On the subject of Iraq...

Hell's broken lose in Iraq since last weekend and our troops are not coming home anytime soon. Although the government still says it's standing by the June 30th deadline. Yeah, right. The whole thing is a failure and I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes another Vietnam.
Thing is, when are we going to accept losing the war? Or are we just gonna keep pretending there, while ppl are getting killed?
I dug this out of yahoo today and it made me sick to my stomach

http://photomatt.net/dropbox/2004/04/warpresBIG.jpg

Losing the war? Because a fanatical cleric with a militia who wants to take power for himself staged and uprising? What is a cleric doing with a militia? Thanks for the link; I printed it out to remind me of their sacrifice. Your intention may have been meant to humble me, and it did but not in the sense I want them to come home, it reminds me that to lose now makes their deaths meaningless. A part of me wants to get out and let them burn one another to death then clean up after, but I know there are people there who want the same government the west has, and I would hate to see them fall to a cleric bent on reaping his own version of oppression and violence.

http://www.doctorweevil.org/archives/000574.html
http://www.marzone.com/7thMarines/usmc_cas_stats.pdf

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According to this site, over 98% of Marine deaths in Vietnam came in the six years 1965 through 1970. If the other services followed the same pattern, that means an average of 26.03 deaths per day over those six years.

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I don't think this is vietnam at all, though it still sucks. I don't know if I agree with the war, but a lot has been accomplished. Whatever happens, I hope Iraq will be rebuilt better off than it was with Saddam, and I have confidence that it will.

While I never agreed with the reasons that Bush used to send the US army into Iraq. I feel that the worst possable thing now would be for the Bush adminisitration to pull out of Iraq before there is a working goverment in place.
The result of such an action would be to leave a power vacum that would be perfectly suited to the setting up of an fundamentalist State. It would give a huge propoganda boost to the islamic terrorist factions and the iraqi people would be in a much worst situtation than if America never went in.

RoadClosed: given i twould be hard for the verious groups of militants to "win", but how dose the US win the war? We are fighting agenst a general upriseing, that will not give up untill they are dead to the last man or we are out.....with the death rate on both sides, and the numbers on both sides we will run out of troops long before they do. Humm this is starting to look real familiar.

The way out of iraq remains one of degrees.
1. Withdrawal after a "friendly" (now that is certainly a misnomer) government is installed.
2. In bodybags (no disrespect meant to many troops and ngo personnel) or on a stretcher.
3. International agreement to recognize new government and acceptable level of stability.

Hmm. There must be more choices.

Well Soda, you disagreed on my comments about this being a new Vietnam, and you threw a 26 death rate per day as an example, but let me remind you , we're up to 40 casualties in a week. That's not counting the casualties among civilians in Iraq and the other troops from coalition forces. Plus the number of soldiers going line of duty, the injuries and the diseases they're coming back home with. Does it have to come to 26 deaths per day? In one week we lost total control of two major cities plus surronding villages, we have hostages, Bush's re election is now at stake, and to RoadClose, it sounds all beautiful what you said about being reminded of our troops sacrifice, but I ask you, what are we sacrificing them for?
Can you imagine how those marines felt , when after a year of eating sand and sacrifice, they went to get a plane back home, only to be told they had to go back to the war for God knows how long? I would've gone crazy.

We're wasting millions of dollars everyday to fight against a regime that's gone, we're pouring billions to reconstruct an economy when in the meantime the American people are out of jobs here at home and living in debt in this horrible economy. WMD don't even exist and we were lied too, there are no links between AlQaida and Iraq, and the situation is getting worse by the day.

It's wrong and we shouldn't have gone there in the first place, but now what??

Just a reminder, I can't really say that doing what we did was the right decision, I wasn't the one in the oval office receiving intelligence about it from 9 to 5, but I have to say I would like to think I wouldn't have attacked. But the truth is, we have a much better handle on this war than the war in vietnam. Just my thoughts, not my opinions. I would make opinions if I was working in the white house or held a position in the military.

Yesterday, CNN reported that 30% of Iraqi's now have a satellite dish thanks to the Americans. How dare anyone say that this war was a failure! Ditch the cable, get the dish!

Send in the SAS to take out the leaders of the opposition - that'll stop them. Same for anyone who tries to take coalition hostages. With the Royal Marines as backup they could easily deal with the hard core of the rebels and without people to lead them the resistance would crumble fairly quickly.

As for the troops who gave their lives in Iraq - they knew that death was a possibility when they joined the army. It's not like with the two world wars where you didn't have a choice - men over 18 of fighting ability were automatically conscripted over here in the UK - these men are paid to fight and knew right from the start that their job could involve being put in the front line. Yes it's a tragedy that so many lives have been lost, but a lot of people seem to be saying it as if they expected coalition forces to just walk into Iraq and quietly restore order.

I also wish people would shut up about the whole issue of WMD. You think Bush made a big deal of it - come and see what Tony Blair said about it. He went on about nothing else for about three months leading up to the conflict. Besides, it's a moot point now - whatever reason we went to war for our troops are in Iraq now and dealing with the situation. You might not like the fact that they're fighting (and dying) or the reason why they were sent, but the fact is they're there now and there's nothing you can do to remedy that. To pull out now would be an absolute disaster - we'd have lost hundreds of lives just to replace one evil dictator with another.

