RIP Saddam Hussein

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Originally Posted by Krenshau

Now, in Iraq, we use traditional urban warfare methods developed in the 80's and 90's, which is why we are not doing well. We clear a neighborhood, and leave. This allows the enemy to come back. The same thing is being done in Afghanistan.

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I'm not sure that there is any effective tactic that has yet been developed against local resitance. Look at the British in Northern Ireland, it is very difficult to fight an enemy when they look like everyone else, and don't show themselves until they are pointing a gun at your back. Also, unless you have the local population on your side (and against the enemy) then you will never succeed. Note: I qualified that statement by saying "Against the enemy", as being sympathetic to the allies, is quite different from being active against the enemy. If someone sees somebody planting a road side bomb:
1) If they are for the resistance, then they will say nothing.
2) If they are sympathic to the allies, they probably still will do nothing for fear of reprisals against their family.
3) Only if they actively hate the resistance will they do anything.

*I use the term resistance above to describe any group of local fighters vs. organised army. They might be French Resistance in WWII, IRA in Northern Ireland, Warlords in Afghanistan or Insurgents in Iraq - I'm just using the term to draw a point.

Unfortunately, I suspect Iraq is full of people 1 & 2 and not many of type 3.

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Originally Posted by Krenshau

I think if the rest of the world would wake up and see that instead of pitching a fit about us going around killing terrorist, they might do better to say, let's join America.

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Nobody is pitching a fit about you killing terrorists. Killing terrorists is fine. Just how many terrorists where in Iraq before you invaded? Zip. Nada. None. The Iraqi's are not terrorists they are just people who are fighting an occupying army. Would you do any different if a country invaded the US and killed off your children etc. I'm not saying I agree with what they are doing, but I understand their motives, and it is nothing to do with terrorism.

Which brings up another irk of mine. Whenever anywhere is bombed in Iraq, it's "20 suspected terrorists were killed in the attack". Sorry, but that's not good enough. You can't just sweepingly state that they were terrorists and leave it at that. Whatever happened to good old fashioned soldiering. Don't bomb them from afar and hope that they aren't civies. Get troops into the house, shoot anyone that shoots back and get the buggers in the back of an army truck, then work out who they are. Every wrong target you kill creates a number of new "freedom fighters" wanting revenge. Face facts, someone fighting an occupying army is not a terrorist - they're a patriot! But those words are too imotive so the US government uses the term "insurgent"......

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Originally Posted by Krenshau

Let's not just let the Americans set up bases in all of these countries, let's have the U.N. set up bases in these countries. So, then, we would have the international community working together to be a quick response military force that could do as a team what America is doing alone now.

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I agree. However, as Shaggy Hiker has already pointed out, I think that it would be a hard sell now. Do you remember all the "If you're not with us, you're on the side of the terrorists" rhetoric. People might not be as quick to forget as you hope, and I suspect that most of the population of the world now see Iraq as 100% US/UK problem.

This is wrong (in my opinion), but it is very much the feeling in a number of the countries I have visited recently.

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Originally Posted by Krenshau

This would be the world united against these extremist that want to behead anyone that doesn't cover their females head and recite things from the Koran.

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Iraq was actually one of the free-er middle eastern countries with regards to interpretation of the Koran. If we are going after people for their religous beliefs then maybe we should knock over Saudi, or how about Kuwait, or what about Pakistan (for their incredible rape law - basically unless the woman has 4 male witnesses she's guilty of adultery - oh look, that's death by stoning), or how about we start attacking China for their clamp down on the Foolan-gan (sp?)

Sorry, I don't buy it. Attacking to free the locals from oppression. Even in Afghanistan, we got rid of one regime to be replaced with another (of warlords). Now in fairness, I think we can do something with Afganistan as the country is war weary and the military there is seen as far more multi-cultural. With Iraq, I'm afraid we are seen as invaders.

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Originally Posted by Krenshau

It seems to me that the world wants to get rid of the aggressive Muslims, but doesn't want to do the killing needed to stop them. Thus my talk about how we, rose to the occasion, though admittedly late, and we didn't try to negotiate with our (collective) enemy, we just killed them.

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Again, nobody has a problem with killing terrorists, the problem is in identifying the terrorists and then killing them. Luckily all of the 50,000 dead Iraqi men, women and children were all terrorists eh? That's a lot of blood, has it sated US peoples thirst for revenge after 9/11? Or is there more to come?

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Originally Posted by Krenshau

This is how we should deal with Muslim extremist that go around killing and oppressing people.

