The Iraqi Soldier Is The Superior Athlete
I saw another one of those darned magnets, made in Taiwan, that say "Support Dem troops" and it got me thinking, "you know what, I don't want to support the troops. They get more support than a pair of breasts in a Wonderbra." I realized that I've always rooted for the underdog in any situation and I'm not gonna stop that now. The troops are by no means the underdog so they don't need my help. Their military budget seems to double every year so they're gonna do just fine. And the tyranny of public opinion isn't gonna sway me either. No magnet can change this mind of mine. I don't root for the Yankees, and I don't root for the yankees. I grew up on the Karate Kid, Star Wars, and Stephen Hawkings. I came to understand you gotta root for the little guy. I'm not gonna change that now.
Then I got to realizing that you have to realize The Troops are losing this war. Oh they're not losing, they have a $_00,000,000,000 budget so of course they're not gonna lose. If I was Jimmy The Greek I would have set the odds in their favor. But let's face it, the Iraqis have beat the spread. The Iraqis aren't winning the war, but they beat the spread. Anybody who put money on them would be rich right now. You don't have to beat Mike Tyson to win, you just have to stay in the ring for enough rounds. The fact that Iraq has a military budget of $0.25 and yet has still stayed in the game is the way to do it. They're like the US Hockey team in 1980. They're like Rocky in Rocky IV. The Iraqi are more American than America. We got Magic, Bird, Jordan AND Shaq and we're only winning 86-85?
And how come the Generals in charge of this war on the US side are still in charge? They're doing a shitty job. If they were the head coach of a large athletic sports team, they'd be fired by Steinbrenner a long time ago. All this talk of "be patient" and "next year is gonna be our year" and "come on, let's take a shower together" is not the way our military leaders ought to be talking. If I was a fan of US military might, I'd feel really scammed now. The Yankees sound like the Red Sox of the prior 86 years, metaphorically speaking. I hope the fans start speaking out. If you're gonna do this badly against Iraq, how are you gonna fair against China? Our Dream Team is getting trounced.
Then I got to realizing that you have to realize The Troops are losing this war. Oh they're not losing, they have a $_00,000,000,000 budget so of course they're not gonna lose. If I was Jimmy The Greek I would have set the odds in their favor. But let's face it, the Iraqis have beat the spread. The Iraqis aren't winning the war, but they beat the spread. Anybody who put money on them would be rich right now. You don't have to beat Mike Tyson to win, you just have to stay in the ring for enough rounds. The fact that Iraq has a military budget of $0.25 and yet has still stayed in the game is the way to do it. They're like the US Hockey team in 1980. They're like Rocky in Rocky IV. The Iraqi are more American than America. We got Magic, Bird, Jordan AND Shaq and we're only winning 86-85?
And how come the Generals in charge of this war on the US side are still in charge? They're doing a shitty job. If they were the head coach of a large athletic sports team, they'd be fired by Steinbrenner a long time ago. All this talk of "be patient" and "next year is gonna be our year" and "come on, let's take a shower together" is not the way our military leaders ought to be talking. If I was a fan of US military might, I'd feel really scammed now. The Yankees sound like the Red Sox of the prior 86 years, metaphorically speaking. I hope the fans start speaking out. If you're gonna do this badly against Iraq, how are you gonna fair against China? Our Dream Team is getting trounced.
9 Comments:
I'll explain to you, its real simple. If American troops were allowed to use car bombs and beheadings against innocent civilians, and if doing that day in and day out helped us "win", we would also require only a small budget and it would be easy.
It detracts from our chance to win, however, when any civilians die either from our hand or our enemies hand. So we have to spend a lot of money to save civilians.
Which is cheaper, killing 25 civilians a day, or protecting 50 million?
In fact, killing 50 million is cheaper than protecting 50 million. We could have dropped a couple big bomb on Bagdhad and won the war with fewer casualities (on our side) and for cheap. But, thats not what we wanted to do, because we didn't want to kill thousands of innocent Iraqis.
