The Iraqis want us out
- Thread starter javafiend
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idakfan
Member
rick_reno said:
Yeah who the hell are the Iraqis trying to tell us to get out of their country?
It would be like if China invaded America and Americans told China to get out. Where do the Americans get off!
gc70
Member
I don't think that everything that the US government (or military) does is perfect, but I also don't think that they are responsible for every bad thing that happens in the world.
Old Dog
Member
Eh, I rather think some of us are just balking at the idea that everything the U.S. government does is wrong ... which seems to be the implication in every post by members such as Javafiend.
And this, of course, is why we are a society that consistently engages in process review and is constantly improving quality of life for most of our citizens, whereas the Arab countries (run by those Mercedes-driving, Cuban Cohiba-smoking, RayBan-wearing filthy rich oil sheiks I used to encounter regularly) are still living in a dysfunctional, feudal autocratic, gender-discriminating, non-Islam intolerant society.
I don't know what it is you expect. You talk like we should be able to conduct a military operation without any loss of life. Do you honestly believe it is standard U.S. policy to target women and children in order to kill one or two 'insurgents'? If so, you're going to have to show some evidence, not just wild speculation about 'coincidence'.
Iraqis, terrorists, and middleasterners in general have little regard for life and less for the lives of women and children. They regularly abuse, beat, and kill in the name of 'honor'. The recent wedding bombing in Jordan was Moslems killing Moslems. The radical elements are completely irredeemable mad dogs who do not adhere to promises or treaties. You cannot make peace with them. Ask Israel. All you can, and must do, is kill them first.
javafiend said:
Terrorists who use terror are foes. Their supporters, and enablers such as yourself are a foe.
You're not going to get away with spreading your propoganda lies here. Where is the moral equivalence between Israel a westernized democracy, and baby killing pizzeria bombing terrorists, palestinians, plo, hezzbola or whatever they're calling themselves today? There is none.
More propoganda to discredit the US. Get over it. If you hate the United States I recommend that you take the first flight to cuba because they'd be glad to have you. You could live happily ever after wallowing in socialist bliss.
This is such a joke. You've got to be kidding me.
Violating space? Iraq was lucky to have any space. They lost a war and had to live up to their end of the bargain for a cease fire. Did you forget Desert Storm? How convenient.
We should have finished the job then.
Borachon
Member
Whatever.
So those Brits fired on the police because of what again? They just didn't want to explain that they were British operatives undercover so they shot up their own Allies? They somehow magically knew that the police arresting them were actually in league with a local Islamic Sheik? So they decided to light 'em up rather than be sucked into the lair of this evil Sheik? That is indeed the most remarkable display of fortune telling I've ever seen....special operatives or not. To know ahead of time that they were going to be shunted off to a private warlords possession. Incredible deduction on their part. I wonder what sort of thought process went into their deduction.
"Frank...see that policeman...he's wearing a Mustafa Al Kamal emblem." "Bloody hell...you're right Jack."
"We both know what that means, right?"
"Too right cobber..do or die....I'll take the one on the left."
You know, as I've been told...whenever SAS drive around with explosives in their car...they are planning to blow something up. They are smart enough not to drive around with explosives otherwise. So I still gotta wonder what object or person desparately needed blowing up in Basra on that day. Were they headed to blow up Al-Zarquawi's house? The two of them? Rather than calling in the entire British Army? What was so desparately in need of blowing up that the two SAS officers had to have explosives in their car?
Borachon
Member
Yes. And it should be... If we have an enemy, then you destroy that enemy.
You telling me we should let a terrorist go just because he's standing behind a women and her kid? When we start doing that, they'll march into battle with their kids in front of them. That shouldn't stop us from shooting.
Now then....here's where *I* have a problem. Will you keep troops from getting material that would preserve their lives because the cost of getting it to the troops exceeds some target goal? Or because the money you earmarked for armor went to Haliburton ice cream supply orders? THAT is what I disagree with. And I disagree with putting our troops in a spot were they are asked to kill people that...as far as I can see....NEVER ATTACKED US on 9/11.
I'm not sure these people were our enemy.....until we attacked them.
If you turn the tanks around and start shelling Saudi, I'll stand up and cheer. At LEAST I know 15 of the people on those flights came from there. And get Osama bin Ladin. It's been too long that he's lived. What's the damn delay?
Syria...yeah...been hearing about them since 1983 (Marine Barracks)
Iran....yeah....since 1979 (444 days)
Libya...yeah...since 1981.
Saudis....oh, yeah...most of the 9/11 folks.
