Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: DipStick on June 22, 2005, 06:24:57 PM
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Did you know that 47 countries have re-established their embassies in Iraq?
Did you know that the Iraqi government employs 1.2 million Iraqi people?
Did you know that 3100 schools have been renovated, 364 schools are under rehabilitation, 263 schools are now under construction and 38 new schools have been built in Iraq?
Did you know that Iraq's higher educational structure consists of 20 Universities, 46 Institutes or colleges and 4 research centers?
Did you know that 25 Iraq students departed for the United States in January 2004 for the re-established Fulbright program?
Did you know that the Iraqi Navy is operational? They have 5- 100-foot patrol craft, 34 smaller vessels and a navel infantry regiment.
Did you know that Iraqi Air Force consists of three operation squadrons, 9 reconnaissance and 3 US C-130 transport aircraft which operate day and night, and will soon add 16 UH-1 helicopters and 4 bell jet rangers?
Did you know that Iraq has a counter-terrorist unit and a Commando Battalion?
Did you know that the Iraqi Police Service has over 55,000 fully trained and equipped police officers?
Did you know that there are 5 Police Academies in Iraq that produce over 3500 new officers each 8 weeks?
Did you know there are more than 1100 building projects going on in Iraq? They include 364 schools, 67 public clinics, 15 hospitals, 83 railroad stations, 22 oil facilities, 93 water facilities and 69 electrical facilities.
Did you know that 96% of Iraqi children under the age of 5 have received the first 2 series of polio vaccinations?
Did you know that 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary school by mid October?
Did you know that there are 1,192,000 cell phone subscribers in Iraq and phone use has gone up 158%?
Did you know that Iraq has an independent media that consist of 75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations?
Did you know that the Baghdad Stock Exchange opened in June of 2004?
Did you know that 2 candidates in the Iraqi presidential election had a recent televised debate recently?
OF COURSE YOU DIDN'T KNOW! OUR MEDIA WOULDN'T TELL US!
Instead of shouting these accomplishments from every rooftop, they would rather show photos of what a few malcontent soldiers have done in prisons, in many cases never disclosing the circumstances surrounding the events.
Instead of showing our love for our country, we get photos of flag burning incidents at Abu Ghraib and people throwing snowballs at presidential motorcades.
The lack of accentuating the positive in Iraq serves only one purpose. It undermines the world's perception of the United States and our soldiers.
ASHAMED OF MY FELLOW AMERICANS WHO WOULD RATHER SEE TERRORISM SUCCEED THAN A REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT? I AM.
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Originally posted by DipStick
Did you know that 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary school by mid October?
Out of 11 million total population before the war? LOL!
Originally posted by DipStick
Did you know that there are 1,192,000 cell phone subscribers in Iraq and phone use has gone up 158%?
Who's the cellular provider in Iraq? Another monopoly? Who's the owner? And what's the standard, GSM? CDMA?
Originally posted by DipStick
Did you know that Iraq has an independent media that consist of 75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations?
Independent media? Is Iraq an only country in a whole world (other then PRC :D) to have it?! How many "free" media enterprises propagate for Iraqi resistance?
Sorry for sarcasm...
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That reads like a chain letter.
Is it?
-SW
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Did you know that $100 Million dollars worth of U.S. $100 bills, all withdrawn from the DFI account at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, collected in packs worth $1.6 million and flown to Baghdad for use in establishing government ministries and paying contractors is missing and unaccounted for? Of course you don't.
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did you know we've all gotten that same junk email.
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no no no dip, don't you know that the USA is in a "bogged down in a quagmire"?
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All that is great but really what the Iraqis want more than anything.....
Electricity that's on 98% of the time and clean running water.
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Very, very true, Guns. A reliable electricity grid and safe running water would go a long way to winning their hearts and minds.
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Originally posted by rpm
Very, very true, Guns. A reliable electricity grid and safe running water would go a long way to winning their hearts and minds.
