over by now.

Evariste's Zaide is 100% correct. Civilians harboring enemy combatants are targets. Kill them.

And we damn well should be nuking a few places over there. Kissing international ass is only going to encourage the enemy. The so-called Iraqi "police" and "military" forces being trained won't be worth shit for years to come.

This is not a frikkin' popularity contest. We are fighting for the lives of every American who is going to be killed as soon as the Islamoids figure out how to slip a nuke into a major US city.

Counterbattery fire can be accuratly initiated before the first morter round hits the ground making the act of firing the morter a form of suicide.

Allah-Puncher, where do you read this stuff? Can you post links or are they people that you know personally who are sending you e-mails and letters?

Allah-Puncher, one more thing. Are you just going to totally disregard what militarybrat's husband wrote? He's there, after all.

It's not like a village can just organize a police force in a day to stop these little felch-squads.

All we're asking is that they contact the coalition with some names and an address. Not hard to do, if one doesn't want jihadis operating next door.

From my reading of the letter, it seems that the soldiers know where the fire is going to be coming from. There are some amazing systems that can be deployed to find very accurately where the mortar came from, with return fire being sent on its way... well I'll only say very quickly and leave it at that.

I and most posters here aren't talking about wasting a village or causing needless casualties. Simply striking people attacking our troops with adequate force, which will likely cause civilian casualties. I don't believe that news reports of people hanging around within tens of yards of people attacking our troops will cause the majority of the public to shed any tears when they get blown away.

You know, my dad was in Vietnam, he used to tell me all these stories about the horrors of it. You know the thing that always stuck out in his mind the most? All the innocent villagers that got killed when his unit retook their village during the Tet offensive. He told me that the villagers hated them because they came in and built their base over the village graveyard, and how they paved over it with 4 feet of dirt, but they couldn't pave over this one grave because every day this old man would come out and sit on it all day and the other villagers would bring him food. So they paved around the grave, and this old man just sat there on that one grave surrounded by 4 feet of dirt in his little pit. Eventually the dirt caved in and buried his grave, and after the Tet offensive my dad never saw him again.

Zulubaby, no I can't give you all the links, I read a lot of stuff, stuff from LGF, right wing news, front page magazine, various blogs. I know what militarybrat's husband wrote but his letter is atypical from all the ones I've been reading.

Maybe they are in the Sunni Triangle and that's why he think's the villagers are harboring those bastards. I don't know where he is stationed, but if it is in the Sunni triangle and they know where it came from then I'm not adverse at all to dropping a smart bomb on that location.

It's primarily the "nuke em all" and "A good arab is a dead arab" attitude from people like Camel Prophet that I am trying to argue with.

Not so OT from Debka:

"Israeli air force planes carried out mock bombing sorties Wednesday over Beirut and north Lebanese town of Tripoli – according to foreign news agencies. Hizballah directed anti-air fire at Israeli planes. Sounds of powerful sonic booms and explosions reach northeastern Galilee."

Don't you just love it? Major seething and whinging probably took place afterwards. *LOL

Way OT:

But very interesting as it involves the surrender frogs.

French Court Fines Google

'After a recent court case in France, the current search leader Google has been fined 75,000 Euros for linking text advertisements to a trademarked French phrase. A French travel company sued Google after it was claimed that they let other companies link their ads to the trademarked phrase, "Bourse des vols". But Google is not the only company guilty of this activity and the judgment could have a very significant effect across the entire search industry, where this practice occurs on a frequent basis.

This is the first time that a ruling of this kind has been passed and could lead to a situation where companies providing search services will have to consult a list of trademarks before offering them to advertisers. Google will be appealing the decision, arguing that the term "Bourse des vols" was not covered by a valid trademark. But Google will still have to make the necessary changes as the appeal is processed or face further fines of 1500 Euros per future occurrence.

This is not the first time that the French courts have ruled against an Internet company. In late 2000, Yahoo was ordered to restrict access to parts of its site so that French users couldn’t visit any sites that sold Nazi memorabilia. This case caused a great deal of controversy, with legal developments arising between France and the former CEO of Yahoo, Timothy Koogle. This latest ruling is also likely to start a new wave of debate and could have a tremendous effect on the current structure of paid advertising on search websites. '

I recieved this news in an email from
[Link: www.ineedhits.com...]

Just to make a couple of things clear from some of the comments I've been reading here...

1) He is in Baghdad.

2) He is not now, and hasn't advocated to me ever, bombing entire villages for one mortar attack. This happens every night at dusk. They know where the mortars are coming from because they have weapons to track it. They also have precision weapons that can take out the mortar with minimum civilian casualties, but not guaranteed zero.

3) He is not advocating full out Vietnam style taking of villages - he just wants the people shooting from behind their women's skirts to know that there IS a consequence for what is done. And, by the way, my Dad was in Vietnam, too. Heard the stories too.

4) One of the problems he is having in his job is that there is zero respect from many Iraqis for Americans because they think we are "weak" for not defending ourselves. He interacts with Iraqis all day, every day. That's all I can say about it. But he knows very well from what he speaks.

5) He has also reported to me that whenever press are in an area, military members run the opposite direction as fast as they can. The whole attitude of the press is very negative towards them, and they are looking for any excuse to slam what is being done. If, for instance, we took out a mortar and even one person died, the political fallout would be tremendous, even if that mortar round had killed multiple GIs. If we shoot back, BACK mind you, not first, it is not unknown for press members to step in the way for their "shot" and "story". In effect, they make themselves shields for the bad guys.

@63 Allah-Puncher;

Just for your further information, my husband volunteered to go, he wasn't tasked. And he wanted to go because he felt that everyone is entitled to freedom, just as we have in America, no matter what their ethnicity.

Perhaps you misconstrued what he wrote - he is very glad to have done what he has done, to have freed people. He certainly doesn't want innocents to die, in any place for any reason. He doesn't want to nuke anything, or kill anyone just for their ethnicity.

He does want Americans in the 'Dad to stop being targets when the threat could be easily, and quickly neutralized with minimum collateral damage. He wrote this letter less than an hour after missing a mortar with his name penciled on it.

vanderleun  10/22/2003 06:39PM PST

It is, I have to say again, sadly true that the only thing that is going to put paid to the war big time is for the US to get hit again like 9/11 -- only, probably, harder.