Iraq? What the ...?
How many troops of ours did Saddam kill in the First Gulf War? 100? 200? We had a lot of friendly fire and traffic accidents. So how many did Iraq really kill? And can I really blame some soldiers for shooting at our soldiers invading their country?
I'm thinking Syria killed more at the Marine barracks in Beirut than Iraq did through the whole First Gulf War. Iran's wanted our blood since 1979. Libya..about the same. Syria...who knows...sneaky country....
Iraq? When did they become the hotbed of Islamic extremism? Only in the last couple of years. And really I've yet to see an Iraqi hit unit cross the Atlantic to take out anything in the US....
Yeah...I remember what's happened to us in the Mid East. And who done it.
In the book "1984" this sort of thing happened. They'd fight one country until they would make a new alliance. Then they would pretend that they had NEVER been in an alliance with another nation. Iran....no Libya...no Syria...no Iraq...has ALWAYS been the enemy. It was expedient to do so...the same as it is expedient to do so now.
Open your minds...remember....think!
Because the SAS men ID'd themselves at a checkpoint, at which time the militia announced that they were under arrest, and the police allowed the militia to do this.
Well, from the ladlass.com link you posted earlier, we find an update here:
http://www.ladlass.com/intel/archives/cat_sas.html
Whoops. Maybe not the impression of events you are trying to convey? Sorry about that old boy.
Again, according to updates at your link there, seems like what was initially reported as explosives was electronic eavesdropping gear and resupplies.
All of which, and more, is available at the link you posted.
LawDog
GoRon
Member
Interesting list.
Do you think it is coincidence that we now have 100,000+ troops stationed in a country that happens to border all the above countries? (except Libya).
Borachon
Member
Well...let's not what it says HERE...in the updated link YOU provided:http://www.ladlass.com/intel/archives/cat_sas.html
Those men WERE police officers. Not militia.
Also:
So they were NOT willing to surrender to the police at time A...but after they ditched their car and got on foot, they were willing to surrender to Iraqi police officers at time B.
And also:
That doesn't exactly match the story you had yesterday. Where the soldiers were taken to some local Shi'a Shieks house and REALLY had the screws put to them. According to this..which is a British paper...the house they were taken to actually afforded them BETTER treatment. Now understand...I don't doubt that you read that they were taken to the Shieks house, but why are the versions (both official) different in the tone about what this meant? And which version is the truth? I'm thinking neither version is the truth. Once the SAS dumped the car...with it's incriminating gear...they had a cover story and could surrender to the police.
Another thing I find..well, coincidental is this:
Using an electric drill was an old IRA tactic to kneecap a person. And the SAS had lots of experience fighting the IRA in Northern Ireland.
And further down that same page you have another story for why the SAS was there. "The build-up to the crisis in Basra - SAS"
THIS is the kind of job you use the SAS for. Not investigating whether some "Ali" has got a twitchy drill finger.
If fact...here is the SECOND official version of what it was like being sent to that "militant's house"
Yet in the updated version...the house was a place of "better conditions".
Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice.
Borachon
Member
OH NO. Believe me! I don't find ANYTHING about it coincidental.
Politically, I think was stupid to have invaded...given what we know about Iraq and the political situation that existed in the Mid East before, and slightly after, 911.
Iraq was the one country in the Mid East...excepting perhaps Egypt....that was not a strongly fundamentalist Islamic country. The women could drive. They didn't have to wear head dress. It was not an overly bad country except for the fact that their leader had stepped afoul of the United States. And every State Department announcement since 1991 has made that clear. "We do NOT blame the unfortunate Iraqi people for the actions of the madman who leads them." So who is getting slammed now? The Iraqi people. A lot of places still don't have water, electricity...the economy is bad. And is that because of the insurgency. Sure, a lot of it. But the insurgency wouldn't have happened if we'd left them alone. Saddam would still be killing them when they didn't do what he told them...but OUR troops wouldn't be getting killed either.
So what good is going to come out of invading Iraq? I think the only change we'll see is another Islamic state...or, slightly better, a Balkanized Iraq with 3 sections...at least two of those sections who will be violently anti-US (Sunnis and Shias). Politically, the support to stay in Iraq is dead here in the US...partly because we aren't achieving any goals, and partly because Republican Senators are starting to see the poll numbers change..and they WANT to be reelected in 2006.