Negative: I thought CNN was part of the evil right-wing, Bush-supporting media group (along with Fox and the rest of the companies Rupert Murdoch owns) and therefore their statistics shouldn't be trusted? ;) Judging by the quality of some of the programming that comes through our satellite dishes, I sometimes think the Iraqis might be better off without it anyway.

Mr. Waring > You can say all you want about CNN and Fox, but by reporting those figures, they were doing the only thing they're good at: being the public voice of the American administration. 30% of all Iraqi's now having a satellite dish must be something the administration is proud of, therefore it was reported :)

There is no "news" on TV here in America. There are commercials filled up with faits divers. You can't take a newscast that is sponsored by McDonald's serious.

No matter when the troops get pulled out of that place, it's going to become a mess anyway. So its a waste of people and money.
The billions of dollars worth of damage we have done overthere is a tab that's gotta be picked up by either the Americans and the Brittish or the UN. You can't just go, blow up a place and leave. You're responsible for its restoration. I remember Japan picked up the bill during the gulf war...which is kind of curious to me, considering they're there again and their reasons aren't what you would call, visible. it's gonna be kind of interesting to see who will do it this time, since America is going broke.

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since America is going broke.

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THUNK!!!

That's the sound of my ass hitting the floor...I just laughed it off..:D

First point: It had to be done!!! Saddam and the UN J@#$edoff for 10 years. After the Gulf War he
was supposed to do alot of things, but did not. The inspectors were should have been
allowed to go any where they wanted in Irqa to do their thing, yet were hardly allowed
any where.
second: We win when we set up a new government that functions.
Third: gold eagal I know you ment know dissrespect, but harsh and not kewl
Fourth: CNN is liberal, FOX is "fair and ballenced" (right-wing) at least get the facts right.
Last: HOOAH!....Go Green!..... (if you don't get it figure it out)

side note: I'll be making my rotation through after OBC in two years.

Here's an interesting read on Fox News ("Is Fox CNN Lite?"). There's just as unprofessional and Disney-ish as CNN.

First: "It" had to be done... what had to be done? Overthrowing Saddam? I don't think anyone will disagree with that. And remember that those inspectors were UN inspectors... were they J@#$ing off as well?

Second: setting up a new government that functions (almost sounds like a contradictione in terminis) means that the Iraqi people will have won. In a case like this, there's no government that wins or looses... not anymore.

Having watched CNN on several occassions (as we can get it on Satellite over here) and read the web site as well, I can definitely say that they are not liberal. I find it quite amusing though that if you read their profile of Ralph Naper you will see that his biography is identical to John Kerry's. Looks like some unprofessional CNN webmaster decided to just copy/paste without checking. :)

Part of me agrees with all off you, we should leave and let them burn each other off the planet. But I haven't reached that alternative yet, since that is what will happen. I am curious at the report that Iraq has 30 percent of it's population in front of satelite dishes. That seems to go against the growing trend that the entire population is uprising against the evil empire. This is perhaps not newsworthy, but it astounds me because the media before was controlled by an opressive political party and if things are so bad over there, why are so many people indulging in such luxury as satelite TV?

If I can't respect the marines and feel greif for them, and I don't want to country of Iraq to fall into a scene out of "Road Warrior" what am I to do?

Well, one theory i'd like to throw about percentages here, most rebellions are caused and initiated by minorities. The majority always seem to comply.
Another point I wanna reply too that some of you brought up is about this victory theme. How can you head towards victory, when you can't actually define it. What is victory at Iraq at this point of the game? Was it necessary to overthrow saddam? Well, it's necessary to overthrow any type of tyrany, but you need a plan and we went there without one and now, as a result, anything that was expected, was assumed. None of it turned out to be right. For example, we assumed that the reconstruction of Iraq would be financed on its oil revenues. We assumed that 77,000 police and army officers in Iraq would be backing us up right now. We still assume that we will get out of there by June 30th. We assumed we would be looked at as liberators, not conquerors.

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We still assume that we will get out of there by June 30th.

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lmao..do you stay up late at night thinking up things like that? Quote one (credible) source that states we will be out of there by June 30th? June 30th of which year?

I think the activities over there are proceeding exactly as many people thought they would...I haven't been surprised by anything that has happened so far....

I dont recall anyone saying we would be out by June, I remember that deadline being the proclaimation that Iraq will have a working government by June. It's always been the plan to have coalition forces used past June 30th. To my knowledge no date has ever been set to remove them.

Here is a cold number on rebellian, the communists in Hungry only had a about a 4-7 percent support base, so yes a small minority can effectively rule a passive population.

Even if you had a plan in place, assumptions would have been made, right or wrong the assumtions used as examples, sound like a plan. In fact a deadline with some goals also sounds like a plan. I might agree that a term conquerer vs. liberator might be used, if insurgent forces weren't tyranical in their own views. I am not sure how protecting the loosly held government from revolutionary forces that will single out a specific muslem sect and destroy the rest is considered conguering.