And by the way, it isn't the Iraqi budget that matters to the enemy - they are primarily non Iraq at this point and are using Iranian and al Qaeda money, largely. The Iraqi budget is pooled with the American budget, as Iraq takes over security more and more.
I believe when Brian says "the Iraqi budget" he is referring to the insurgents. There is no arguing the logic in Brian's piece. Despite our obvious advantages, we are not winning. The insurgency is not showing any signs of weakening. Quite the opposite in fact. We were not supposed to be dealing with this kind of bullshit at this point in the occupation. A majority of Americans are now questioning why we are still sending boys and girls to die in a country that does not seem to appreciate our efforts in the slightest. Almost 60% of us now think we were misled into this conflict.
And you are just blindly touting the Administraion line on the nature of the enemy. The White House press machine loves to say "foreign fighters and Baathist deadenders," but you cannot have an effective insurgency without the cooperation of local elements. Our military contingent in Iraq quite simply is not large enough to combat this insurgency. And the military continues to miss it's recruiting goals, as public support plummets.
We have three choices:
A. Send a large enough force to seal the borders, maintain security, and crush the remaining insurgency. Leave a large force in country for the foreseeable future.
B. Begin pulling out and let Iraq settle this shit amongst themselves.
C. Keep doing what we've been doing, and pray that it eventually works.
The President should have not invaded at all, considering what we know now. If invasion had to happen he should've started with plan A, and not allowed the insurgency to grow as it has. Instead he's chosen to stubbornly stay the course with C throughout, and many of us think that is a losing strategy. As time goes on and public support continues to drop, withdrawl will become the only option, barring a miraculous improvement in the competence of the (currently useless) Iraqi Militay.
hey liberty,
what exactly are we doing to "save civilians" when it's recently been discovered that we've been using a napalm like substance to torch entire iraqi towns and villages? How about levelling falluja? What about the embargos US soliders have placed on cities like Baquba where the soliders have cut the supply of water, electricity and medical supplies to all folks, including women and children? I wonder, is that part of the supplemental budget or is there a specific line item for killing civilians or poisioning the water supply? How is that different from car bombs? How is a 500 ton bomb different from a car bomb?
why don't you get back to me on that once you've done your homework. if we were in the 60's you'd be telling me that sometimes we have to'torch a village in order to save it', so your words sound like the same bullshit, different
decade.
sources: http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=14920109&method=full&siteid=106694&headline=fallujah-napalmed-name_page.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0107-04.htm
Franky: you say
The White House press machine loves to say "foreign fighters and Baathist deadenders," but you cannot have an effective insurgency without the cooperation of local elements.
Its a very small contingency. As of the latest polls, 66.8% think Iraq is going in the right direction, and I think (as the survey describes in futher detail) that they mean away from tyranny and toward representative government , peace, and safety.
http://www.iri.org/pub.asp?id=7676767901
When asked how they most identify, 47% chose country, less than 20% chose religion.
Many more people saw problems with electricity as #1 issue, more than terrorists.
The vast majority believe in all the basic rights that we believe in.
Those who actually like the insurgency are few.
The common Iraqis who allow it to happen, generally do it for money:
http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-06-21-voa42.cfm
They won't do it when they recognize that it hurts them and that jobs are becoming avaliable.
As for your A, B, and C, you say "As time goes on and public support continues to drop, withdrawl will become the only option, barring a miraculous improvement in the competence of the (currently useless) Iraqi Militay."
-- its not useless and it is rapidly improving, that will be the way that we finally leave- Iraq will take over and the insurgency will have lost a lot of ground by then.
-- for example:
SANAA (Reuters) - Foreign ministers of Muslim countries on Thursday pledged cooperation with Iraqi authorities to help end a bloody insurgency waged there by Iraqis and foreign Arabs.
Ministers of member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) meeting in Yemen agreed to help "rebuild Iraq and enabling the Iraqi government to maintain security and stability," Yemeni Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi told reporters.
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-06-30T164425Z_01_MOR060246_RTRUKOC_0_IRAQ-INSURGENTS-MUSLIMS.xml
What is driving them?
http://www.cfr.org/publication.php?id=8117
anon: I should do my homework?