So much of the media and the left wing is so blinded by political correctness that if NYC gets nuked, their reaction will be to "engage" in a "dialogue" to "find out why they hate us"

I'm so sickened by this I wish we could ship all the appeasniks to Iran and let them fend for themselves. Look, I can respect (and strongly disagree with) pacifists. But hard core appeasers are traitors.

On a similar note, this quote from the NYT is the funniest thing I've read all week:

Religious leaders from many denominations have said General Boykin's words run the danger of inflaming anti-American sentiment across the Islamic world.

Well, watts wrong with the Iraquis defending themselfes? Did the US expect that there would be no resistance movement? The americans are an occupying force in Iraq, and fighting them is the duty of the population, just like the french had a duty to resist the germans in the big war.

Militarybrats man needs to understand that he is only being typical american complainist. If he do not like to be attacked, maybe he should have been stayed in his owned country? He made the bed and should lie in it.

I hope the brave Iraqui partizan countinue and finnally trow the US out of the country!

@68 Cornholio, et al

"Religious leaders from many denominations have said General Boykin's words run the danger of inflaming anti-American sentiment across the Islamic world."

How the hell can you inflame what's been inflamed for years? It's like they are saying all's calm on the ME front as long as Boykin keeps his mouth shut. Sheesh!

Quark 2

Personally I'd like to inflame the Islamists with napalm.

#27  

Robert Crawford  I didn't see your post earlier. I agree 100%

I'm beginning to think that not even that would do it. Maybe if we lost a city to a nuclear attack, but I have my doubts about even that situation.

More people died on 9-11 than died at Pearl Harbor.

Before Islamic terrorists raised their ugly heads, the liberal politicall correctness was an annoyance.

Now the media fiddles the "religion of peace" song while Rome burns.

#41  

Ol' Southern Boy  

Now, if we had declared this to be a war of annihilation and attrition, as we did in WWII, we'd be fighting differently. . . . . But it's not a war of annihilation.

But it is a war of annihilation. Saudi Arabia is funding the nuclear annihilation of multiple American cities.

Ok, I could be wrong. Maybe none of the Islamic nukes will be used or passed off or stolen by terrorists. But can we afford to take that chance?

To paraphrase Dirty Harry "A nuclear warhead is the most poweful weapon in the world. Are you feeling lucky?"

@69 Mladen

It's too bad you're not double jointed, then your posting number would befit you much better. ;>)

Militarybrats' husband is not a complainist, he's utilizing his freedom of speech to tell what is the reality in Iraq.
Of course you might view freedom of speech as complaining.

Thanks militarybrat. I have no doubt your husband is a good guy, and I'm glad that he volunteered to further the cause of freedom and democracy. A lot of people on this website want to use your husband's attack as an excuse to get their hate on, people specifically like Camel Prophet. Those are who I am speaking out against. The "nuke em all" types, of whom I never would accuse your husband of being. The soldiers on the ground know what's up, and if your husband says that they are harboring the terrorists, its probably because they are.

mladen, I hope you are being sarcastic. Otherwise all you are doing is comparing freedom fighting partisans to a bunch of Baathist gangsters and Islamist thugs. You are defending the real badguys of this war, the Nazis who, after being vanquished in war, continued the fight against the allies who were trying establish freedom and democracy. I believe they were called the Werewolves.

#69, Mladan. Judging by the arc of your post it is time for you to duck. You have poor skills with which to survive combat of the nature which you will find here so why don't you go back under the rock from whence you came.

Cornholio:

I hope Boykin inflames them consistently, makes their ears burn and gives them heartburn. He's already a breath of fresh air!

@75 Allah-Puncher;

I wasn't trying to sound b**chy when I added the information - hope it didn't come off that way. And you are right about things getting taken too far by some people sometimes, it just gives the media more fuel for their anti-American fire.

However, I do see the not being able to protect themselves as an offshoot of the nasty things that were done during Vietnam. Now, defending oneself is painted as annihilating innocent villages.

Also, most of the media is in Baghdad, so everything there, no matter how small, is under a spotlight.

Oh yeah, and I know how you get really mad and frustrated and say things you don't mean in the heat of the moment. Heck, I do it all the time too. I sometimes insult people on this forum and then feel bad afterwards but I don't want to apologize because it might make my arguments seem weak.

Anyways, there are people here who genuinely believe that a good muslim is a dead muslim, and it frustrates me a lot because Charles will ban people and erase their posts if they are anti-semitic but he doesn't do anything about the people who seriously advocate the carpet-bombing and nuking of all Arabs, even the Iraqis whom we are trying to free. People are free to use anti-Arab racial slurs without fear and hurl vulgar insults that belong in a high=school lockeroom. Charles bans the morlocks but the least he could do is warn the people posting racist anti-Arab stuff to tone down and shut up, because it gets this website a bad reputation. That just really frustrates me, because I love this site but I don't like us getting labeled a hate site because of some of the crap on our forums.

Quark2, if yuo could answer my questions I wuold maybe think yuo had somthing to say.

1. Watts wrong with Iraquis defending themselfes from an occupant?

2. Watts the difference between french resistance and Iraqui resistance? Both are fighting an oppressiv occupier? (look at Bremer new Iraqi 'laws').

You have chosen a suotable name, Quark=soft cheese.

militarybrat, you aren't being bitchy at all. Geez, go easy on yourself, your husband is over in a foreign country right now in a dangerous situation, and you're worried about sounding like a whiner.

Spoken like a true army girl haha :-)

Well adios, kiddos...time for some shuteye for this poster. Keep it between the ditches and rational.

militarybrat:

May the LORD bless the footsteps of your husband, that he be kept healthy, whole and sane in that maddening crowd he's interposed in. You keep the faith!

militarybrat:

This may be a dumb question. Couldn’t these enemy mortars be taken out by a patrol if counter battery is not feasible?

"Mladen" is in Bosnia/Herzegovina.

At LGF, our trolls are worldwide.

#83

I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to that. My job is to send CARE packages, unit wide Christmas presents, cards for babies born and weddings, homeschool, and make dinner.

I honestly try not to know too much about the weapons things because if I know exactly what they can do, my imagination goes into overdrive.