They already had all this stuff before the bombing began :(
I imagine someone bombing Moscow to a stage when there's no electricity, no water, nothing, and then occupying the city, only to promise that they'll bring it all back in several years, only if Muscovites will cease blowing up their convoys and collaborators.
I speak about Moscow because in the province - it looks like just now they understood that Germans were defeated 60 years ago and at last they may quit blowing up trains.
Well, some of them still don't understand it and keep fighting "occupants": http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/06/16/trainaccid.shtml
;)
Only mind games...
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Originally posted by Boroda
They already had all this stuff before the bombing began :(
I imagine someone bombing Moscow to a stage when there's no electricity, no water, nothing, and then occupying the city, only to promise that they'll bring it all back in several years, only if Muscovites will cease blowing up their convoys and collaborators.
I speak about Moscow because in the province - it looks like just now they understood that Germans were defeated 60 years ago and at last they may quit blowing up trains.
Well, some of them still don't understand it and keep fighting "occupants": http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/06/16/trainaccid.shtml
;)
Only mind games...
actually the electricity and water were "rationed" pre-invasion. Sadam used that (among other things) to keep his populace under control.
It was never fully restored after the first gulf war.
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Originally posted by Gunslinger
actually the electricity and water were "rationed" pre-invasion. Sadam used that (among other things) to keep his populace under control.
It was never fully restored after the first gulf war.
Here in Russia in many cities that are in better climate then Iraq we have water "rationed", like no water at daytime. It's quite different from having all water-supply infrastructure blown up by bombs from stratosphere on laser-guidance. Even during the few months (July 22 - October 22 1941 IIRC), when Moscow was bombed, there were no severe problems with water or electricity, subway was working and life went on. Now the times changed... You literally bomb them into a stone age from a developed industrial society. They felt exactly like you will (Boroda crosses himself because even the thought is painfull) if you'll get bombed for several years, not months like Moscow was in 1941.
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i'm sorry , i must disagree, the infrastructure in iraq was a total disaster BEFORE gulf war #1, saddam robbed his people of every thing , it takes a lot of money to build 27 marble palaces,and buy gold plated guns and sports cars for your crazy kids
the US tried not to hit the elect and water systems, what the US did not know was the systems were already junk.
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Gunslinger is correct. Electricity and water were the two gripes I heard the most out of the locals I dealt with.
Contrary to popular belief, public work facilities in Mosul at least weren't blown up in military actions, and I don't think Uncle Saddam used them as a crowd control tool or at least I never heard it mentioned. What I did hear was the facilities (electric in particular) were very old and were very shoddy even when they were new. (There's a serious overall quality control problem over there that you'd have to see to believe. Even in Uncle Saddam's Mosul palace, the steps are unevenly spaced in several places.:confused: )
Anyway, the electric plant that serviced the city could only run for a few hours at a time before the cantankerous thingies would overheat and start smoking, so they'd shut it down to let it cool off and put out a fire here and there. This is without mentioning all the old, old damaged wiring used to carry the current to the end users...
We spent ALOT of time out on the town doing the hearts and minds thing. (Schools, broadcast facilities, and marketplaces mostly.) Mosul University became a pretty familiar place..top-notch engineering programs, but you have to walk up the crooked steps to get to admissions LOL. And, they only threw grenades at us once, so I guess we were doing something right...
This info is 2 years old, and I haven't bothered keeping up with Iraqi public affairs since then so things may have changed.
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Aint nuthin like a first hand account.
Thanks for the post VOR
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VOR,
I saw a pic of a telephone frame in Iraq and nearly crapped my pants. I wish I still had this pic but it just had splices and wires runnin everywere about 10 ft high. 100 pairs 50 pairs 500 pairs it looked like a big ole box of spagetti.
In a situation like that it's not really salvagable and cheaper just to build new ones.
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BTW VOR. your time there about coincides with this story my bro in law keeps spouting off at the mouth about.