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I would agree, unfortunately that is nothing to do with what is happening. You do not fight terrorists with armies, you fight them with inteligence, infiltration and a few bullets.

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Originally Posted by Krenshau

I think that the reason we are not doing well (putting it mildly) is because we used the same stupid tactics we did in Vietnam. If we can fight this war like we did in WWII, then, and only then, do I see us having a chance. To clarify, when I say we should fight this war like we did in WWII. I am not saying to employ the same tactics, I am saying that we should think less about doing more with less troops, and think more about bringing peace and security to the neighborhoods all around Iraq by killing the enemy, securing the area, leaving a well supported amount of troops to patrol an assigned section, and not giving the enemy a chance to come back in.

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Alas, this is back to the problem of how do you identify who your enemy is. The kid on the street infront of you might grow up to be a normal well adjusted human being, or they might grow up to be a terrorist because of some event yet to happen. You just don't know. One of the biggest causes of IRA recruitment in Northern Ireland was that youths felt they were being oppressed because British troops would raid their homes, ransack them looking for weapons and then leave the house in a mess when they didn't find anything. Sounds strange doesn't it? You would think they would become terrorists for deeper meanings than that, but silly as it sounds, the youths felt helpless and violated. So they turn to the IRA as their only source of response. The IRA kindle their hatred and give them the ability to strike back for past wrongs. Now, look at the situation in Iraq. How many people will become "freedom fighters/insurgents" when you have a situation which it far worse because
1) It's an invading army, not your own army
2) People are being killed instead of just inconvenienced

Like I say, I don't think there are any good tactics for dealing with this situation. But how can we best deal with it? I would suggest putting in place an Arab based peace keeping force (Saudi, Jordanian etc.) on the streets who might be a bit more acceptable to the locals, and use old fashioned soldiering, i.e. find your enemy and then kill him, not just blow up buildings and hope that they were insurgents.

Do I think it will work? No, I feel that we have passed the point of no return, however we shouldn't give up trying.

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Originally Posted by Krenshau

Plus, I would leave them with this question, "How affective were you at talking Saddam out of power?" I think that if we leave any other time than that, you will see Saudi Arabia sending in people to help the Sunnis, Iran to help the Shiite(sp?) and the whole place to will get a 1000 times worse. My original post was just to say, "How can the other nations in this world, that were involved in WWII, not see that?" The enemy has to be stopped.

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We made the enemy. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Hell, Britain and Saudi had way more to do with 9/11 than any other country. You can't point to the violence in Iraq and say that you are fighting the good fight and the world should help out. As an outsider I would not want to align myself with a state that encourages kidnapping, imprisonment without trial and torture. So, to answer your question, I suspect the other nations of the world are looking at Iraq and trying to decide who the villain of the peice is....

But I will leave you with this scenario, Poland was quite aggressive to it's neghbours prior to WWII (Lithuania in particular). Germany invades Poland, takes over and starts imprisoning and torturing the Poles... the Poles form a resistance movement..... Now, I personally do not think there is much a parallell between what is happening in Iraq and WWII, but if you insist on drawing comparisons then re-write the above statement as

Iraq was quite aggressive to it's neghbours. The USA invades Iraq, takes over and starts imprisoning and torturing the Iraqis... the Iraqis form a resistance movement.....

Now, I don't agree with it, but that is possibly how the rest of the world views the US actions...

Shaggy,

I don't remember a time in U.S. history when Christians marched thru the streets yelling, "Death to heathens!". Do you know of anyone that has been beheaded because they wouldn't convert to Christianity? To me, that is a crazy comparison. However, if Christians ever started doing this, I would join in the fight against them. Also, anyone that knows anything about Christianity would know that it is not proper for any Christian to murder another human being. (just to avoid another totally off topic subject notice I said murder, and not kill). I am not saying that Christians haven't murdered for what they believe, I would just question their true beliefs.

Also, where is there a law that makes anyone recite Bible verses? It is my understanding that the opposite exists. That is, laws that prohibit reciting Bible verses and praying. The Constitution says that congress shall make no laws establishing a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there of. That may not be word for word, but I am pretty sure it is very close. In my opinion, there have been many laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion, not the opposite.