We didn't use napalm!
http://beijing.usembassy.gov/illegal_weapons.html
Why don't you go research the sources for your article, its complete fiction.
You article says: "Last August the US was forced to admit using the gas in Iraq."
1. Napalm is not a gas
2. If the administration admitted using napalm, find me the quote, I dare say we'd all have heard about it if they had.
using a chinese website to back up your version of the "truth"? now that is rich.. we all know what a great example of human rights advocates the chinese are.
in terms of your challenge:
"Two weeks ago the UK Independent ran an article that confirmed the US had “lied to Britain over the use of napalm in Iraq.” (6-17-05) Since then, not one American newspaper or TV station has picked up the story even though the Pentagon has verified the claims.
( http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m13102&l=i&size=1&hd=0)
The government was asked yesterday to explain why the US failed to tell it the truth about use on Iraq of incendiary bombs, successors to the napalm used in Vietnam.
The MoD repeatedly denied Mark 77 incendiary bombs were dropped, on the basis of US assurances. Defence secretary John Reid now says the assurances, made to predecessor Geoff Hoon, were wrong and he "must correct the position".
US Marines dropped 30 Mark 77 fire bombs between March 31 and April 2 2003
When reports surfaced, the Pentagon separated "napalm" from "firebombs". According to GlobalSecurity.org, MK77s "function identical to earlier MK77 napalm weapons" using kerosene rather than benzene.
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1518793,00.html)
DEFENCE Minister Robert Hill has defended the United States' use of napalm bombs in Iraq.
Australian Democrats leader Lyn Allison told the Senate the US had used 30 MK77 napalm firebombs in its attack on Iraq. She said the bombs breached a 1980 international convention on such artillery.
It is a "disgrace" that British ministers say they did not know US forces had used napalm-style fire bombs in Iraq, according to an ex-Labour MP.
Alice Mahon was among MPs told by Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram earlier this year that the US had said it had not used napalm or similar substances.
Mr Ingram has now told the MPs he has since discovered that Mark 77 fire bombs were used by the US.
Mrs Mahon says the UK should have known what its closest ally was doing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4116262.stm
Chinese website? That was US Embassy, American soil. Also, I linked the State Department.
>The MoD repeatedly denied Mark 77 incendiary bombs were dropped, on the basis of US assurances.
Not true. The US denied napalm, mark-77 is not napalm. It is similar but not the same.
Also, you said "what exactly are we doing to "save civilians" when it's recently been discovered that we've been using a napalm like substance to torch entire iraqi towns and villages?"
But we did not use it against civilians or villages, it was used against troops.
Marine Corps fighter pilots and commanders who have returned from the war zone have confirmed dropping dozens of incendiary bombs near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris River. The explosions created massive fireballs.
"We napalmed both those (bridge) approaches," said Col. James Alles in a recent interview. He commanded Marine Air Group 11, based at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, during the war. "Unfortunately, there were people there because you could see them in the (cockpit) video.
"They were Iraqi soldiers there. It's no great way to die," he added.
...
What the Marines dropped, the spokesmen said yesterday, were "Mark 77 firebombs." They acknowledged those are incendiary devices with a function "remarkably similar" to napalm weapons.
Rather than using gasoline and benzene as the fuel, the firebombs use kerosene-based jet fuel, which has a smaller concentration of benzene.
...
Although many human rights groups consider incendiary bombs to be inhumane, international law does not prohibit their use against military forces. The United States has not agreed to a ban against possible civilian targets.
...
Before the Marines crossed the Saddam Canal in central Iraq, jets dropped several firebombs on enemy positions near a bridge that would become the Marines' main crossing point on the road toward Numaniyah, a key town 40 miles from Baghdad.
Next, the bombs were used against Iraqis near a key Tigris River bridge, north of Numaniyah, in early April.
...
The Pentagon destroyed its stockpile of napalm canisters, which had been stored near Camp Pendleton at the Fallbrook Naval Weapons Station, in April 2001.
Yesterday military spokesmen described what they see as the distinction between the two types of incendiary bombs. They said mixture used in modern firebombs is a less harmful mixture than Vietnam War-era napalm.