Perhaps you can confirm or deny or at least clarify its acuracccy
something like this. Dont remember the exact unit or weapons sytem or co ordinates so I'll just kinda fill em in
A call comes in for a strike on a specific position the person receing theorder says "but sir thats a friendly position those are our guys."
th eofficer ordering the stroke keeps calling for fire on that position.
the person receiving the call keeps insisting that the position is occupied by our own soldiers.
the officer calling in the strike then ORDERS this person to deliver the strike. whch he does. sure enough it was occupied by our own soldiers.
The person who obayed the order is now in trouble for firing on that position.
Now thats not the EXACT way he tells it but certainly close enough.
You ever hear anything about this or can I have the almost orgasmic pleasure of telling this..........gentleman he is full of it?
I know he supposedly got the story second hand from his stepdaughter who was serving in the navy at the time(and a very short time at that) and never left the states.
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VOR, I hope your nick is from Barayar series, "Vor is not a thief!" ;)
Here, in a country that enjoys Freedom and Democracy now - I probably can describe the situation in exactly the same words that You used about Mosul. But it doesn't mean that everything was ****ed up as that 15 years ago.
After 15 years of the capitalistic crap we had here - I can say that Freedom and Democracy are incompatible with Water and Electricity. If you'll make Iraq an example to prove that I'm wrong - it will probably the last nail into the coffin of what you call "communism".
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Gunslinger, that kind of thing is typical. We hired some guys to wire a building for us and I nearly electrocuted myself when I tried to turn on my shiney new Braun razor. They also built us a crooked sidewalk that fell apart after it rained. The foreman used a rock with a hole through it, a stick and some string as a surveying tool. I kept expecting Yul Brenner to show up and say "So let it be written, so let it be done."
Dreidok, I didn't hear about that one. Not to say it didn't happen, but news of friendly fire incidents usually spread pretty fast through the ranks.
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Originally posted by VOR
Dreidok, I didn't hear about that one. Not to say it didn't happen, but news of friendly fire incidents usually spread pretty fast through the ranks.
Darn!
You deny me a great pleasure on someone who desperately needs it LOL
thanks anyway
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Boroda, all I can say is that in my free and democratic home the water runs and the electricity powers my decadent internet service, but at a price to make the proliteriat shudder. ;)
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Originally posted by DREDIOCK
You ever hear anything about this or can I have the almost orgasmic pleasure of telling this..........gentleman he is full of it?
"Those who served in the Army don't laugh in the circus" :(
AFAIK here an officer who recieves such an order may request a written order.
I may be wrong. Estel definetly knows better.
Most of such anecdotes are usually no more then horror-stories for boy-scouts.
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Iraqi civilian infrastructure is crap because the US military targeted it during the Gulf War, that combined with sanctions kept them in a state of disrepair.
http://www.scn.org/ccpi/infrastructure.html#wp
http://www.scn.org/ccpi/WashPostWarDamage23Jun91.html
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Originally posted by VOR
Boroda, all I can say is that in my free and democratic home the water runs and the electricity powers my decadent internet service, but at a price to make the proliteriat shudder. ;)
Price?! Money for basic life-supporting services?!
:rofl
Seriously: we go all the same way towards the situation when even middle-class (not proletarians like me) will be unable to pay for water and electricity.
There must be a reasonable space between "pay-for-all-to-make-a-big-brother-and-cousins-richer" and "you-have-all-for-free-but-only-after-standing-in-line-for-12-hours" like in Turkmenistan where they have free bread and milk, that means - no bread and milk.
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Originally posted by VOR
If it makes your day brighter, tell him VOR from the AHBBS said BS. That ought to put him in his place. :D
Well the words of someone whowas actually if not on the scene certainly in the same country certainly carries more weight then a 3rd or 4th hand story told to someone in the states from someone who could barely handle a year and a half in the Navy.
But this guy spews it like its an absolute fact.