He did tell me that we can hit them pretty precisely without much collateral damage.

mladen, Iraqi 'partisans' are nothing more than thugs. They were the people previously filling up cubic miles of mass grave full of little Kurdish children. If they weren't doing that, they are the guys who want to implement some crazy-ass backwards Taliban state by force that few Iraqis want.

The difference between the French resistance and the Iraqi 'resistance' is that the Iraqi 'resistance' doesn't have the support of the majority of Iraq's population, nor the sympathy. Do you remember the day we took down Saddam's statue? Do you remember all the people destroyed his posters and danced in the street beating their shoes on his bronze face? Those people hated Saddam. All the polls done in Iraq indicate that 2/3 of them want US troops to stay for at least one more year. They want a better life and they know that these bastard fedayeen, the same ones that ran around acting as Saddam's death squads for whole families during the war, are not going to offer them a better life.

Think about this for a second, you are probably a so called progressive, yet Saddam, a TRUE fascist and racist dictator, and religious fundamentalists whom want to establish a theocracy, are the people you are defending. You are defending the side that is probably the most right-wing, fanatical regressive movement on the fucking planet. The side that thinks that honor killings and Kurd gassings are all fine and dandy, and I'll wager its because you hate the United States so much, and not out of any love for the Baathist or Islamist cause.

@84 Charles;

You know, I thought it's phraseology sounded slavic (try saying the posts with the appropriate accent).

Since I know Russian is closely related, maybe this will make sense...

To Mladen:
Yop t'vayu mat.

Allah-puncher, the only reeson you take that view is that the Iraquis are kiling your kind. Iraquis are not nazis, and many of them who now fight the occupant is normal people fighting the great partizan fight for their country.

They have right to fight the occupuyer. Everyone who has a strange army in his country has duty to defend his countrys freedom.

Americans only want Iraq for itself, to have military bases and to make money.

Gymnast you know nothing about my survival skill. I was in the war in my country and fooght for more than five years. I defend my country against invader, like Iraqui people do and must. You are weak paper warman.

@80 Mladen

First: You need to either ask someone to give you a thesauras and dictionary set for christmas or go down to your local bookstore and buy one.

Yes all your grammar are belong to us.

And, quark is not = cheese.
A miniscule, almost virtual, particle that combines with other quarks to create something useful.
Or the trademark for a version of software.

Andthatisallbye

mladen, oh, from Bosnia eh? Well riddle me this, what is the difference between Serbian partisans fighting the occupying force in Kosovo and those brave French partisans from WW2?

Riddle me this, what was the difference between Serbian militias formed in Bosnia in the 1990s and the Bosnian militias formed in Bosnia in the 1990s? Both of them lived in Bosnia. Was there a difference between them? Could it possibly be their motives, goals, and their tactics used?

mladen, weren't those Serbian militias in your country just trying to fight for their own freedom against Bosnian oppression? Weren't they? Because that's what they would like me to think.

For some reason I don't believe that, and for some reason I think you are siding with Iraqis because they are your fellow Muslims.

Allah-Puncher: sorry, but that's nonsense. You have no idea whose posts get deleted and whose don't, and I assure you that I do indeed delete plenty of 'nuke em all' posts.

If they're deleted, you don't see them.

I also leave plenty of dissenting posts here, and even some outright antisemitic ones.

@91 Allah Puncher

I don't think Mladen is siding with ALL Iraqis... Just the ones that miss the days of people being shoved in plastic shredders.

The 2/3 that want American forces to stay to quell the current problems are not what he is concerned with.

#40 OL' Southern Boy

I'm in complete disagreement with your desire to cave in to the masses. The mass has no brain, heart nor repsonsibility for it's actions.

I'm in more agreement with #31's sentiments

General George S Patton

"An Army is a team. It lives, sleeps, eats, and fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is pure horse shit. The bilious bastards who write that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real fighting under fire than they know about fucking!"

"We have the finest food, the finest equipment, the best spirit, and the bestmen in the world".

"Why, by God, I actually pity those poor sons-of-bitches we're going up against. By God, I do".

"My men don't surrender, "I don't want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back. That's not just bull shit either. The kind of man that I want in my command is just like the lieutenant in Libya, who, with a Luger against his chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the gun aside with one hand, and busted the hell out of the Kraut with his helmet. Then he jumped on the gun and went out and killed another German before they knew what the hell was coming off. And, all of that time, this man had a bullet through a lung. There was a real man!"

Iraq - List of donor countries updated a few minutes ago...

Ok Charles. I know you leave lots of dissenters and anti-semites' posts, and you tolerate people like Maryam for as long as they are proving how stupid and belligerant they are. I didn't know you delete a bunch of anti-Arab racist posts, because we don't talk about those much and those people don't usually go and complain on other websites like the Indyidiots do. Thanks for setting me straight.

Charles, I am in Herceg-Bosna. Not Bosne i Hercegovine.

Allah-puncher, you belive all you propaganda press say? I have a bridge you can buy. Most Iraquis want the american occupant thrown out of Iraq. All the polls you say are US polls. And then the people will say wat they think the US want to hear. If Iraqui people want US in Iraq, then why they protect the partizan? You live in dreamworld. Gets a cloo.

To militarybrat:
Nisam ruski peder. Puš kurać, kurvetina. Nadam da tvoj muz biti poginuo i Iraku.

C'mon mladen, you know about the American military, aren't they the ones who blew the shit out of Serbia? Aren't they the ones who caught Milosevic and threw him in prison? Aren't they the ones who are launching raids looking for Mladic and Karadzic so we can arrest those brave freedom fighters too?

Just so you know, I backed Bosnia all the way. When the Serbians started murdering your people in the 1990s I wanted the US government to go in and start bombing Serbia. What they did in Bosnia is the real reason we got involved in Kosovo, because bombing them wasn't just for their oppression of Albanians, it was also revenge for what they did in Bosnia.

mladen, go to Iraq and ask the Iraqis what they want. Go ahead and do it. Most Arabs want the Americans gone, but the Iraqis tell the other Arabs to go to hell. You know what genocide is like. So do the Kurds. Saddam was a genocider who not only tried to murder all the Kurds but he also murdered more of his own Arabs. He killed so many that his entire army wouldn't fight for him in Iraq. They all just put down their weapons and went home. The Iraqis kissed our soldiers when we went and saved them from Saddam. They danced because they would not have to fear for their lives. They can say bad things about the Americans and we won't shoot them like Saddam did. I know an Iraqi who goes to my college whose uncle still has scars from being tortured by the Mukhabarat.