We had a LOT of better targets we could have gone after. To my mind, Iran and Syria were prime targets. Lebanon, Syria, Saudi, Iran (particularly Iran) and Afghanistan all had very strong fundamentalist elements in their countries. Iraq didn't. Saddam killed any people he thought would cause him problems, and he didn't trust religious fundamentalist. That wasn't how he came to power, and he didn't want to give them a chance to kick him out.
He wasn't a friend of the US..he didn't like us. But that didn't mean he constituted any real threat to us either. A lot of countries don't like us.
This war wasn't about taking care of someone who was a threat to us. If that were the case, Osama would be dead right now...instead, he's been totally forgotten. Al Zarquawi is the big guy now. And just who was he 3 years ago? A major terrorist? NO....no one had even heard of him. The only thing we've done is convince a lot of Middle Easterners that Al Queda was right...we ARE an invading force that wants to conquer the Middle East.
None of them would have faulted us for killing Osama. They'd have understood that. Linking Iraq to Al Queda? Now they just assume we are the dumbest people on the planet. That means they'll underestimate us...and try us again in the future. And it means more Americans will be killed. Two, three...five years from now...we'll have Iraqi extremists hitting American or Western targets. Write my prediction down in your calender.
Old Dog wrote:
No problem. It's pretty easy to lose track of who said what when you have multiple windows open, you're running searches, you're on break and trying to finish up quickly...Like the other day when I mistakenly accused you of putting words in my mouth.
OldDog wrote:
They aren't mere "pet theories." See Alleged Assassination Plots Against Foreign Leaders, S. Rep. No. 94–465, (1975) also known as the Church Report.
gc70 asked:
In 1991 the School of the America was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). The name was changed when the House of Representatives defeated a bi-partisan amendment to close the SOA and conduct a congressional investigation by a narrow ten-vote margin. In a media interview, Georgia Senator and SOA supporter the late Paul Coverdell characterized the DOD proposal as a "cosmetic" change that would ensure that the SOA could continue its mission and operation. Critics of the SOA concur.
OK, I hope I didn't accuse you of being an apologist, I certainly didn't mean to, but I do think that the historical record over the past 30 years does not indicate that the US gov has undergone some major change of course. Yes, there were scandals, and they have to approach things differently, so they have changed their tactics here and there. But a fundamental change of heart? Nope. Even Jimmy Carter continued supplying arms to the genocidal dictatorship in Indonesia as it was waging war on East Timor, killing some 200,000 people in the process.
You don't know anything about me. I've traveled abroad, including to war zones. I've lived overseas, I speak foreign languages, I've interviewed former CIA officers and others involved in these things. I've had several pieces published in newspapers. And I read. Every book I have cited on THR, I have read cover to cover.
I don't live in a bubble, Dog.
Officially, yes, it did, but covertly and sometimes even not so covertly they continued to sponsor assassinations.
I disagree. Terrorism is a methodology - used for centuries by various forces. After he left the White House, Bush speechwriter David Frum said that "all this talk of fighting 'terrorism' made about as much sense as a war against 'sneak-attackism' would have made after Pearl Harbor. Terror was a tactic, not an enemy."
SIGArmed wrote:
I am neither a supporter nor enabler of terrorism, i.e., you are lying when you make such a claim.
Westernized democracies are nonetheless capable of targeting civilians. Go read up on Israel's invasion and occupation of Lebanon. I am not going to argue here about the war between Israel and the Arabs.
I do not hate the United States. Your ad hominem is an obvious substitute for rational factually-based argument.
The School of the Americas is no joke. Among the SOA's nearly 60,000 graduates are notorious dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia.
In 1983, Colonel Francisco del Cid Diaz, then a 2nd Lieutenant in the Salvadoran Army, commanded a unit that massacred 16 peasants at point-blank range and threw their bodies in the Cuyuapa River. This is a very well known, very high profile and notorious massacre, and cited in the annual State Department Human Rights Country Reports throughout the 1980s.
Instead of facing justice, Col. del Cid Diaz was at the WHINSEC in 2003, and was also enrolled in SOA in 1988 and 1991.
One of the reasons our government gave for invading Iraq was that supposedly Saddam allowed Abu Nidal and members of Al Qaeda to hang out in Baghdad. Not only did the US harbor the terrorist Col. del Cid Diaz, it trained him even after they were aware of his involvement in the massacre at Cuyuapa River.
What was it that Bush said? "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."
Apparently, it depends on what kind of "terrorists" they are. If it's an officer in a military of a US client state, then apparently he is by definition not a "terrorist," regardless of how many innocent civilians he has tortured, murdered, disappeared, etc.