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Originally posted by Thrawn
Iraqi civilian infrastructure is crap because the US military targeted it during the Gulf War, that combined with sanctions kept them in a state of disrepair.
It would be silly to say military action + sanctions didn't play a significant role, but it would be equally silly to say it is THE reason the lights won't stay on.
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Originally posted by VOR
It would be silly to say military action + sanctions didn't play a significant role, but it would be equally silly to say it is THE reason the lights won't stay on.
Really? What was the last time your home town got under massive bombings? Did the bombers target concert halls or a local circus instead of power stations, bridges and water refining facility?
Or maybe they only dropped "humanitarian aid"?
Get real. In Yugoslavia 1999 NATO criminals bombed all (I mean - ALL) bridges across Danube first. Regardless to human shields - people holding hands in a silly hope to save their way of life against a faceless NATO beast...
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Boroda, in defense of the locals who gave me my information, I should note that they didn't have internet services so they may not have been privy to why their city was really broken. Besides, I can't and won't speak for any part of the country I didn't see, which is most of it.
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VOR, your point of view is... let me find a right word... supportable?... enjoyable?... well, I mean it's a point of view and attitude from a thinking man that should be respected, and the fact that it exists is a big and appreciated surprise for me.
I only can say that here in Moscow all the disasters will be hanged onto "evil communist regime" (tm) by 99% of the population that will be eager to collaborate with occupants (i mean - with our "democratic" crooks of the 90s), regardless to the fact that it was the same "bloody regime" that built all the stuff and maintained it for 70 years.
I don't mean that 99% of population will be eager to collaborate and I am a freak from the remaining 1% :) I mean that out of the people who want to collaborate - 99% will do as I described above. Sorry, I have problems with tenses ;)
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Originally posted by Boroda
After 15 years of the capitalistic crap we had here - I can say that Freedom and Democracy are incompatible with Water and Electricity.
sorry boroda, i have freedom, democracy, capitalistic crap AND water and electricity, so maybe you should move out into the real world.
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Originally posted by john9001
sorry boroda, i have freedom, democracy, capitalistic crap AND water and electricity,
Really, We have all that and the only time we cant use the water is during a severe drought. and then you are only prohibited from washing your car or watering your lawn
Hell we even have running water in our deserts lol
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Originally posted by DREDIOCK
Hell we even have running water in our deserts lol
We have irrigation so we can grow CROPS in our deserts. Damn you capitalism DAMN YOU!
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deleted - rule #4 #5
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Originally posted by Gunslinger
We have irrigation so we can grow CROPS in our deserts. Damn you capitalism DAMN YOU!
the Horror
the Horror LOL
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I think you are oversimplifying the Russian situation, and Boroda may be overcomplicating it. I'm not there, and of course what we see of the situation here in the US is colored by our media's coverage (when there is any), so my views may not be 100% correct. But from what I can piece together, its simply a matter of point of view.
When the reformers came to town in the former USSR, they had a vision of remaking Russia and her sattelite countries into their version of the US. The problem is, the politicians stuck their heads out into the sun, and the people stuck their heads out into the sun, and decided they didnt like the look of something "new", so they tried to go back to doing things exactly as they always had done them. Only the system didnt support that anymore, and it fell apart. No one knew how to operate under the new rules, and didnt bother to learn more than the basics. People in the govt. had others to explain and interpret the rules FOR them as they went along, and so profited at the expense of the rest even more than they had under the old system. Under the old system, at least they had limits, people understood how things worked and noticed if you went over the line. Now no one knows where the lines are.