You are reading Muslim propaganda and taking it at face value. I read lots of propaganda too, but I know the truth, I knew it in when Serbs were killing in Bosnia and I know it in Iraq.

Allahpuncher. Thanks for sane questions.

Here are answers

The serbs are not figting in Kosovo. There are only some old people left. Do the diffrence is that they do not exist.

In Bosne the diffreence was that the serb army came from serbia and the weapons they used come from serbia. Not from Bosne. The bosnan people only come from bosne and had no choice but to defend themselfes.

And you should be careful to listen to serb histori of the war.

And I am NOT muslim. I am catholic. But I fight with my Bosnien brother against aggressor to save my country.

And Quark. At least I try to communacate in you language. If you had been gone to shool you could communacate in foreigne language as well. But only for you if yuo like better: Quark, ucinite moj jezik i ja govoriš sa tebe.

mladen, I know about the Serbians, and I know they were armed by the Serbian government and were killing your people for no reason. They were scum and I am glad we bombed Serbia. I know that the Serbs were not freedom fighters, they were evil bastards who wanted to murder people.

But what you don't know is that most of the jihadis fighting US forces in Iraq are from Syria and Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Almost all of Saddam's Fedayeen are from other countries, because almost no Iraqi that lived under Saddam would fight for him. They are getting their bombs and their guns from piles left over from Saddam and also they are getting their bombs from Saudi Arabia. During the Iraq war the Fedayeen would murder the families of Iraqis that would not fight for Saddam, and many Iraqis that did fight us didn't want to but only did it because the Fedayeen from other Arab countries would kill their family if they didn't. All the men that surrendered to the US in the first Gulf War had their ear cut off and the ears of their families cut off to show that they surrendered to us. Saddam was a cruel and evil man and he is still alive hoping that we leave so he can become the president again.

And remember that the US is still digging up all the dead bodies from the mass-graves in Iraq because Saddam killed so many of his own people and tried to wipe out the Kurds. You know what mass-graves are, right? You have many of them in Bosnia, don't you?

Allahpuncher

It was the government of Srbija that caught Milosevic and sended him to Haag tribunal.

The US troops are not trying too find Karadzič and Mladić, if thez wanted too it wolud be easy. They do not want them captured becouse they would tell about the deals they made with US and EU in time of the war. Believe me they will never be caughted.

I spent time of my childhood in Baghdad. I have friends in Iraq. Not muslim mujaheds, good people. Iraqui people hate Saddam, but they hate US more. Saddam is Iraqui, US is US. Time to leave now after Saddam gone. If not by itself, the Iraqui people will help US troop find the way home. It is maybe stupid, but it is their choice, not choice of US people to decide fate of Iraq.

I still lived under foregin political occupation. It is not nice. It destrouys my country now.

mladen, the US are the good guys. We don't go around conquering other nations. The only time we waged war for money was when we took the Phillipines from Spain in 1901. We don't need money, we have lots of money here and the war in Iraq is costing us billions of dollars. We could have just destroyed the whole country and taken the oil but we didn't because we are not badguys. Maybe our president wanted to fight the war to prove American strength and to have a base in Iraq, but the USA PEOPLE supported this war because we want to make Iraq a free country.

We don't wage war on good governments. We are trying to make a Democracy in Iraq and it is not easy to do. We have lots of people in Iraq in charge of the government who don't speak any other languages and they have never done anything like this before, but please know that most of the people fighting us in Iraq are not Iraqis, they are from Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, etc. and the Iraqis that we are fighting there do not stand with their Iraqi brothers. I have talked to many Iraqis over the internet and they said that if we did not invade after we said we were going to that Saddam would keep killing people. It is not like when Serbia invaded Bosnia, it is like when the US invaded Serbia. We are not trying to conquer a people, we are trying to set them free like we set Kosovo free.

mladen, the worst thing the US ever did to Iraq was when we let them rise up and try to overthrow Saddam but did not help them. Saddam murdered a million of them.

And you have to know that Bush is not Clinton. The American military is much better than EU and UN, and when we were bombing Serbia the European countries kept on saying "don't bomb this target" or "no don't bomb here". Bush is not a paper warman. He would have sent in ground troops and tanks to Kosovo.

And the US is looking for Mladic and Karadzic, but the Serbians are hiding them. We cannot do everything, just like we can't find Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden right now. We want to, but we are not God.

The only reason the Serbian government gave Milosevic to the Hague is because the US made them. We told them we weren't going to give them a lot of money for reconstruction unless they gave up Milosevic.

The US will leave Iraq, but not before we put a stable Democratic and free government in place. Otherwise Bush will have nothing to say he did good in Iraq.

And Mladen, it is ok that your English is not the best. Bush does not speak English very well, and he lives here. Americans make fun of Bush for his bad English all the time. He is not the smartest man, but he is a good man and he has very strong beliefs. He is not like Clinton.

Clinton was stupid on a lot of things. Clinton stopped the US from selling weapons to Bosnia when the Serbs started killing. Clinton also gave away for free nuclear reactors to North Korea when they told us that they would not use them to make nuclear weapons. The rest of the world liked Clinton a lot because he told them what they wanted to hear but men who tell you what you want to hear are usually liars.

Damn the left . Sorry bastards.
Put Rumsfeld in charge .
At least he has guts.

*106 Allah punchger and Mladen the catholic.

You yanks got it all wrong on the balkans. The albanians migrated to Kosovo after ww2 and Tito let them in, then they want to form their own schools etc, then so many of them are there that they want to join Albania, think of this.....
When the mexicans take over the US southwest they will demand same....

As for Bosnia.....Wasn't Izetbegovic a muslim fundamentalist? Also didn't Bosnia declare independence without the Serb people there wanting it? What happened to Fikret Abdic and the bihac muslims???

Here is a language that few people speak now due to oppression and occupation:

To Mladen - Meea navidna cowsza sawsnak.

Also what is a bosnian catholic doing in Baghdad?

Also why are you instictively anti-american? I would think you would be more pro given the blind eye that the French and other EU gave you.

#88 - next time I see one of your occupying bosnian refugees here in the UK -I'll make sure I fight them as you say, its my right. Nobody here wanted them, they just came, they were NOT invited.

