Saddam Hussein is dead

Saddam will now be remembered as a martyr.....

The Arabs will NEVER forget this

 

Indeed, particularly after the massive cockup of the execution.

Only the 'Bush/Blair coalition' could storm into the most secular state in the middle east and turn it's leader into a Muslim Martyr!

 

Just read that the US will increase its manpower in Iraq with 20,000 more men. ( The New York Times ). Bush´s new strategy also includes a campaign worth a billion (?) dollars to employ local Iraqi people for instance painting schools and cleaning up the streets.

Quoting an old song by Cabaret Voltaire " Thank you, America!"

 

You know why they want local people to paint the schools? Because whenever our troops go out on 'pulses' (operations to paint schools, supply books and so on) they get attacked. A friend of mine was writing about one where the Iraqi police who were asked to help provide protection pulled on balaclavas and opened fire on our troops!

 

Im hearing news over here in the U.S. that 30,000 additional troops are being planned to be sent out to Iraq

 

You know, all that we're trying to do over there is for the good. The mistake made was simply us WASTING our valuable time and resources on these folks in the first place. No matter who you are, where you live, or what your political attitudes are, surely you can realize that anyone, even the hawks in control here, would have liked nothing more than this to turn into a huge humanitarian mission. One that would do nothing but benefit the Iraqi people. Spending those BILLIONS on painting schools, buying books, cleaning the streets, helping them set up a democracy they can live with.

BUT NO, there are too many stone age thinking people there and all over the middle east who don't EVER want the United States to succeed because they fully realize that the common folks over there would appreciate it too much. They don't want the people to be happy. They want to see everything we've tried to do fail.

There are evil minds over there who are doing everything they can to aid and abet the terrorism and fuel the secular violence. Some are motivated by regional power politics and visions of improving their positions, and some are thinking through the thick haze of twisted theology.

Furthermore, westerners, especially Americans, who cannot and will not see or accept these very evident truths should need to re-evaluate.

I was never for an invasion, knew it was trouble from the start, but since we are there I have to say that I support the notion that we at least try to DO THE RIGHT THING and not just throw in the towel and go home. That would be a real disaster and we'd get bashed for that also.

Finally, citing actions in the past is a waste of time here. For example, us aiding Saddam against the Iranians. What is done is done.

It burns my ass that my country is so maligned when we could do the world a wealth of good if they would just let us.

Later

 

Jpatterson,

I see and repect your opinion and for the most part I even agree.....However you must understand that democracy cannot be inforced..... Who are we to decide how people in one part of the world should live??? How do we know that they are unhappy with their life??? Just because we might be unhappy with the way they live does not necessarily mean that they are.

Please remember the middle east does not separate Church and State and they have lived this way for as long as time can show. To go into THEIR country and expect them to wrap their arms around us and to embrace our way of life just because we took out an evil indevidual, it pure maddness!!!

Yes Saddam was a very bad man to say the very least but just because the majority of the country hated or feared him, does not mean that they automatically wanted or want an American democracy.....

Also coutries in Africa are in much worse shape then Iraq, why not go there and wave an American flag?? Also Iran and North Korea pose a greater threat then Iraq why is the U.S. not there?

 

I'm afraid mate that this is precisely the problem. What you see as doing good other people see as interfearance, what you see as helping others see as destroying their way of life. It's the 'white mans burden' all over again, we go out, conquor and try to improve things (and yes, sometimes these things really are with the best intentions) but at the end of the day how would you feel if somehow China invaded the US and tried to 'improve things' for you?

Plus, how do these people know you are trying to help? All this good nature is pretty hard to see when it follows things like supplying Saddam against Iran. It was wrong, ok, what's done is done but it would help for the US to admit that it isn't perfect. It would be a start anyhow.

I have been reading up recently on the British Abbasynian campaign of the 19th century, 3 thousand troops marched across Africa at a cost of 9 million to the tax payer on a mission to free a group of Europeans who were being held and tortured by a despotic African king. They achieved this with remarkably few casualties and then were faced with a quandry much like the one we face in Iraq; either stay, spend millions trying to pacify and rebuild a part of the world that has never been peaceful or pull out, saving the lives of countless of our soldiers but leaving the nation to sort itself out. We pulled out, after all it was a no-win situation and at the end of the day what did we owe the people there? There was a perpetual civil war going on anyhow, all we did was remove a threat to ourselves at the middle of it.

But Iraq is different of course, it's a no-win situation but the fact is we do owe the Iraqis something, after all we got the despot into power in the first place. That is why things like selling gas to Iran is relevant, it is the reason we have some responsibility for sorting things out.

The question is, why is a futile attempt to achieve peace among people who are growing to hate us worth the bones of one more British Tom or American GI/Marine?

All I can say is, for the love of God please just read up on the British Empire, learn from history and stop trying to make the same mistakes we did...

 

Iraq is becoming miror image the Soviet invasion of Afganistan!!!

One main difference that is evident is the way Americans are fighting in Iraq and the way the Russians fought in Afganistan

 

and do you base your statement on prior service there ? ......... doubtful

The Soviets lost over 1 million in the struggle for complete dominance which obviously never came.

Personally we should let the Iraqi's have a go themselves and suffer the consequences if things do not work out. We may just be in Iran and Syria before you know it .......... nothing else will matter

best bet right now is to lock this topic down, Saddam is toast

 

You are correct Erich I myself have never served in Afganistan but have friends who have. And I have friends who served in Iraq as well....


Erich I am afraid that you are mistaken as the Soviets lost 14 thousand not 1 million.

 

interesting as I have military reports de-classified that say otherwise, The Soviets played the game of bluff very well, one reason why several chaps I have talked to tried to compare it to our Vietnam.

they had no clue what they were talking about ......but the same goes for anyone that has never been there nor fought through that hell

Afghan is a beautiful wasteland especially in the higher environs when it is not being fought over.

most likely we will get pulled out starting in 2008 if the Demos get into the house, then we can start playing the games here on our soil again. Regretfully this administration has been one of the strangest I have ever seen

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16514679/

 

I'd like to send that piece of puss to the front-lines in Iraq or Afghan just to give her a good education. Well that certainly will not happen

 

Now these wouldnt be the same de-classified reports that said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and Saddam being linked to Al Qaeda would they??

 

whatever you say friend .........

by the way I have seen the photos from Iraq showing the WMD's buried in the sands from 3 different units

let's drop this shit ok ? the whole point of the matter is that a cruel dictator got stretched on the hangmans rope, an easy way out of life.

LOCK THIS THREAD

 

no problem understood

 

Well, we "know" the nut in N.Korea has and had threatened using WMD and we don't spend BILLIONS of dollars there.

 

Unfortunately one of the very few ways of disposing of chemical agents of the type that have been discovered (though I'd like to point out that to date all we have found are sealed mortar cannisters which show evidence of having been buried for quite a while) is to bury them. So all we have found are 'WMD' that have been disposed of in a safe manner.

Incidentally, my source for this is a small group of experts on chemical weapons who I undertook training with last summer, they included the RSM who was top dog for the entire British CBRN contribution and the officer who liased with the US. Also worth noting that the US buried chemical munitions in Canada in exactly the same way earlier last century, they are now coming to the surface and goons like me wound up dealing with it, now THAT sucks.

Not sure Iraq and the Soviet Afgan war can be compared, I'd say in a few years we might find that our efforts in Afganistan can be compared to the First and Second Afgan wars at the very least.

As I said, these parts of the world see us as invaders, they will fight us on that basis however much good we claim we are doing.