Here's a way of looking at it. Its like someone at the very top said "You all must have the freedom to travel where you wish, so we give you all a new car." But the people dont know how to drive the new cars. Then the lower level govt. officials have people who DO know how to drive the cars drive them around, instead of teaching the average person to drive. Then they tell the average person "Oh, did the govt. not tell you? You owe a tax on your new car." And they pocket the money. Then they tell the people "Oh, you dont know how to drive your new car? Then we will take it so it does not bother you. We will give you one of the old cars that you DO know how to drive in its place." Only the old cars take diesel and the new cars take gasoline. They stopped producing diesel and only make gasoline now. So the old cars are useless. Then the politicians sell the new cars they collected to someone else, and pocket THAT money as well. End result? Someone meant well and tried to help, but now everyone at the bottom is worse off than they were before.
Again, I could be way off.
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Actualy Thrawn is correct and my civilised american freinds you should also remember that not everyone has the same standards as we do in the west. What may look an unservicable old piece of junk to us is pefrectlly usable and repairable in some countries and that includes european nations. I've just been to Italy....! yet their infrastucture seems to work well enough to keep them happy.
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boroda has an interesting take... he seems to be saying that the old soviet union sucked because everyone had a job an everything was free but they produced nothing and you had to wait in 12 hour lines for crap.
He seems to think that it is a bad thing that you "pay" for neccesities like food and water and such and that there should be some middleground...
That is basicaly the same old saw.... "communism is great and good.... it just hasn't been done right yet" Or the reverse... Capitalism is bad... it just hasn't collapsed yet and boy will you be sorry when it does!
I looked at some wastewater info on iraq from trades papers.... If we used USA "capitalist" EPA standards of even decades ago... the old sadman infrastructure would have been condemed with a "cease and desist order" that woulda stopped all growth until billions of dollars of facility rehab had been done.
I am the first to say that our EPA gets carried away big time but... the primitive facilities in iraq were bottom of the barrel. I would love to tour some of the infrastucture facilities in iraq... Bet they are all old as the hills and junk.
Bet the stuff we blew up was the same and I bet the new stuff is good.
lazs
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Originally posted by lazs2
boroda has an interesting take... he seems to be saying that the old soviet union sucked because everyone had a job an everything was free but they produced nothing and you had to wait in 12 hour lines for crap.
Strange conclusion from my posts.
There were pros and cons in Soviet system. Many things were absolutely great.
Originally posted by lazs2
He seems to think that it is a bad thing that you "pay" for neccesities like food and water and such and that there should be some middleground...
I just pointed at two opposite situations: when you're dead without money (no social programms, population is an annoying nuisance for the regime) and "totalitarian" happiness with free bread and milk that are unavailible in real life even for the money.
In late-80s people expected things to develop into a situation when we still have all Soviet good stuff plus some freedom of choice. But we had to abandon things like free medical care and education and have a choice to buy Coke and chewing-gum.
So, I dare to make a conclusion that "democracy" built with US assistance is only a way of marketing Coke and chewing-gum. Noone cares about people who don't buy this artificial poisons. Noone cares about water and electricity until it starts to influence chewing-gum sales.
Lenin said: "When I hear someone talking about democracy, I always ask - in who's favour?". He was a bloody criminal but still a very wise man :(
Originally posted by lazs2
That is basicaly the same old saw.... "communism is great and good.... it just hasn't been done right yet" Or the reverse... Capitalism is bad... it just hasn't collapsed yet and boy will you be sorry when it does!
You may laugh at me, but it's almost what I feel. Communism is an utopia, but I really want to live in "Midday World" from Strugatsky brothers sci-fi novells. And capitalism - well, god save America. If your country will collapse - the explosion will touch everyone on this small planet.
The only thing I find really nice in our current situation is that we refused from global politics, we simply sit at the river bank and watch you struggling with the stream, occasionally reaching into the water to get another cold beer ;)
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Originally posted by VOR
It would be silly to say military action + sanctions didn't play a significant role, but it would be equally silly to say it is THE reason the lights won't stay on.
Well, the Defense Intelligence Agency did a series of reports before and after the attacks that predicted the effects of strategic bombing and sanction would have on Iraq.