Facts do not matter; doctrine kicks in.
"Their end of the bargain"? The ceasefire agreement in 1991 did not include the establishment of a no-fly zone. Simply pointing out this fact - over and over - does not mean that I agree or disagree with the establishment of a no-fly zone.
As Anthony Gregory so eloquently observed:
No problem. It's pretty easy to lose track of who said what when you have multiple windows open, you're running searches, you're on break and trying to finish up quickly...Like the other day when I mistakenly accused you of putting words in my mouth.
OldDog wrote:
They aren't mere "pet theories." See Alleged Assassination Plots Against Foreign Leaders, S. Rep. No. 94–465, (1975) also known as the Church Report.
gc70 asked:
In 1991 the School of the America was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). The name was changed when the House of Representatives defeated a bi-partisan amendment to close the SOA and conduct a congressional investigation by a narrow ten-vote margin. In a media interview, Georgia Senator and SOA supporter the late Paul Coverdell characterized the DOD proposal as a "cosmetic" change that would ensure that the SOA could continue its mission and operation. Critics of the SOA concur.
OK, I hope I didn't accuse you of being an apologist, I certainly didn't mean to, but I do think that the historical record over the past 30 years does not indicate that the US gov has undergone some major change of course. Yes, there were scandals, and they have to approach things differently, so they have changed their tactics here and there. But a fundamental change of heart? Nope. Even Jimmy Carter continued supplying arms to the genocidal dictatorship in Indonesia as it was waging war on East Timor, killing some 200,000 people in the process.
You don't know anything about me. I've traveled abroad, including to war zones. I've lived overseas, I speak foreign languages, I've interviewed former CIA officers and others involved in these things. I've had several pieces published in newspapers. And I read. Every book I have cited on THR, I have read cover to cover.
I don't live in a bubble, Dog.
Officially, yes, it did, but covertly and sometimes even not so covertly they continued to sponsor assassinations.
I disagree. Terrorism is a methodology - used for centuries by various forces. After he left the White House, Bush speechwriter David Frum said that "all this talk of fighting 'terrorism' made about as much sense as a war against 'sneak-attackism' would have made after Pearl Harbor. Terror was a tactic, not an enemy."
SIGArmed wrote:
I am neither a supporter nor enabler of terrorism, i.e., you are lying when you make such a claim.
Westernized democracies are nonetheless capable of targeting civilians. Go read up on Israel's invasion and occupation of Lebanon. I am not going to argue here about the war between Israel and the Arabs.
I do not hate the United States. Your ad hominem is an obvious substitute for rational factually-based argument.
The School of the Americas is no joke. Among the SOA's nearly 60,000 graduates are notorious dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia.
In 1983, Colonel Francisco del Cid Diaz, then a 2nd Lieutenant in the Salvadoran Army, commanded a unit that massacred 16 peasants at point-blank range and threw their bodies in the Cuyuapa River. This is a very well known, very high profile and notorious massacre, and cited in the annual State Department Human Rights Country Reports throughout the 1980s.
Instead of facing justice, Col. del Cid Diaz was at the WHINSEC in 2003, and was also enrolled in SOA in 1988 and 1991.
One of the reasons our government gave for invading Iraq was that supposedly Saddam allowed Abu Nidal and members of Al Qaeda to hang out in Baghdad. Not only did the US harbor the terrorist Col. del Cid Diaz, it trained him even after they were aware of his involvement in the massacre at Cuyuapa River.
What was it that Bush said? "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."
Apparently, it depends on what kind of "terrorists" they are. If it's an officer in a military of a US client state, then apparently he is by definition not a "terrorist," regardless of how many innocent civilians he has tortured, murdered, disappeared, etc.
Facts do not matter; doctrine kicks in.
"Their end of the bargain"? The ceasefire agreement in 1991 did not include the establishment of a no-fly zone. Simply pointing out this fact - over and over - does not mean that I agree or disagree with the establishment of a no-fly zone.
As Anthony Gregory so eloquently observed:
gc70
Member
gc70 asked:
The Secretary of Defense works for the President. Were Carter and Clinton also supporters of a "school for terrorism" because they did not order the Secretary of Defense to close SOA?
javafiend replied:
Another unresponsive javafiend reply. Here's the question in a more direct form; you can even answer the question with "yes" or "no."
The Secretary of Defense works for the President. Were Carter and Clinton also supporters of a "school for terrorism" because they did not order the Secretary of Defense to close SOA?
gc70
Member
Thank you, javafiend. Your direct response helps me to better understand your position.
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