Casualties mounting up in Iraq

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by GrimCO
What, did you expect they'd be sauntering around Iraq drinking tea and eating crumpets on a picnic blanket?

Yikes dude! Are you in "Shoot the messenger" mode?

[Sandman]

Originally posted by GrimCO
What, did you expect they'd be sauntering around Iraq drinking tea and eating crumpets on a picnic blanket?

A liberating force might be able to expect as much.

[GrimCO]

Sorry MT, didn't mean it to come across that way. My apologies.

It just baffles me that some people use this as fuel to try to lend support to their argument that the majority of Iraqis don't appreciate the toppling of the Hussein regime. It's the Middle East for Christ's sake. To think there aren't factions within Iraq that will continue to kill American and British troops is ridiculous. To think these factions represent the majority in Iraq is even more ridiculous.

Originally posted by Sandman_SBM
A liberating force might be able to expect as much.

You can't be serious.

[Dowding]

Yes GrimCO. We all remember the well documented pictures of American and British troops being gunned down by annoyed French, Dutch, Belgian men.

[GrimCO]

Dowding,

I know you're an intelligent sort. So this comparison of a Middle Eastern Country to France and Holland was a joke right?

[Dowding]

Of course. In the same vein as saying the Coalition was a liberating force is not far off a joke. To huge swathes of the population it's a barrier to their political and democratic will; the creation of an Islamic state. An infinitely more benign barrier than the Ba'athist party headed by Hussein - that goes without saying - but a barrier all the same.

[Rude]

Originally posted by SirLoin
He's right on the money Rude...Guess you don't have the "Stones" to admit that though.

Admit what? That governments often slant the truth towards what serves them?

Look...don't pile me in with the blind ones....I just found it overkill to get so worked up about a truth which has been with us for generations.

If you have a hardon for the USA or its foreign policy, good for you....just don't kid yourself by thinking that we care what your opinion is south of the border.

As to my stones, they've gotten smaller the older I've become....at least I can still read with a degree of comprehension....I only thought he got worked up over nothing...he tends to be a little defensive in most of his posts.

Having said that, I told him how I felt long ago regarding his nation and his people....we agreed to disagree about the politics and I respect him as a person...I don't have to agree with his take on life.

I guess you just don't like me much....thought I met ya at the con, but can't recall.

[GrimCO]

Ok Dowding, just checking...  You had me worried there for a minute.

Taking the radical Muslims out of the equation, there are a quite a few people who stand to lose a lot (or have lost a lot already rather). Even if the Coalition were a "liberating force" in the truest sense of the word, the same thing would be happening over there as they were leaving. The mentality in the Middle East just isn't the same as the Western world. Bring religion back into the equation, and it starts getting worse in a hurry.

I'm just not surprised by it, that's all. After all, we're the "infidels".

[Gunthr]

We have to get used to the continuing attrition in Iraq and Afganistan. We're gonna be there for years to come, and it is the cost of "doing business" over there. The casualty rate is miniscule as far as these kind of things go - and acceptable to the generals. It boils down to whether you think we should be there. I do.

Boroda, you can't be serious comparing Iraq or Afganistan to Chechnya???

I don't think we can expect the US military to necessarily trumpet every casualty. Why would they do that? It could be argued that it should be classified info anyway.  The US Government is more open about that information than almost any other military around the world from what I can see...

[Dowding]

I'm not surprised either, GrimCO. But I saw the whole Iraq 'liberation' as being very half-heartedly received on the whole. I think that is ominous, but time will tell.

Gunthr - if US troops are still on Iraqi soil in any large numbers in a years time, I suspect Bush will be in deep water politically.

[Gunthr]

Gunthr - if US troops are still on Iraqi soil in any large numbers in a years time, I suspect Bush will be in deep water politically.

- Dowding

I wonder about that, Dowding. A lot can happen in a year's time that could change the whole picture one way or the other.

I do agree we should get out as soon as we can, but we can't leave too soon. We can't leave a power vacuum there. It would leave the whole region in chaos.

Of course, this whole thing has been a huge political gamble for Bush and Blair. The whole thing was, and is, full of dangerous pitfalls. But I think they did the right thing - maybe not the right thing politically speaking - but the "right thing" morally and strategically in the war on terror. I'm not oblivious to the arguments against that war, I just believe strongly that we need to be over there.

[Fishu]

Looks like they've AGAIN yesterday rolled over a car and end up with a fatality.

plus another accident on the same day..

[Krusher]

Originally posted by Fishu
Looks like they've AGAIN yesterday rolled over a car and end up with a fatality.

plus another accident on the same day..

you keeping score?