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/declassdocs/dia/19950901/950901_511rept_91.html
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/declassdocs/dia/19950925/950925_0421pgf_91.html
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/declassdocs/dia/19951016/951016_0me018_91.html
It was the miltary's intention to severally hamper Iraqi civilain infrastructure, vis a vis the attacks combined with sanctions. The DIA said it was working the way they wanted it to.
Perhaps that's not the only reason the lights didn't stay on, but it was certainly in my opinion the main reason by a good margin.
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Ahh Thrawn I think we're not using the same tense. I'm talking about the last couple of years and not about the infrastructure as a whole (don't know much about it anyway).
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Oh I see, sorry for the misunderstanding.
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boroda... I would only laugh at you because.... communism has been tried many times in many countries and it allways ends the same.. It's crap. No matter how you do it... it is crap. the middle ground, socialism.... is crap.
Any system that depends on the producers gleefuly supporting the slackers is crap and is doomed to failure.
What were the great things about the soviet union? Low crime is all I can see.
If housing is free and I have to live in that kind of "free" house.... I would rather live under an overpass till I could afford a ranch house out in the burbs.
I haven't heard of anyone ever starving to death in the US unless he wanted to or was insane.
If I think there are walls to keep me in.... It makes me want to leave.
If there is no opportunity to better my lot or my famililys.... why would I bother to do anything?
In an episode of the simpsons... Homer looks at a nursing home and decides, that is the life for him... he rides around in a wheel chair and is spoon fed and gets spounge baths and watches TV all day and gets free drugs and medical care. That is how communism works to me... bunch of homer simpsons laughing at those who make things.
lazs
lazs
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Did you know that US administration admited, that Iraq is not more secure that it was in 2003 ?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4090626.stm
Basicaly all that progress whitch we used to hear about was just plain wish.
Do you know that CIA expect more fights in Iraq and admited, that Iraqi invazion has been impuls for new partizan groups ?
(ohh.. damm sorry i wanted to say terrorist groups)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4122040.stm
Did you know that CIA admit that they are teethless agains Osama ?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4110786.stm
Do you know that CIA guys confirmed, that there are no WMD in Iraq, there were not WMD in Iraq before war ?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4484237.stm
Whos head is going to fall now ?
[muhehehe.. and guess what .. nobody is responsible for that troll ... ]
btw do you have clue how many people has die this month in Iraq ?
ooohhhh yeah .. somebody still call it amazing work ..... yeah ... truly amazing work in iraq indeed.
Anyone have some informations about US-Led corruption in Iraq ? .. I mean .. reconstruction.
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it seem unconcionable that we could turn the peaceful paradise that was iraq into this quagmire of death... with no real benifiet to anyone. We even ousted the kindest man this side of santa to do it.
lazs
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Lazs... try looking up some info on the "Rust Belt" and Appalachia.
Don't know about out and out starvation, but certainly malnutrition isn't uncommon.
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Hey lazs, if it's on the Internet it must be true.
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if the ppl would stop the morons from blowing up the new stuff, it wouldn't be 2 steps forward, 1 step back. Progress would proceed at an astounding rate, if everybody over there was allowed to do their job (bring the country out of the stone age) without fear of the next car, truck, pile of crap blowing up in their faces...
give it < 10 years ... you'll have them still sneaking over the borders but it won't be to "kill the infindels", it will be to live there..
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Originally posted by john9001
i'm sorry , i must disagree, the infrastructure in iraq was a total disaster BEFORE gulf war #1, saddam robbed his people of every thing , it takes a lot of money to build 27 marble palaces,and buy gold plated guns and sports cars for your crazy kids
naaa if he bought some nice cars for his kids, he probably built some nice roads for them.
may be circle around palace ?
Actualy i could post some pictures from 1999 or 2001. I probably know some people here who has been there.
I will try to find some pictures.
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See Rule #5
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Originally posted by lada
naaa if he bought some nice cars for his kids, he probably built some nice roads for them.
may be circle around palace ?