This site is a laugh. Somebody decries Clinton's policies to North Korea, and another sings the praises of Rumsfeld. Both obviously ignorant of the fact that Donald Rumsfeld sat on the board of a company which three years ago sold two light water nuclear reactors to North Korea. He was a non-executive director of ABB, a European engineering giant based in Zurich, when it won a $200m contract to provide the design and key components for the reactors. Earning $190,000 a year, he sat on the board from 1990 to 2001, leaving to join the Bush administration.

#110 hmmm interesting got a link?

Anybody watch the PBS documentary about the Hajj last night featuring an American convert woman? Some teenie tool from MTV was getting ready to sing the Star Spangled Banner, and I'm as patriotic as the next guy who did six years active duty and was honorable discharged w/ DD-214 to prove it, but MTV and I don't mix.

Anyway, presented as fact, Abraham set up the Qaaba and initiated the pilgrimage as a way to worship the one G-d, Ishmael and Hagar were Abraham's proper family, and Muhammad, a direct decendant of Abraham, drove the polytheists and their idols from the Qaaba.

Then I turned back to Fox just in time to see the first pitch. Flipped back during a commercial to see a black South African who didn't feel welcome with the other South African hajis and thus did the Hajj w/ Malawis.

Good to know it is true that Islam respects all races and colors.

BTW, reading Charlotte Raven's week after 9/11 rant, I am more happy than ever that Gore wasn't president. She wrote that 9/11 required a criminal investigation, not a military response, and since the Clinton's MO was always treat al Qaeda attacks as criminal incidents, I am convinced one semi-glorious day of cruise missiles lobbed at empty al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, along with an indictment of bin Laden for murder would have been the net sum of our response. In October, 2003 the Gore administration would be offering the Taliban ever increasing amounts of aid for the extradition of bin Laden

#97

Most Iraquis want the american occupant thrown out of Iraq. All the polls you say are US polls. And then the people will say wat they think the US want to hear. If Iraqui people want US in Iraq, then why they protect the partizan? You live in dreamworld. Gets a cloo.

Do you have data to support this or do you just "know" it? Perhaps, in the same way as, say, a Manhattan journalist can't understand why Nixon got elected because everyone she knew was a democrat.

And it is "clue" not "cloo".

106 Allah-Puncher

Clinton stopped the US from selling weapons to Bosnia when the Serbs started killing.

No, that was Bush Sr's policy. During the 92 campaign Clinton supported "lift [the weapons ban] and strike [the Serbs]", but when he got into office the Euros and the foreign policy establishment argued him out of it and, classic waffler that he was, he caved. It took five more years of death, culminating in Srebrenica, and Albright replacing Christopher (yeah, I know what you're saying - "Does not compute! Must - read - NRO ...") before the US finally got serious and bombed the s--t out of them, and mysteriously a peace agreement followed.

112 Ed

I'm not so sure Gore would have been as wimpy as Clinton. I recall that Gore took a more aggressive line (or so they said) than Albright, Berger et al on a lot of issues, including Bosnia & Iraq. But then I read stupid things like his Zayed Center speech, so all of this has to be speculation.

War is nasty business. It makes orphans and widows. But peace is often a worse alternative, as it makes more orphans and widows...

Sigh. I have been saying for atleast a year before the war on Iraq, that war is a nasty businsess and if we dont intend to fight it properly, then it is better that we tackle the enemy within.

All this long campaign in Iraq is doing is encouraging the muslim fanatics as well as giving ammunition to those in the West who oppose the war and would rather stick their heads in the sand and hope that Islamic fanatics will go away.

#111, I found a Fortune article on the subject: Rummy's North Korea ConnectionRummy's North Korea Connection

What would Winston Churchill do?

I posted this is in another thread perhaps it's relevant here:

You know what I was thinking? It's possible to get a GPS chip implanted in your dog that can be activated by your vet to give his precise location in case he wanders off. Why not do the same thing with these Jihadis? Detain them for suspicion of terrorist activities and then drug their meals or tea. While they're zonked, implant the chip. Then release them and assure them it was a case of mistaken identity. "Sorry chap, but we're looking for another Ahmad Muhammed" type thing. If you find them meandering along a roadway at 3:00 AM outside of Fallujah, you'll know something fishy is going on. Especially if you find a string of improvised explosive devices in the vicinty.

Anyone familiar with GPS or counter-insurgency techniques? Any reason why this is not feasible?

BTW, Storm Prediction Center Day 3 Convective Outlook has southeast Texas and Louisiana in a "SEE TEXT", not a "SLIGHT RISK" for Saturday. However, a strong quick moving cold front will be entering Texas, and should be in roughly a Del Rio to Austin to College Station to just south of Shreveport line during the time of maximum heating, late afternoon. While the cities along and west of the I-35 corridor won't have sufficient moisture return for significant rain, increasing Gulf moisture, mid 80's temperatures will combine for CAPES of at least 2000 J/Kg, upper level winds will approach 100 knots, and a mid level dry layer will enhance downburst CAPE. Depending on where storm initiation occurs, there is a chance of damaging winds in southeast Texas into southern Louisiana afternoon into the evening.

Just as a heads up for Quark.

BTW, also caught snippets of the "Lawrence of Arabia" doc on PBS after the Hajj love fest. Caught an Arab talking head discussing French and British imperialism being responsible for the arbitrary divisions of land, along with the Zionists ( of course). He went on to add that today the United States continues this practice.

So good to know we are a colonial power.

Personally I wouldn't mind having my hands tied in Afghanistan, especially if it was by Ms. Afghanistan

Dirk- Miss Afghanistan, while having an attractive face is in need of a good meal. My anaconda don't want none, if you got protruding ribs, hun. ( To mangle the greatest artist of 1990, Sir Mix-a-Lot)

Now, the woman behind, Miss Barbuda, I wouldn't mind being with if I weren't married.