Ex-FB,

I agree with most of what you said, except the conclusion. I do not agree with how many things have been handled. At the beginning of the Iraq war, I was against it, until I heard, or read, that the Iraqi people wanted our help. Plus, if you look at how we were originally responded to, we were very much liked. Polls done of the Iraqi people showed that 60% were glad we did what we did. Where we failed was in not delivering the things needed for the Iraqis to maintain a normal existence. Plus, I agree that our troops should not be storming into houses just because someone reported them. They should do what cops do and stake out the house for a few weeks or so to determine if the report is true. These two things, I think, are exactly why they are fighting against us. However, I don't believe in too late. I believe that anything can change. If we would provide security so that people could return to a normal life, give them water, garbage collection, and other necessities, and start being smarter in how we deal with them, actually, people in general, then we could turn this around.

In your first set of statements, my first paragraph would help to put people into group three. If we could show them that we are improving their lives, and the people fighting are making it worse, they might jump into group three. However, I don't agree that all the fighters are local dissidents. I think many, many, many of them are people coming over from Iran. It is my understanding that Iran is mostly Shiite, and the PM of Iraq is Shiite, and most of the violence is Shiite against Sunni. Our troops have been ordered by the Iraqi PM to do no operations against the Shiite militias, and only take down Sunni militias. The PM doesn't want us to leave because our troops have become his pawns doing his dirty work. That is supposed to change according to what that President's last speech. We will see.

As I said before, I don't agree with a lot of how things are handled. I think I could do a lot better, but I think for the rest of the world to say that they aren't going to help fight a common enemy just because of things we do things that, admittedly, aren't right, but are not nearly as bad as what our enemy is doing, is foolish. Iran just got done killing a 16 year old girl for nothing (they hung her in public), but no one says a word. We do something wrong and there is a severe backlash. I am not saying that America shouldn't do what is right, I am saying there is a huge double standard. It's like that saying (cleaned up) you get crap if you do, and you get crap if you don't.

Overall I agree with pretty much your view of things. You are right, (IMHO) that we need to provide the Iraqi's with water power etc. But my dealings with Iraq at the start of the conflict very much centred on power distribution (gas turbine generators). The US bought loads of them, but they weren't for civilian power, without an exception (of the ones I know of) they all went to getting the oil pumping again. I can see how that would annoy the local poplace (who had/have no power still), who subsequently took to machine gunning the plants when they were installed. One of our colleuges only survived an attack by crawling inside the engine (his 3 co-workers were killed).

*On a side note, the original Bush quote was "Only countries that support us will get contracts to rebuild Iraq". Fair enough... but at what stage do you decide that company A is British, Canadian, French or American in this global market. Rolls-Royce for instance - what country does it belong to these days? But anyway, that was the original message.

So our mates in GE where busy putting in Gas Turbines, we (a 75% Canadian owned company, 25% US owned) were excluded, but we carried on with our business quite happily (thanks to GE being tied up). 6 Months later, GE decided that the risks outweighed the rewards and geared back their work. So, we get a bunch of US government guys on the phone pleading to buy our engines (and us to install them on site). We ask if this is legal given Bush's statement about only US allies getting the work, and the response was basically that "he was only joking when he said that" - I kid you not. Anyway, we weren't about to go into a warzone so it was :wave: to that.

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Originally Posted by Krenshau

Shaggy,

I don't remember a time in U.S. history when Christians marched thru the streets yelling, "Death to heathens!". Do you know of anyone that has been beheaded because they wouldn't convert to Christianity? To me, that is a crazy comparison. However, if Christians ever started doing this, I would join in the fight against them. Also, anyone that knows anything about Christianity would know that it is not proper for any Christian to murder another human being.

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The IRA are supposedly a Catholic/Christian organisation. Beheading isn't their style, but they do go in for shooting out kneecaps, blowing up school children and that sort of thing. They're also big on setting fire to families where a Catholic has married outside their faith (with the parents and children still in the house).

What has this to do with the US? You will find that before 9/11, the majority of the funds for the IRA came from Boston. As regular readers here know, one of my gripes with the so-called war on terror, is that most Brits would take it a bit more seriously if Bush arrested all the guys who support terrorism in Boston. But hey, they're good white Christian voters, so we won't touch them.

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Originally Posted by Krenshau

As I said before, I don't agree with a lot of how things are handled. I think I could do a lot better, but I think for the rest of the world to say that they aren't going to help fight a common enemy just because of things we do things that, admittedly, aren't right, but are not nearly as bad as what our enemy is doing, is foolish. Iran just got done killing a 16 year old girl for nothing (they hung her in public), but no one says a word. We do something wrong and there is a severe backlash. I am not saying that America shouldn't do what is right, I am saying there is a huge double standard. It's like that saying (cleaned up) you get crap if you do, and you get crap if you don't.