Actualy i could post some pictures from 1999 or 2001. I probably know some people here who has been there.
I will try to find some pictures.
Well, this is Uday's Ferrari before & after the invasion. (the internet says so).
(http://damienkatz.net/pics/ferrari.jpg)
(http://damienkatz.net/pics/udayferrari.jpg)
I woulda gone for the block & tranny myself.
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urchin... I'll bite.. How many starved to death in the rust belt and... even during the dust bowl days or the great depression? Can you find an example?
If you truly believed someone was starving to death.... would you feed him? Do you think I might?
That is what happened... believe it or not... the government is not the only thing that keeps people from starving to death in America.
It might even be said that in a lot of socialist and communist countries it is the government that causes people to starve.
lazs
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See rule #6
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Originally posted by Boroda
Get real. In Yugoslavia 1999 NATO criminals bombed all (I mean - ALL) bridges across Danube first. Regardless to human shields - people holding hands in a silly hope to save their way of life against a faceless NATO beast...
I nearly got into a fight at a bar in Kolomna with an old Russian army colonel. He kept saying the same nonsense (NATO beast, Russia shouldn't have abandonded Serbia) etc, while I was busy trying to check out the local scenery.
Lighten up, Boroda. See both sides of the story. It's not as one sided as some Americans put it (although some are very good at remaining objective) and your representation of things isn't precisely unbiased either.
Oh btw; going to Russia July 9th :D. Moscow, then Kolomna. Cool huh?
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I get so tired of this Iraq is better off cos we got rid of Saddam nonsense!
That is just not what the Iraqis are saying. Life there was pretty bad before the war under Saddam but now the situation is apalling. The country is a lawless mess, kidnappings, murder terrorism, looting, corruption, poor sanitation health power supply, most of it though not all the result of both US and UK mis handling of the whole situation, and a degree of niavety about what going to war on this nation would achieve that beggars belief. The whole things rates as one of the greatest military and political blunders.
The Iraqi people are currently worse off and so are the familiers of the American and British servicemen who are dying to prop up this ridiculous mess.
Boroda is not exactly correct and much of what he says seems somewhat crazy but its interesting to hear what people in that part of the world have been told and what they percieve.
"In late-80s people expected things to develop into a situation when we still have all Soviet good stuff plus some freedom of choice. But we had to abandon things like free medical care and education and have a choice to buy Coke and chewing-gum.
So, I dare to make a conclusion that "democracy" built with US assistance is only a way of marketing Coke and chewing-gum. Noone cares about people who don't buy this artificial poisons. Noone cares about water and electricity until it starts to influence chewing-gum sales. "
But this point I understand. and I agree. The consumer society business and making money is all that is valued now. Sad huh?
I just don't belive the arrogance that says that the US model of Democracy and capitalism is whats best and we'll use our military to impose it on you because we know whats good for you.
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see u in < 10 skydancer..
wanna see u eat ur words sir
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Yes of course in 10 years things will be different. More than likely there will be another Shia fundamentalist Islamic state in Iraq.
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Oh wouldn't that be grand... a democratically elected Islamic government.
I'm sure glad my tax dollars are helping towards this lofty achievement.
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That is just not what the Iraqis are saying.
You are trolling, or just plain misinformed.
The bulk of the Iraqi's are glad to have us there. Do your homework beyond what the leftist media is showing you, sir.
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See rule #6
I should sing the barney song.. this place is nuetered.
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No Steve I am not trolling.
Iam expressing my opinion / belief about the thread in question if that is OK by you?
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Originally posted by indy007
Well, this is Uday's Ferrari before & after the invasion. (the internet says so).
(http://damienkatz.net/pics/ferrari.jpg)
(http://damienkatz.net/pics/udayferrari.jpg)
I woulda gone for the block & tranny myself.
Well im an atheist .. but this is proper sin IMO
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4- Members should post in a way that is respectful of other users and HTC. Flaming or abusing users is not tolerated.