( I once asked my wife, just a hypothetical, if she would ever consider a three way with another hot woman, but she replied only if I'd consider a three way with another hot guy. So, ( besides the fact that I do take my Christianity seriously, even if I do have the occasional perverse thought) strictly monogamy for Mr. Ed)

Two points. CBC (CAIR Broadcasting Corporation) had a story by Adriene Arsenault on the wall that waa actually balanced. It included Israelis and Palestinians speaking and showed shots of wreckage after suicide bombers and described how bad things have been for the Israelis. This was followed by a lovely news headline. "Is American becoming an Imperial nation?" They had two guest speakers on a "panel" to discuss it. One was someone identified as "Canada's Ambassador of Disarmament". (?!?) The other was an Arab professor of Middle East studies from Georgia. Guess what their opinion was. It couldn't possibly have been more biased or more antiAmerican and hate filled. It had all kinds of shots os US soldiers lamenting their sorry lot being sacrificed for promoting American imperialism and forcibly exporting American values. (Democracy, human rights, equality, free speech, free press, religious tolerance, crap like that.) I got so disgusted I flipped to an old Law and Order rerun. I like to watch news at 10:00 pm but I'm going to have to stop trying to catch even the headlines on CBC. They infuriate me too much.

#30 I read the thing by Brian Mulroney and my first reaction on seeing his name was a full blown loathing reflex. I hear Mulroney and I hear corruption, sell off and arrogance. Then I realised I based most of my opinion on CBC broadcasts of the era and so I reread it with an open mind. Actually pretty good stuff.

However, I still think there was a good reason why his party went from a huge majority to only two seats and still hasn't recovered yet. I'd be a bit suspicious.

president Dwight Eisenhower, as we was leaving office, ominously warned of the "Military-Industrial" complex. It can more accurately be called the "Congressional-Industrial" complex, for it is the legislature that has the final word on what is bought. Military contractors have learned to spend most of their lobbying and marketing dollars on legislators, not generals. Rumsfeld may get some temporary opportunities to change spending priorities from those that emphasize getting congresscritters reelected to those that concentrate on what the troops need.

For example, the troops need more long range air transports, fast sea transports and aerial tankers, as well as more money for training and base maintenance. There's a lot more, but the real military reformers will now be encouraged to come out of their bunkers and speak openly about what is really required to increase combat capability. But long term, the Defense Budget will always be mislabeled.

It's really the largest single barrel of pork available to politicians. For a democracy to work, the people's representatives have to control the budget and tax rates. (which is why Iraq is having a tough time now, trying to establish that kind of new democratic stability) But there may be ways to make congressional interference a little more obvious, and thus more politically costly.

in no way, shape or form am i trying to use subliminal anti islam pork messages in my post : )

he*

@119 Ed Moran, Dr.specializing in many names

Thanx for the heads up. We are planning on going to the races up by Tyler on Saturday. Does this mean our outing is ruined? And, can I blame it on you?

I missed the 'haj' special, but watched the one on Lawrence. Once again we are going behind europe cleaning up their mess, just like in Vietnam. And we're being falsely labeled imperialist. I've come to the conclusion that most people who are capable of uttering words pushed together are not capable of interpreting what the pushed together words really mean.
I was in London in '63 for the premiere showing of the uncut version of Lawrence of Arabia with my grandparents. The main thing I remember other than the excellent acting was the fact that Peter O'Toole looked amazingly like the real Lawrence. I thought the special last night very interesting, and paid very close attention to the historical maps used. It would be interesting to get a copy of the transcript and verify the history they were reporting as factual.

From what I read, when the IDF goes after a terrorist, they weigh two things: the importance of the mission, and the likely collateral damage.

After one attack that resulted in a surprising amount of collateral damage, because the blast knocked down some nearby shoddily built houses (an unexpected result), I read that they have military councils that specifically delve into seeking to predict the amount of collateral damage and weighing that against the importance of the mission.

The more important the mission (for example, if the terrorist is a very dangerous one), the larger the amount of collateral damage that can be considered as an acceptable consequence of war.

I think that the same was true with the US decision to end World War II by nuking Hiroshima & Nagasaki. The mission was vitally important because it meant an end to World War II, and the saving of a million Allied lives that would be lost in an invasion of Japan. The collateral damage was very large, but it was balanced by the incredibly large importance of the mission.

I think that neither extreme is good, so the war on terror has to make the same kind of balancing. If the mission is very important, then the allowable collateral damage must be appropriately large. But if the mission is not so important, then the allowable collateral damage is not so large.

re #126, in the case of being shot at, and being denied permission to fire back, that is really extreme, and I don't understand it. Soldiers have a right to defend themselves, don't they? That kind of extremism has no place in winning a war. That kind of extremism has no place in ending a war. It is misguided, IMO.

What, pray tell, kind of race is in Tyler.

I must soon try to get tickets to TMS for the April 2004 Nextel Cup Race for me and mi cuñado, preferably on the front stretch this year.

Will you and Mr. Quark be attending?

Naw, front is through Tyler by late morning/early afternoon, if squall line has formed by that time it'll be fast moving, so the rain won't last long.

dirk

ms afghanistan looks like an auschwitz victim, besides, thats not even the real miss afghanistan. its all a facade to gain ratings.

Miss America is a junior at Portland State University, hoping eventually to get a Master's degree in Bioethics.

Miss Afghanistan is forbidden from receiving any education at all, and cannot read or write.

Miss America has worked as a lab assistant at both the Oregon Health Sciences University and the University of Puget Sound.

Miss Afghanistan is forbidden from working.

Miss America's father is an engineer. Her mother is a teacher.

Miss Afghanistan's father was shot by a gang of Taliban militants. Her mother begs for bread scraps since she cannot work or remarry.

Miss America wowed the judges by singing a Puccini aria, "O Mio Babbino Caro".

Miss Afghanistan is forbidden from singing or even listening to music of any kind.

Miss America will be traveling the nation nonstop during her reign.

Miss Afghanistan cannot leave her house without a male family member, cannot drive, and cannot be out after dark.

Miss America is an advocate for breast cancer research.

Miss Afghanistan cannot be treated by a male doctor, and for all practical purposes has no access to medical treatment of any kind.

Miss America can date, marry, or divorce anyone she chooses.

Miss Afghanistan will be stoned to death if caught in the company of a male outside of her family. She is likely to be sold into an arranged marriage to a man who already has two wives.

Miss America wears sunscreen on the beach to keep from burning.

Miss Afghanistan cannot live in a house with windows unless they are painted black. Since she must wear a burqua outside, her pale translucent skin has not seen a ray of sunlight in years.

Miss America could have been disqualified if her swimsuit did not meet pageant standards.