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Actually, as I stated in my post, I agree that it is a petty reason for the world not to help out. However, much as it embarrasses me, all governments seem to act like petulant children. Have you ever watched the British house of commons. They're worse than school children!

But, I think that Iran is a poor standard to judge yourself against. Do you really believe that this is the league (human rights wise) that the US is playing in? Well, we're better than Iran, Cuba and China for human rights. It's hardly something to brag about. Shouldn't you be striving to be at the top of the league table, not resting on your laurels because you are not bottom.

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Originally Posted by Krenshau

Shaggy,

I don't remember a time in U.S. history when Christians marched thru the streets yelling, "Death to heathens!". Do you know of anyone that has been beheaded because they wouldn't convert to Christianity? To me, that is a crazy comparison. However, if Christians ever started doing this, I would join in the fight against them. Also, anyone that knows anything about Christianity would know that it is not proper for any Christian to murder another human being.

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What about Pat Robertson, wasn't he calling for the assassination of the Venezuelan president? What was his reasons... oh yes, Communism and Muslim infiltration.....

It does start to appear a bit of a double standard....

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Originally Posted by Krenshau

Anyway, I enjoy posting here and reading everyones views. I have pretty much stated all I have wanted to say. I hope that these things don't polarize people on this forum. I certainly wouldn't want someone to not help me with something in another thread because we disagree about something in this thread. I won't be doing that.

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This place was about as polar as canadian farm land way before you got here. :wave:

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Originally Posted by SurfDemon

What about Pat Robertson, wasn't he calling for the assassination of the Venezuelan president? What was his reasons... oh yes, Communism and Muslim infiltration.....

It does start to appear a bit of a double standard....

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Pat Robertson's opinion carries as much weight as Nicole Ritchie. Besides, Chavez is a jerkoff. Would any one really care if someone ran him over with a kangaroo wearing ice skates?

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Originally Posted by MasterBlaster

This place was about as polar as canadian farm land way before you got here. :wave:

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:lol:

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Originally Posted by MasterBlaster

Pat Robertson's opinion carries as much weight as Nicole Ritchie. Besides, Chavez is a jerkoff. Would any one really care if someone ran him over with a kangaroo wearing ice skates?

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Funny, that's exactly how my grandad died... :ehh:

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Originally Posted by Ex-FB

Funny, that's exactly how my grandad died... :ehh:

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Riding an ice skate clad kangaroo over Chavez? :lol:

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Shaggy,

I don't remember a time in U.S. history when Christians marched thru the streets yelling, "Death to heathens!". Do you know of anyone that has been beheaded because they wouldn't convert to Christianity? To me, that is a crazy comparison. However, if Christians ever started doing this, I would join in the fight against them. Also, anyone that knows anything about Christianity would know that it is not proper for any Christian to murder another human being. (just to avoid another totally off topic subject notice I said murder, and not kill). I am not saying that Christians haven't murdered for what they believe, I would just question their true beliefs.

Also, where is there a law that makes anyone recite Bible verses? It is my understanding that the opposite exists. That is, laws that prohibit reciting Bible verses and praying. The Constitution says that congress shall make no laws establishing a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there of. That may not be word for word, but I am pretty sure it is very close. In my opinion, there have been many laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion, not the opposite.

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What country do you live in? I live in Idaho. As long as you don't require the use of the word "heathen" in that quote, I think those marches have taken place in Idaho. We are still dealing with the aftermath of a bruising fight over a christian group wanting to put a memorial in our local park in support of the death of Mathew Shepherd (the gay teenager killed in Wyoming). Just to be clear, the memorial was in support of his murder.

Now I don't know any gays, so the issue is a remote one for me, but we had the speaches, the marches, the vigils. Did you hear about it? If not, why not? Why do we hear about every yahoo in Iran who is willing to spout off in front of a camera, but don't hear about our own homegrown variety. I assure you, they are VERY willing to appear before a camera. One in particular out here, has pursued them with great diligence.

We've had a few other related marches against other minorities over the years, though a recent lawsuit here in Idaho, where a bunch of the Aryan Nation guards assualted a woman and her young son when their car broke down in front of the AN compound. The CIVIL suit bankrupt the group. For decades, they held their marches, rallys, etc. Rest assured that they were not pro much of anything.

As for the vaunted separation, I live beside a high school. There is a church on school grounds. When the last two schools were built, the church was up before the school was finished. Where's the governement? Well, since the elected officials are elected by the majority, the government is attending the consecration of the next church on school grounds. If you live in a more diverse area than I do, your experience will probably be different. You don't need a law to force people to do things, you just have to make it decidedly uncomfortable for them to NOT do those things.