"This additive has significantly less of an impact on the environment," wrote Marine spokesman Col. Michael Daily, in an e-mailed information sheet provided by the Pentagon.
So, it wasn't napalm, they didn't lie and it wasn't used on civilians or to destroy whole towns, it was used to destroy bridges and against troops during the main thrust of the war.
Am I against it being used? Yes, I don't think we need it and it seems cruel. But your accusation that its against civilans is simply wrong. Your other accusations were absurd as well.
"What about the embargos US soliders have placed on cities like Baquba where the soliders have cut the supply of water, electricity and medical supplies to all folks, including women and children?"
We have never done any such thing, the only time we have done anything even close is after calling for an evacuation eg of Falluja, getting all civilians out, before dealing with the insurgency there. Rather, we have helped set up electricity and water to areas who lived without such things under Saddam for 30 years.
" I wonder, is that part of the supplemental budget or is there a specific line item for killing civilians or poisioning the water supply?"
Poisoning?! You really need to do some research. Did you read the poll that I posted for Franky, by the way?
"How is that different from car bombs? How is a 500 ton bomb different from a car bomb?"
The bombs we used to win the war allowed us to remove a tyrant who really did do things like poison civilians, and rape, torture by putting them in acid to burn their skin off, dismember and shoot them. And they were not aimed at civilians.
Car boms used by terrorists specifically target civilians and are used to terrorize them.
You have a real problem if you can't see the difference.
You are the worst sort of moral relativist.
The bombs we used to win the war
We USED to WIN the war? Past Tense? Did I miss something? Seems to me a war is still going on.
Also, while I can't vouch for all of the claims made by anonymous above, we have cut off water and electricity to several Iraqi towns during military operations. Besides Falluja, Tall Afar comes to mind:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31377-2004Sep18?language=printer
Similar tactics were used in Samarra:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/10/1/92021.shtml
While I may disagree with the anonymous poster that cutting off resources was used primarily to harm civilians, it is indeed something that has occurred on multiple occasions.
From the beginning and continuing today, we have done our best to rebuild.
But reconstruction has hit hyperdrive. When the Iraqis assumed sovereignty in June 2004, there were about 200 projects actually turning dirt. "Today there are more than 2,400, and more than 1,000 have been completed," the general said.
...Bostick used the electrical grid to detail some problems facing engineers. The plants have been neglected and for such a long time that there are few spare parts for the equipment. When the coalition arrived, the power plants were producing roughly 4,800 megawatts. Coalition engineers added 2,000 megawatts to the grid. "But we're down to pre-war levels," Bostick explained, because engineers then had to take existing plants offline for repair, canceling the overall gain.
Is spending $18 billion not counting private charity and business funds not caring about civilians? Our usual military actions that do everything to prevent harming civilians...?
We should keep in mind who was truly evil and who really targets civilians.
I have to wonder about supporting our troops... I didn't give some chinese company any money for those magnets to put on my car.
What I did do was send letters and candy to a family member who just joined the U.S. Army.. and I found out something.. if she wants to use the computers to check her email and keep in touch with family members, then she has to pay for it. In fact, she paid for her uniform as well.
What is our country doing spending money dropping banned weapons (MK77) on civilians and arguing about whether or not to use torture (Hello! Geneva Convention and ICC!) and handing out contracts to Washington's buddies (here ya go Halliburton, and we have a storm coming up in the south you can clean up after too) when we can't give our soldiers body armor and proper equipment, and they have to PAY for necessities?
Why are we closing bases at home that contribute to our economy, but keeping open bases that are in other countries, like Japan and Germany? Why are we opening new bases in Iraq?
Why did we invade a sovereign nation for WMD (which we initially gavce to them), and found none there except for the ones we've been dropping.
I didn't pay taxes for any of this. Come to think of it, I didn't elect this president, and neither did anyone I know.
This is not what our country was founded on. This is not America.
Viva la revolution.. overthrow the corporate predator and their paid fatcats in Washington and reinstate the constitution and the bill of rights.
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