In addition I am not sure how one could come to the conclusion the reconstruction cost will not result in oil revenues. That would be a guess which is OK, I would assume those oil rigs are working and controlled by security forces, perhaps not. But it seems logical. Insurgency of "war lord like" Clerics does not equate to the Government and Iraq police forces, not suporting us. In fact the insurgents are killing them just as much.

RoadClosed: the iraqi army mass deserting and the security forces fighting on the side of the insergants may be good signs of a mass upriseing.

That would be an indicator, can you show me this mass disertion? Can't find it.

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Originally posted here by bballad
RoadClosed: the iraqi army mass deserting and the security forces fighting on the side of the insergants may be good signs of a mass upriseing.

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That is a gross exageration. I assume you are referencing the 900 or so soldiers in the new Iraqi army that refused to enter Fallujah? They did not desert, although they may soon be booted from the Army by the Provisional Authority. There are currently two batallions of Iraqi Civil Defense working with the Marines in and around Fallujah.

Are the uprisings in the three or four cities last week alarming? Yes. Does it have the potential to grow into a larger uprising? Yes. Does it, at this point in time, constitute a mass uprising? Hardly. Does last week approach Vietnam? Excuse my language, but you have to be (*#%(*%(& kidding me!! Iraq isn't even a fart in the wind compared to Vietnam....Pull your nose out of Ted Kennedy's ass for a moment and you might get a clearer picture.

I certainly think things could be run and done better, but I also think that the efforts of certain politicians to turn the suffering of both American Soldiers and the Iraqi people into some kind of political hay is beyond sickening.

nebulus200: no one said anything about vietnam...you brought that up.

look we have the police we trained turning there guns on our troops, we hae iraqi batalians that are not ready for combat yet (according to their Vinnell trainer ...the guys who traind the south koreans) with a 20% AWOL and a 25% leave rate...so those two divisins we have are realy one with a bunch of guys running off with the equpment. The first bitallion (the first group traind who should be fighting now.) has allready replaced their CO.

here is a wonderfull artical on the state of the iraqu regaments form david Hackworth...the man responsable for our small unit army http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/c...87938486248376

See the thread starter's first post regarding Vietnam...

My answer about Vietnam was directed towards that comment. As for how I said it, it was Mr. Kennedy who bloviated on that topic on the Senate floor. Personally, my blood is still boiling at his gross exagerations and his attempts to make political points out of the suffering of American troops, American Civilians, the Iraqi people, and the citizens/soldiers of every other country that is currently involved in Iraq, I frankly expect more grace out of a Senator...

As far as the Iraqi units go, I do agree that they have been rushed through training and do agree that in some cases have been poorly equipped (although it is my understanding that this part is becoming less and less of an issue). The US has been very rushed in trying to standup Iraq to take care of its own security and the effects of the rushing to deploy Iraqi units are very evident; however, my only point on the topic was that the majority of Iraqi policemen, civil defense, and even Army soldiers are doing their jobs, are risking their lives daily, and are trying to make their country a better, more stable, and secure place to live. IMHO, the characterizations of a unit refusing to deploy as 'mass defections' are grossly exaggerated by some in the US and around the world that, for some reason, take perverse glee and great joy in watching the effort in Iraq fail.

45% of the units have deserted if that is not a mass defection what is?

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Originally posted here by bballad
45% of the units have deserted if that is not a mass defection what is?

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Sources please, sources...

I find that number very difficult to believe...

I gave you sources David Hackworth Colonel Us army retired. He was quoteing a Vinnell rep, the Mercs (or contractors if you prefer) in charge of training the iraqi army. 25% on leave, 20% AWOL. In one day last month 139 NCO's quit the army...this is a very bad sign.

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As far as the Iraqi units go, I do agree that they have been rushed through training and do agree that in some cases have been poorly equipped

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Hell, Bush went on tv to say that whatever the military needs, he will make sure they get. Today I read an article on the daily news about a Leutenant that is trying to gather vests for the troops, saying there aren't enough and asking any citizen to donate their vests if they have one...what is going on here??

I was hoping you had more than one. Regardless, I will be looking around to see if I can't find some collaborating information. I did find some interesting web sites in the meantime, but not mention of the Iraqi units (I have heard it elsewhere, just looking for some public places that have similar information).

http://www.cjtf7.com/
http://www.iraqcoalition.org/

As you should with anything, take it with a grain of salt and consider the source...regardless, was kinda interesting too look through...

/nebulus

Yes, Negative the J@#$ing off comment was refering to the way the UN delt with Saddam rejecting the weapon inspectors. And I agree we can't leave untill a functioning (semi-efficently at the least).

I also have to agree with nebulus200, bballad more sources are needed to back up your argument.

Here is some more for you

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/nation...raq%20Security
http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=825
and well the desertions have been going on for a while http://www.notinourname.net/war/iraq...ns-14dec03.htm

Have a few more sources but they are all registration required sites...perhpas next time you can d oyour own research.

as for your sites...when Iwnat political propaganda i will read the DoD's web site and not get it filtered down through there cronies.