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Originally Posted by Krenshau

Shaggy,
I don't remember a time in U.S. history when Christians marched thru the streets yelling, "Death to heathens!". Do you know of anyone that has been beheaded because they wouldn't convert to Christianity? To me, that is a crazy comparison. However, if Christians ever started doing this, I would join in the fight against them. Also, anyone that knows anything about Christianity would know that it is not proper for any Christian to murder another human being. (just to avoid another totally off topic subject notice I said murder, and not kill). I am not saying that Christians haven't murdered for what they believe, I would just question their true beliefs.

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As much as it pains me to agree with Shaggy, I believe the US government was guilty of the genocide of a race of "Heathens" who refused to worship "their" god and pay "their" taxes. I had one of the few survivors' decendants deal me a straight flush off the river two weeks ago.

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Originally Posted by MasterBlaster

As much as it pains me to agree with Shaggy, I believe the US government was guilty of the genocide of a race of "Heathens" who refused to worship "their" god and pay "their" taxes. I had one of the few survivors' decendants deal me a straight flush off the river two weeks ago.

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Damn Irish. :mad:

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Originally Posted by crptcblade

Damn Irish. :mad:

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I said he dealt me a straight flush, not pull a 4 and 5 of spades out of his sleve and take all my chips. ;)

Glad to give you pain MB. Love your posts, even when they're garbage.

Does any one have a phone number or email address for a good chiropractor?

Why, didn't your spine straighten out enough?

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

..., I live beside a high school. There is a church on school grounds. When the last two schools were built, the church was up before the school was finished. Where's the governement? Well, since the elected officials are elected by the majority, the government is attending the consecration of the next church on school grounds.

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Q1) So this school property will have 2 churches and 2 schools when all is said and done?

Q2) Is Church 2 replacing Church 1?
Q3) Did School 2 Replace School 1?

Did School & Church #1 suffer from a Natural Disaster?

{Couldn't have if Church1 was up before School1 & School2}

It seems to me that Churches are supposed to own the land that they build on. How do you know that the school owns the property?

Q4) Isn't schools the oddest word you've ever seen in your life?!

Oh, sorry, two different schools. There's the current one, and then there is the new one which has been built a few miles away. For the second school, I doubt the church is on school property, but I would be surprised if the location for the school was not partially dictated by the availability of land for the church. It's not exactly a secret that the two are hand in hand.

As for the first school/church combo, it is possible that the church sits on a chunk of its own property surrounded by the school. I was told by our office admin, who had kids in that school, that the church was either in the school or on school grounds, so I cruised around the place looking for it, and I'm pretty sure I have it located. The first building I thought it was was actually attached to the school. The one I believe it to be is not actually attached to the school, it just sits on the school bus loop for the school, and is surrounded on at least three sides by school property. On the fourth side, however, is a different structure, ownership uncertain.

As for question 4, I would have agreed, but I was really amazed at a word I saw just recently, unfortunately, I have since forgotten what it was. The reason it was unusual was that it had a really improbable run of consonants in it....and now you go and point out schools, so remembering that foolish word would have been good. If you were to try to pronounce schools the way it is spelled, it would certainly sound weird.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

Oh, sorry, two different schools. There's the current one, and then there is the new one which has been built a few miles away. For the second school, I doubt the church is on school property, but I would be surprised if the location for the school was not partially dictated by the availability of land for the church. It's not exactly a secret that the two are hand in hand.

As for the first school/church combo, it is possible that the church sits on a chunk of its own property surrounded by the school. I was told by our office admin, who had kids in that school, that the church was either in the school or on school grounds, so I cruised around the place looking for it, and I'm pretty sure I have it located. The first building I thought it was was actually attached to the school. The one I believe it to be is not actually attached to the school, it just sits on the school bus loop for the school, and is surrounded on at least three sides by school property. On the fourth side, however, is a different structure, ownership uncertain.

As for question 4, I would have agreed, but I was really amazed at a word I saw just recently, unfortunately, I have since forgotten what it was. The reason it was unusual was that it had a really improbable run of consonants in it....and now you go and point out schools, so remembering that foolish word would have been good. If you were to try to pronounce schools the way it is spelled, it would certainly sound weird.

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I am guessing it is not a public school then. If so what's the big deal. People are paying to go to that school on top of the taxes that are still due to the public school system.

