Ray

The logic is valid, but if the policy is taken to be such, then they should not have been dismissed/ disbanded in the first place. It would have ensured the continuation of govt, school, colleges and most importantly not ruin the law and order situation.

In my opinion, I think that once a decision has been taken that the Baathists are bums, they should remain to be treated like bum. This is more so required since given the situation, it should not look as if with the Baath guys the world (read Iraq) cannot be run!

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Confed999

Name one that died from a FF accident in a carpet bombing, or any general bombardment, campaign, there can't be many, because the troops don't need to be anywhere near the point of attack. You're probably thinking about fire meant to directly support troops in combat. Carpet bombing doesn't require anyone on the ground, for example. The troops could be in another country.
I agree Ray. I think they should all be charged just for being Baath. The low guys should at least be fined, and the high-ups should get... lets just say the punishment should be a bit worse than the crime. Unfortunately neither of us make policy.

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

Praxus

Trooth, there is a very simple answer to your question.

If they did not initiate force then the soldiers that were involved in FF would never have been in the position to commit fratricide.

There is a difference between incompotence(which should be delt with) and the purposful initiation of force.

Ray

Confed,

The US has prevented showing of bodybags. 700 dead. Nothing very little if you ask me. It is sad because none can match the US with all the gizmos of warfare. It depresses me that even technologiy cannot beat ground realities!

Can't they beam strong electronic waves to blank out all news including TV so that we can be saved the worry that things are not OK and that whatever is being done is a waste of time and the whole sitaution is a River of No Return? It is sickening and sad that the world cannot see the end of the tunnel. I am tired and scared.

Call me an ostrich, if you wish. But the graphics I see on the TV disheartens me immensely and spoils my day. Is there no hope?

Either stop this beaming of gruesome picture or quit and let the funny guys in Iraq die fighting it out. Enough has been done and now let all stew in their own stupidity!

Officer of Engineers

Sir,

Ever since the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War, the American public would not tolerate being lied to or being mislead about the situation on the ground. The DoD has since learned not to hide the truth but to control its distribution.

__________________
Chimo

Confed999

Nothing I know of can beat reality. Reality is quite invincible. Technology does give an edge though, hundreds of casualties vs. tens of thousands of casualties. It's a small consolation.
They could, but the reality would be the same. I too am scared, scared of what may be required to win and scared for all of the good that will die along the way... but while there is breath, there is hope.

Trooth

I don't see how who started it has anything to do with how it is finished. I believe there are certain tactics that are likely to cause the war on terror to lengthen, Carpet bombing would be one of them.

History is littered with misguided bombs, the more you drop the more that go astray. Glen Miller is said to have been killed by a bomber unloading excess bombs after a carpet bombing run that missed its target.
You are of course correct that the Troops can retreat to a different country. However in the current conflict there were instances of bombers and missiles missing iraq completely. Fortunately the desert was largely empty were the ordnance fell.

My argument is that nothing is as precise as it says on the back of the box. We all remember the official figures out of the last invasion of Iraq and then, over a few years we learnt that the ordnace was not nearly as precise as our propoganda had told us.

With all that in mind, i don't favour using the most blunt weapons to solve the problem. It will just give more propoganda to the enemy.

Praxus

If the war was never started the innocent deaths would have NEVER happened. The Moral Responsibility of those deaths lay on the INITIATOR OF FORCE.

I don't so what's so complicated about it.

If we don't start actually fighting the war on terror like we mean it, this war will go on long after I'm dead and thousands more Americans will die then nessecary because our needless and stubern belief in Altruism. Not a single American should die to save a so called innocent civilian.

Only a few cruise missiles missed so badly that they went into Iran. Which is completely concievable considering the target was likely near Um Quasar which is just a few miles from the Iranian border.

I've never heard of a bomber bombing the wrong country at least in the last 10 years.

Trooth

I don't see how that helps selecting a tactic that is going to end the war on terror. The war is being fought. The fighting has started. Each battle will, as need demands it from the protagonists, be taken in isolation. We have seen tit-for-tat in many places in the world. I don't expect the WoT to be any different.

So called? 5 year old kids losing limbs (last night's news) are going to think "Well we asked for that, because the initiator of force was clearly the sponsoring of terrorist acts decades before i was born. Even neglecting the fact that we ourselves were sponsored (again before i was born) by the ally we are fighting, I clearly at, 5, can rationalise this so that when i get older i will not decide to kill the American infidel that caused my Daddy to die, my Mummy to cry and my sister to lose an arm. I won't fume for the next 10 years wondering how i can get revenge on these people who are clearly not pig dogs but are in fact peaceful people who came to liberate us and give us a new life. Although i have been the only person able to earn any money and support my family for the last decade. And that is a family with disabled people in a poor country without the facilities to really help me or them."

I grant you that is very histrionic, but it is happneing now, and can only get worse when you use blunter tactics. This in turn not only converts those that suffer under it, but convinces those that see and hear the stories, either by the "liberal news media" or by word of mouth, that this is the world that we have given to Iraq.

Still a miss. To gurantee against that one you'd have to pull all the troops into the sea.
We all have seen several direct hits on the correct target but that it was later found out the target was wrong due to bad intelligence.
I seem to remember a bomber missing Afghanistan and hitting Pakistan a year or so ago, but i could be wrong.

But either way, the FF argument is a side issue the real problem is that you have to win the hearts and minds. Or you will make more enemies and you then have to kill them until you reach the point were you are, in fact, simply a thrashing rabid animal lashing out at anything that looks at you.

Praxus

No you don't have to win their hearts and minds you have to take away their will to fight. In order to do this you must strike them as hard as you can.

Confed999

England slaughtered it's way through Europe for centuries. How did you guys win their hearts and minds? Do the armless Germans, French, etc. still call for war with you?
I agree, hearts and minds is over. It should have been over decades ago. If it's a war, fight it. Locate the enemy and destroy the enemy.

Trooth

We fought the same wars over and over again. Often over the same territory. We fought a hundred years war with France. France and Scotland still have a 500 year old alliance against England. We resume wars after breaks of years and sometimes decades.
We never won hearts and minds. We never tried. All that happened was the we swapped sides occaisionally until we reach the current situation.

In fact, much like Iraq at the moment, where had swapped sides a few times and now we are fighting a former ally.

There is one difference though. All of the European nations transitioned to democracies at about the same time in similar means, meaning that by the time of the last big show the nations had all gained some form of democracy (usually hard won). This meant that an overthrow and installation of democracy had roots in the understandings of the people of all sides. Hitler, Churchill etc were, after all, voted into power.

Iraq, on the other hand, doesn't have the same traditions for the people to relate to. We are trying to educate them using the sword.

Confed999

Just because Germans voted for Hitler doesn't mean anything. Were the Nazis defeated using "hearts and minds"?

Trooth

No, they had their government overthrown and their democracy restored.

Iraq has no democracy to restore.

EDIT : People resist what they perceive to be subjugation. They don't understand that we are there to given them their country. They don't understand because they can't relate to it. But they can relate to a machine gun.

Confed999

Thank you, they were defeated by force. Why do you think that won't work now? Where are the armless Germans calling for war on England? The type of government is immaterial, as it occurs after the bad guys are gone.