Miss Afghanistan can be flogged if the holes in the mesh covering her face are too large.

Miss America will decide how many children, if any, she wants to have.

Miss Afghanistan will be pregnant 3-4 times more often than Miss America. Unfortunately, her babies are 25 times more likely to die in the first year. One out of four will not see their 5th birthday.

Miss America is majoring in speech communications at PSU.

Miss Afghanistan is forbidden from speaking in public.

Miss America is 21. Since the U.S. life expectancy for women is 80, she's still a very young woman.

Miss Afghanistan is also 21. But since the life expectancy for an Afghan woman is 43, next year she will be "over-the-hill".
(Besides having a shockingly short life expectancy overall, Afghanistan is one of the only countries in the world in which women have a shorter life expectancy than men)

Miss America is a beautiful, intelligent woman and everyone knows it.

Miss Afghanistan could be a beautiful, intelligent woman ... but nobody will ever know it.

God Bless Miss America
God Help Miss Afghanistan

I just had what might be a good way to allow our fighting men and women to fight back if necessary--- lets get some more embedded reporters back!
It's win/win. Either the media declines, in which case they can be shown to be the not-so-interested-in-the-truth filter they are, or they agree and the world sees just what ridiculous constraints our forces have.

#36 Allah-Puncher

You sure know how to put words in a guy's mouth. Did I ever say anything about invading the whole Middle East? No. The foe that needs to be vanquished right now, are the islamo-fascists, and Batthists hold outs in Iraq. And if that requires making some bold moves, then so be it. This PC crap that is getting more of our troops killed, has got to stop.

This was a great thread. Too bad I missed it.

militarybrat - May G-d continue to protect your husband. Great posts.

Allah-Puncher - Great posts. I also agree with you that there are some posters who are too rabid.

Mladen - I'm glad we wasted our time stopping Serbia from slaughtering you lot; clearly you're very thankful.

EE - The 1M number is a post facto myth. Contemporaneous estimates were that about 50K Allied casualties would be incurred in an invasion of Japan. This demonstrates that the military probably didn't realize how much destruction the atomic bombs would wreak; they felt they had to raise the "expected" casualty count in order to justify the invasion.

@128 Mr. Ed the talking horse

The race track is located on Hwy 69 just this side of Tyler. I can't remember the name of it. It's a dirt track.

I don't know if we will be at the race in Houston, all depends on where we are. :)
Did I tell you I applied for a job in Wyoming? Haven't heard anything yet.

Ariel- I usually agree with you.

But since the Marines took over 25,000 casualties at Iwo Jima ( nearly 6000 deaths), for a small volcanic island, and 12,000 died on Okinawa,
what makes you think, even with a Soviet invasion, that only 50,000 Americans would have died invading an island with an armed and determined civilian population?

Even conservative estimates are close to 300 k

The Nextel Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway is in Denton county, just north of FTW, where a mini boom is going on, drilling for Barnett Shale gas.

( Quite a few rigs visible from I-35W )

129 Lena

Well put. Miss America also lives in a country where plastic surgeons organize exhibitions of satisfied customers. Besides the fact that they both send competitors to the same beauty pageant, it's hard to believe America and Afghanistan are on the same planet.

Nevertheless, Miss Afghanistan is a babe.

Mladen, You see your survival as a triumph and that is your some and substance. Your resentfulness of all in excess of that is readily apparent. As for the rest of your comments, the vacuous bullshit speaks for itself so "suck up" and have a Merry Xmas, or happy Ramadan (no cheating) or whatever.

First off, I have to agree with reaganite and others: no, of COURSE the US military will not, and cannot, simply shell an Iraqi village from which it's taking sporadic mortar fire. I hope militarybrat's husband stays safe; but the course of action he's proposing simply would not help the cause. Some posters are citing Dresden and Hiroshima, but of course those were cases of countries against whom we were still in "major combat operations", not countries we were occupying and reconstructing at the time.

Ariel #132:

Contemporaneous estimates were that about 50K Allied casualties would be incurred in an invasion of Japan.

What's your source for that? I find that estimate very hard to believe, considering that US forces took over 50,000 casualties on Okinawa alone.

@135 Ed Moran Sensual, but not too far from innocence

I know where Denton county is, as I have family living no so far from there over in Grayson county.

Back in '98 Shell Oil built a pilot plant in the 3rd range of the rockies, over in Wyoming to extract oil from shale. I applied for that job, but they canceled the openings because they realized the plant was not a ready to go yet. I wouldn't mind doing that kind of work again, that's why I applied for the job in Wyoming. It's a the same kind of operation.
Is there any plants being built in north east Texas or will the extractons be pumped down here?

With the political realities of pressure from groups the likes of the National Council of Churches, such decisions by the military brass are inevitable.

Don't miss the scare quotes in this one:"namely to lead the "hunt" for Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, does not allow for such sectarian hostility to Islam."

Barnett Shale is a gas bearing shale that was not produced until recently because it has extremely low permeability. With improvements in hydraulic fracturing treatments, it can now be produced ( from underground, this isn't a surface mining/extraction program).

While every Barnett Shale well ever drilled in Denton, Wise, Dallas and Tarrant counties has encountered gas, they are still highly risky, as hydraulic fracturing is still expensive, and some wells will never produce enough gas to return a positive return on investment.

Ed Moran, Occasional Reader,

The sources that my source draws on is Barton J Bernstein, "A Postwar Myth: 500,000 U.S. Lives Saved," Bulltein of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 42, No. 6 (June-July 1986), pp.38-40; Rufus E. Miles, Jr., "Hiroshima: The Strange Myth of Half a Million American Lives Saved," International Security, Vol. 10, No.2 (Fall 1985), pp.121-140; Skates, The Invasion of Japan, pp.76-83.

Essentially, Byrnes, the SecState at the time, invented the number of Americans that would be killed in an invasion after the atomic bombing led to their surrender. The actual contemporaneous estimates (as sourced in the above) were 20-26K for Kyushu and another 40K for Honshu (which was all that was estimated to be needed) - so I slightly underestimated by saying 50K.

None of this means that we were wrong to bomb Japan. But it does mean that political leaders felt compelled to inflate the expected number of casualties to fend off political pressure; it also sheds light on the actual topic of this thread, as an aside.