You'd be amazed at the massive amounts of land owned by the church. I went to a highschool owned by a catholic dioces(SP?) They had around 250 acres surrounding the place, Including 3 chapels and one church. 20 acres of which were a drive in movie theater until the early 1980's. The church still owned it when it was a Drive In. they just rented it out. Another 15 -20 or so acres was part of a strip mall parking lot at one time. Again rented out. Of course no one really knows the church owns this property. It is not obvious as there are there is also a community of houses(rental I think) in addition to the other busisness on the place. At first glance one would think it was just a small neighborhood with a drive in and a strip mall. I only know because I got busted underage drinking on said property after school in the late 80's and it was on the police report that I was still on "school" grounds.

The catholic church owns a helluva lot of land in the US. Hence, my extremly PO'd rant in another thread about tax exempt organazations owing ridicuously sickening amounts of prime real estate and not paying property tax on it.

You'd guess wrong.

By the way, the church is Mormon, rather than catholic.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

You'd guess wrong.

By the way, the church is Mormon, rather than catholic.

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No difference, The morman curch and most other religous so called non-profits are vested in mass quantities of real estate as well. It must be a state thing, Most states own the land that public schools are built on. Maybe they can lease land in your state. Or it is possible they purchased a portion of the property from the Mormans and the money from the sale or lease was used to build a new "Tempel" on the remaining land. This way, the school district (most likley morman influenced) get a new school and the mormans get their mitts your tax money to build a new bullsheit factory. Tax money that they never contributed a red cent to BTW.

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Originally Posted by Krenshau

Shaggy,

I don't remember a time in U.S. history when Christians marched thru the streets yelling, "Death to heathens!". Do you know of anyone that has been beheaded because they wouldn't convert to Christianity? To me, that is a crazy comparison. However, if Christians ever started doing this, I would join in the fight against them. Also, anyone that knows anything about Christianity would know that it is not proper for any Christian to murder another human being. (just to avoid another totally off topic subject notice I said murder, and not kill). I am not saying that Christians haven't murdered for what they believe, I would just question their true beliefs.

Also, where is there a law that makes anyone recite Bible verses? It is my understanding that the opposite exists. That is, laws that prohibit reciting Bible verses and praying. The Constitution says that congress shall make no laws establishing a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there of. That may not be word for word, but I am pretty sure it is very close. In my opinion, there have been many laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion, not the opposite.

Ex-FB,

I agree with most of what you said, except the conclusion. I do not agree with how many things have been handled. At the beginning of the Iraq war, I was against it, until I heard, or read, that the Iraqi people wanted our help. Plus, if you look at how we were originally responded to, we were very much liked. Polls done of the Iraqi people showed that 60% were glad we did what we did. Where we failed was in not delivering the things needed for the Iraqis to maintain a normal existence. Plus, I agree that our troops should not be storming into houses just because someone reported them. They should do what cops do and stake out the house for a few weeks or so to determine if the report is true. These two things, I think, are exactly why they are fighting against us. However, I don't believe in too late. I believe that anything can change. If we would provide security so that people could return to a normal life, give them water, garbage collection, and other necessities, and start being smarter in how we deal with them, actually, people in general, then we could turn this around.

In your first set of statements, my first paragraph would help to put people into group three. If we could show them that we are improving their lives, and the people fighting are making it worse, they might jump into group three. However, I don't agree that all the fighters are local dissidents. I think many, many, many of them are people coming over from Iran. It is my understanding that Iran is mostly Shiite, and the PM of Iraq is Shiite, and most of the violence is Shiite against Sunni. Our troops have been ordered by the Iraqi PM to do no operations against the Shiite militias, and only take down Sunni militias. The PM doesn't want us to leave because our troops have become his pawns doing his dirty work. That is supposed to change according to what that President's last speech. We will see.

As I said before, I don't agree with a lot of how things are handled. I think I could do a lot better, but I think for the rest of the world to say that they aren't going to help fight a common enemy just because of things we do things that, admittedly, aren't right, but are not nearly as bad as what our enemy is doing, is foolish. Iran just got done killing a 16 year old girl for nothing (they hung her in public), but no one says a word. We do something wrong and there is a severe backlash. I am not saying that America shouldn't do what is right, I am saying there is a huge double standard. It's like that saying (cleaned up) you get crap if you do, and you get crap if you don't.

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:thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

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Nobody is pitching a fit about you killing terrorists. Killing terrorists is fine. Just how many terrorists where in Iraq before you invaded? Zip. Nada. None.

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This isn’t a true statement. Not only was Iraq a state sponsor of terrorism there were terrorists and terrorist training camps inside Iraq before the war. They were some of the first things that were hit when the invasion began.

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Face facts, someone fighting an occupying army is not a terrorist - they're a patriot! But those words are too imotive so the US government uses the term "insurgent"......

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Sorry but this is not the case in Iraq. It was the Iraqi people that voted their government into office. I wouldn’t call anyone working against an elected government a patriot. I think the term insurgent is appropriate.

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Which brings up another irk of mine. Whenever anywhere is bombed in Iraq, it's "20 suspected terrorists were killed in the attack". Sorry, but that's not good enough. You can't just sweepingly state that they were terrorists and leave it at that. Whatever happened to good old fashioned soldiering.

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Good old fashioned soldiering (or the old fashioned way) as you put would likely consist of bombing the entire area regardless of any civilians in the area. Today intelligence teams and special operations are used to pinpoint terrorist locations which are then relayed to fighters who drop a few hundred pounds of bombs on the target. To me that seems a lot better than simply leveling a town or area that has suspected terrorists.

I suppose in a perfect world only the bad guys would die but we hardly live in a perfect world. I think the US has done everything in their power to avoid civilian casualties, more so than any other conflict ever fought. But you have to realize that in some cases there will be innocent civilians that die, this has been the case in all wars. However you can’t stop fighting the enemy just because civilians might die, what you do is what the US is doing; take every step to minimize civilian deaths but still continue to fight the people who are trying to kill you.

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Again, nobody has a problem with killing terrorists, the problem is in identifying the terrorists and then killing them. Luckily all of the 50,000 dead Iraqi men, women and children were all terrorists eh? That's a lot of blood, has it sated US peoples thirst for revenge after 9/11? Or is there more to come?

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If the US simply wanted to kill Iraqis they would have dropped several small nukes on some cities or used bombers to carpet bomb civilian areas. It was never the objective of the US to just kill for the sake of killing; there was no “thirst for revenge” as you put it. Strategic bombing was always used (and still is being used) inside Iraq.

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We made the enemy. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Hell, Britain and Saudi had way more to do with 9/11 than any other country.

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Iraq was a problem that was long since overdue with being dealt with. 9/11 simply changed the mindset of a lot of people with regards to Iraq. Dealing with Iraq and their violation of the 1991 cease-fire and 17 UN resolutions got pushed to the front burner because of 9/11, it wasn’t because Iraq was involved in 9/11 it was because people became more aware of terrorist activities and how those terrorists could get their hands on some very bad weapons from states such as Iraq. But it’s not as simple as just that either, a lot of the Iraq situation and the Afghanistan situation has to do with Iran, the real threat in that region.

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But I will leave you with this scenario, Poland was quite aggressive to it's neghbours prior to WWII (Lithuania in particular). Germany invades Poland, takes over and starts imprisoning and torturing the Poles... the Poles form a resistance movement..... Now, I personally do not think there is much a parallell between what is happening in Iraq and WWII, but if you insist on drawing comparisons then re-write the above statement as

Iraq was quite aggressive to it's neghbours. The USA invades Iraq, takes over and starts imprisoning and torturing the Iraqis... the Iraqis form a resistance movement.....

Now, I don't agree with it, but that is possibly how the rest of the world views the US actions...

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Problem with this analogy;
1) Poland never invaded any of its neighbors
2) Iraq was in violation of a cease-fire and 17 UN resolutions and faced world-wide condemnation. Poland wasn’t in violation of any cease-fire and didn’t face world-wide condemnation but instead was invaded by Germany and Russia in a pre-war plan to divide that nation.
3) The Germans set up concentration camps in Poland and killed 90% of Jewish population (approx 2 million Jews). The US had a scandal with Abu Garab in which some soldiers were accused of making naked pyramids and putting woman’s panties on their heads. Which prison camp would you rather be in?
4) Iraq has a civilian elected government and US troops are there at their behest. Poland was divided between Germany and Russia and run by those nations and held by those armies.
5) Poland indeed had a resistance movement to free that country but Poland didn’t have a civilian elected government. Those acting against a duly elected civilian government cannot be called a resistance movement but rather insurgents and terrorists, just as we see in Iraq.

Most of the rest of the world believes what their media’s spoon feed them. A lot of foreign papers I have read are severely slanted anti-American, its no wonder a lot of people feel as you say.

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Most of the rest of the world believes what their media’s spoon feed them. A lot of foreign papers I have read are severely slanted anti-American, its no wonder a lot of people feel as you say.