@141 Ed Moran Sensual, but too far from innocence

Did your company buy old oil fields to check out the theory of oil pools underground refilling? Shell launched into deep offshore drilling years ago, we always watched the news with interest as the technology would influence our processes at Deer Park.
We had the first dual train olefins plant, that was an interesting 'ride'.

#142 Ariel:

Well... harrumph, that's all I have to say. 50-60K still seems rather low to me, given the actual numbers of casualties incurred at Okinawa and Iwo Jima. (I'm also a little suspicious of political spin in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, them of the nuclear doomday clock.) Come to think of it, something's not clear to me; are we talking 50-60K killed, or 50-60K casualties? The latter seems REALLY, REALLY low, and even the former I would think was rather optimistic.

so I slightly underestimated by saying 50K

Ariel LIED! People DIED! [commence pounding homemade bongos]

Which reminds me; apparently we have another ANSWER-organized "anti-war" rally in DC this weekend. "Stop the war"? Um, didn't they get the memo?

Well... harrumph, that's all I have to say. 50-60K still seems rather low to me, given the actual numbers of casualties incurred at Okinawa and Iwo Jima. (I'm also a little suspicious of political spin in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, them of the nuclear doomday clock.) Come to think of it, something's not clear to me; are we talking 50-60K killed, or 50-60K casualties? The latter seems REALLY, REALLY low, and even the former I would think was rather optimistic.

Hell, the totals killed in the Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombs never exceeded the number of civilians killed when Allied aircraft firebombed Dresden in 1943. The destructive power of the first A-bombs was highly overrated.

Oh, if you work at Deer Park, I email your co-workers with weather updates/jokes in the New Orleans shallow water development group ( I'm told it was to be called "Mature Asset Development Group" until people realized they would be working for the "MAD" group).

That is a Gulf of Mexico thing, and the company I work for isn't in the Gulf yet.

They started with mature fields in the Wichita Falls area that had been drilled by the majors 30 to 60 years ago. They correctly figured that two former Texaco petroleum engineers, employing only a workover supervisor and a couple of pumpers, could make money on fields with 3 and 5 barrel/day wells bigger companies with bigger overhead found unprofitable. They expanded along the same lines into the Amarillo area, the Corpus Christi area and a field in southwest Louisiana.

They just purchased an oilfield from a medium sized independent that had been drilled by Shell and Humble/Exxon in the 1940s-1970s, and operated by Shell and Exxon into the late 1990s. The independent was heavy on geologists and drilling engineers, but low on production engineers. They had purchased it for its deep potential, but money constraints kept them from drilling, and eventually forced them to sell to my company. In the four months since we've owned the field, we have increased production well nearly 100 BOPD to ~350 BOPD, and doubled gas sales by working over a SWD, which allowed them to open the chokes on the wells, and by doing a few simple workovers/well repairs. My company now plans to drill some of the wells the other company planned next year. Additionally, similar fields in the area have had some very promising shows very deep/geopressured, and my company is negotiating with partners for a full seismic survey.

Free enterprise, 2 guys in 7 years went from being wage slaves at Texaco to being worth nearly $10 million each before age 40.

Occasional Reader #144,

Ariel LIED! People DIED! [commence pounding homemade bongos]

LOL!

I'm pretty sure that the number was number dead, not including wounded.

As to the ANSWER folks, it's only a symptom of their greater need for a clue-by-four.

#147

Casualties ALWAYS refers to killed and wounded in action.

Roughly 38,000 Americans were wounded and 12,000 killed in the Battle of Okinawa.

Of course Japaneese losses were much higher. Over 100,000 Japaneese soldiers and conscripts killed (not wounded) and over 100,000 civilian deaths.

Blowback #148,

So I used the wrong word, k?

That doesn't change that there's no way that 1M casualties could be expected - just scale up the ratio in Okinawa and it's pretty obvious.

Ariel

Who ever said there would be a million casulaties?

Not me.

Realistic estimates for US casualties were 200,000 to 300,000.

Of course a mainland invasion of Japan, would have caused far more many civilian deaths, than were caused by the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined. Probably 500,000 or more civilians alone, would have been killed during a mainland invasion of Japan.

Yeah, but Blowback, being blown to shreds by a conventional iron bomb is so better than being vaporized by a nuclear weapon.

Ed

I for one really dislike all this revisionist history w.r.t. the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

At the end of the day, the bottom line is, it saved American lives (and in the long run saved Japaneese lives as well).

Given Japan's cupability in causing WWII, their complicity in a great number of war crimes committed during the prosecution of the War, and their fanaticism, I would have to say that the allies had to prosecute the War in the manner that they did, and if it saved American lives, at the sacrifice of Japaneese lives, then that was just and fair.

I believe the 300K US caualties was for the first stage (Honshu) not necessarily the cost to completion. At the time of the A-bomb drops, US troops from Europe were being taken across country on sealed trains for embarcation from West Coast to prepare Honshu invasion (Southenmost "Home" island). My dad, who was in the second wave at Normandy, was on one of those trains and was in San Francisco when the A-bombs fell.

I can tell you from personal recollection the reaction in the movie theaters when the first Movietone News pictures of the A-bombs were shown. There was, of course, a great cheer but even more an overwhelming sense of relief. We all knew about Okinawa and Iwo Jima and expected far worse to come.

The net savings of JAPANESE lives is, in itself, sufficient justification ex post facto, though those of us living through it didn't give much of a rat's ass about that.

All in all, I suggest the A-bombing was probably the best thing ever to happen to Japan in its multi-millenial history.

#67

I want to thank you and your husband from the bottom of my heart.

War is hell on earth and no sane person wants any part of it. But, no sane person would not fight back when attacked. WHATEVER the result.
The innocents that are caught up in this maelstrom in reality are better off dead as THEIR quality of life is nothing short of hell on earth without war.

The country of the United States is the closest we as humans ever got to "Paradise," here on earth. So to fight for it with all you got is not an effort in futility nor is it something one should have second thoughts about, or second guess ones self on, when achieving the goal of victory is done for self-preservation.

Being a DEFENDER in warfare is not the same as being the AGGRESSOR. Your husband is a defender, and being that, he owes no explanation for his actions whatever they maybe. This is a fight between life and death.
When your husband wins. The United States wins.

God go before him.

Please, don't let the assholes turn this into Israel. When they attack us crush them! No bullshit!