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Why add the bit about "the rest of the world"? Are you any different? And if so, how? The only way you could be different from this statement is either:

A) You were personally involved in EVERY event you are talking about.
B) You make up everything you say, without regard to any information input.

I don't believe either case applies. You may object to being spoon-fed, but that's just a metaphor, and can't be taken literally. The ONLY information you have, unless you can honestly say yes to option A, is information you obtained from a media source. Of course, you might not consider some blog, this site, or talk radio to be a media source, but that's just splitting hairs.

Of course, there is interpretation. I look at everything you have posted, and the only reason I don't think you are making most of it up is because I am well aware that there are people out there who feel as you do. If we both listened to exactly the same set of reports, we would find them equally contradictory, and each of us would decide that a different set was biased and incorrect. We have a view, and will consider to be true those reports that support that view. We will also consider to be distorted and incorrect, those reports that contradict our view.

And then we'll both die, and another group of people will continue the argument, forever into the future. The fact that I believe you are wrong about the rationale for everything we have done in Iraq is interesting, but irrelevant. You look at what happened, and frame it in one way. I look at the same things, and frame it in a different way. History will be written to show that Iraq was a disaster....and history will be written to show that Iraq was a success.

Every piece builds on the perceptions of the pieces that came before, and all of the ramifications of any action cannot be predicted. However, having said that, I believe that one of the short term effects of the Iraq war will be a more isolationist America. The Afghan groups that drove out the soviets took years to do so. NATO will be driven out in no longer time at this rate, since attacks are increasing steadily. Iraq will be the same way because we can't seem to define an endpoint. We are already tiring of a war where nobody can even tell us what victory would look like, or what benefit we would reap from it. Future politicians (and this country will be lead by politicians) will look at these two wars, and be ever more hesitant about using the military to squash bugs. We can win stand up battles, but no country that I am aware of has successfully conquered a country for decades, so long as the citizens of that country were willing to fight back in unorthodox ways. For examples, look at Germany in France, Holland, and Russia, as well as the US in Vietnam, USSR in Afghanistan, Russia in Chechnya.

On the other hand, look at Ethiopia in Somalia. They didn't like the existing government, and such a military power as Ethiopia, charged into Somalia, knocked out the governement, and ran out. They got the solution they wanted. The vacuum that was created was filled by something, which they didn't pay for. If the replacement wasn't what they wanted, they could come back.

Iraq is showing countries how to beat the US. Since we try to fix what we break, let us break it. As long as you can keep fighting, not only will we eventually leave once we are convinced that we can't gain anything by remaining (Nixon in Vietnam), but we will be so stung that it could be decades before we will be willing to even try again. GHWB struck fast at Iraq, and left. We could control Saddam after that, he was toothless, as we have proven. GWB lingered in Iraq, and America will be the one that ends up toothless. Some victory.

Reminded of this whilst reading the news today.

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Originally Posted by Ex-FB

With regards the loans from the US for the war effort. In fairness I am 100% behind the US on this one. The interest they charged was low, and let's face it Britain needed the raw materials and equipment. At the time it made the difference between life and death for Britain, so it would be somewhat churlish to welch on the deal once the battle is done. It is one thing for the US to write off debts to African nations who have no hope of repaying the interest alone, but let's face it, Britain could (and has) afford to repay the loan. It was difficult to repay sure, but by no means impossible.

At the time, it was life or death, and it was/is still greatly appreciated.

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Perhaps so, but they also got a whole lot more. Some might say that this was far and away more valuable than the money; technological leaps forward are what keeps you in the driving seat.

So what did the US actually get out of joining WWII? A load of cash, brought completely up to date on the latest military engineering and they avoided having Europe taken over by a hostile megalomaniac, which would have been bad for peace and bad for business.
Don't get me wrong; I'm glad the US pitched in to help get rid of Adolf, but I think they bargained pretty hard for it too.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

On the other hand, look at Ethiopia in Somalia. They didn't like the existing government, and such a military power as Ethiopia, charged into Somalia, knocked out the governement, and ran out. They got the solution they wanted. ... If the replacement wasn't what they wanted, they could come back.

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The US did mostly that for the first gulf war. Many people said we should have knocked out Saddam back then - and I believe the result in Iraq today would have been the same result we would have had in 1992 if we had toppled Saddam.

It certainly is easier to execute and declare victory on an attack-and-wait approach. You wait for them to build up a semi-credible threat - and then annihilate their military - then leave.