Iraq/Mogadishu situation?

[Bartram]

There are reports coming out of American POWs being executed, Iragi soldiers showing video of American POWs.

How is this going to affect the American public and U.S. policy on Iraq?

Now is where the Iraqi are testing the nutts of U.S. leadership. Will U.S. leadership test the wind and react according to American/World opinion, or stay on coarse and not be "run out" like in Mogadishu???

Now we are going to see just what the differences in leadership style are between Clinton/democratic leadership and Bush/republican leadership.

:read:

 

[Mike]

This isn't about either party. This is about human life. I don't think there could be any difference between the two when dealing with such a case.

:smh:

 

[Mike]

Also, Clinton was about to drop them thangs on Iraq. But, I guess you haven't heard about why he stopped it while they were halfway there.....nevermind. I'm tired of telling you guys stuff. Go look it up. :smh:

 

[EB]

Originally posted by Bartram
There are reports coming out of American POWs being executed, Iragi soldiers showing video of American POWs.

How is this going to affect the American public and U.S. policy on Iraq?

Now is where the Iraqi are testing the nutts of U.S. leadership. Will U.S. leadership test the wind and react according to American/World opinion, or stay on coarse and not be "run out" like in Mogadishu???

Now we are going to see just what the differences in leadership style are between Clinton/democratic leadership and Bush/republican leadership.

:read:

B, you are forgetting a lot of things. I guess you forgot what happened in Beruit, Lebanon during the Reagan years. Remember the US peace keepers? Remember the suicide bombing? That happened during the Reagan years. It has been reported that more Americans were killed by terrorists abroad during the Reagan years than during the Clinton years. Will you say that those acts during the Reagan years were a sign of weakness on his administration's part?

I guess you forgot some things aobut Somalia. Do you remember that Bush sent the forces there for humanitarian reasons. Do you remember that Clinton inherited the Mogadishu situation? Somalia was armed to the teeth thanks in part to the US and the Soviets during the Cold War. The Somalis had a lot of experience in warfare.

Do you remember what happened during the ninties in the Kosovo campaign? Do you remember that the US went out to bomb Milosevic's (sp ??) forces? Do you remember that it lasted quite a few weeks? (I forget exactly how long.) Would you say that bombing was a sign of strength on Clinton's part? I am just curious.

BTW I am not a military expert. But I think that there are a lot more forces in Iraq today than they were in Somalia 10 years ago.

Actually world opinion does matter. Why? We will need the world's help in reducing weapons of mass destruction and battling terrorism and organized crime. Yes, I said organized crime.

http://www.comebackalive.com/df/dplaces/unitedst/index.htm

 

[Bartram]

Party

Originally posted by Mike
This isn't about either party. This is about human life. I don't think there could be any difference between the two when dealing with such a case.

:smh:

Of coarse it is about party in the United States. There wouldn't be sun opposition if Gore was president. The difference is democrats, now days, would be more concerned with pleasing public opinion and sentiment than letting the military do it's job.

 

[Bartram]

Re: Re: Iraq/Mogadishu situation?

Originally posted by EB


B, you are forgetting a lot of things. I guess you forgot what happened in Beruit, Lebanon during the Reagan years. Remember the US peace keepers? Remember the suicide bombing? That happened during the Reagan years. It has been reported that more Americans were killed by terrorists abroad during the Reagan years than during the Clinton years. Will you say that those acts during the Reagan years were a sign of weakness on his administration's part?

I guess you forgot some things aobut Somalia. Do you remember that Bush sent the forces there for humanitarian reasons. Do you remember that Clinton inherited the Mogadishu situation? Somalia was armed to the teeth thanks in part to the US and the Soviets during the Cold War. The Somalis had a lot of experience in warfare.

Do you remember what happened during the ninties in the Kosovo campaign? Do you remember that the US went out to bomb Milosevic's (sp ??) forces? Do you remember that it lasted quite a few weeks? (I forget exactly how long.) Would you say that bombing was a sign of strength on Clinton's part? I am just curious.

BTW I am not a military expert. But I think that there are a lot more forces in Iraq today than they were in Somalia 10 years ago.

Actually world opinion does matter. Why? We will need the world's help in reducing weapons of mass destruction and battling terrorism and organized crime. Yes, I said organized crime.

http://www.comebackalive.com/df/dplaces/unitedst/index.htm

Terrorist attacks during the Reagan years were not a top priority. If they were, the terrorists would have been smashed like you stepping on a roach. There was something still going on during the Reagans years called a cold war with Russia. So no, I would not say those acts were a sign of weakness of the Reagan admin.

Clinton may have inherited the situation, but that's no different than Bush inheriting the situation that Clinton gave him,, that was left from Bush senior. The thing with Clinton was the mindset. Clinton's doctrine was humanitarian and consumed with what the world thought,, public opinion, not with allowing the military to do it's job. Plus too,,,, if it was such a bad thing to inherit, Clinton could have just as easily pulled out. Apparantly he thought the situation was a worthy cause to continue on with what Bush gave him,,, until the first nutt check,, and then to pull out.

There are more forces in Iraq, but proportionally there are more American forces also.

The world doesn't want to reduce weapons of mass destruction, the world couldn't care less, all the world wants to do is be happy and oppose the king of the hill. I think the world would like to see WMDs used on the US to "bring the US down a notch or two". Would you not agree?

 

[J-State Tiger]

Bush has been successful in keeping the pictures off of american TV. I did some searching on my own and have seen some stills of the dead bodies. What Bush cant have is the scenes of americans with holes in their heads, or drug thru the Streets on American TV, or someone getting their back blown out live on TV..

Bush and co have been using all of the propaganda terms like We arent agains the Iraqi people, and we are liberating this and that. Well now we see that they dont want to be "liberated" and that maybe the iraqi people dont see the fine distinction between a war on the iraqi govt and the iraqi people.

We all know how a ragtag bunch of "skinnys" ran us out of Mogadishu. what will happen if there is organized resistance in Baghdad? what if women and children come out to fight us in the streets? This hasnt been thought out.

 

[J C]

Bartram, the only similarity between what is happening currently in Iraq and what happened in Mogadishu Somalia is the prospect for "urban warfare" . It appears our forces are meeting token resistance and the Iraqis are retreating back to Bagdad. Bush and his inner circle are going to have to make a major decision whether to level the city and kill a lot of women and children are go into a war of attrition. I don't believe the American public would tolerate a long drawn out siege of Bagdad. It also appears that nationalism is kicking in with the Iraqis. They hate Saddam but they look upon us as invaders of their country. Its may get ugly and we lose a lot of our young people. Have the politicos prepared the nation for that?

 

[Mike]

Bartram,

I think you missed alot of what EB was saying. But, I understand what you are trying to convey. The thing is, why does the world want to see us taken down a notch? Have we done something to others that would warrant them to want this? The answer to that could go to both sides. The main thing is that we are playing Captain-Save-a-Country way to often.

Sometimes it might be best if we let people settle their own disputes. That way when countries like France and Germany don't back us. We can by-pass them like we are doing now.

Did you get what I just said? There is a message there.

Also, the scarey thing is that Revelations has provided us with so much knowledge of the future and we pay no attention to it. I'm guilty of that as well.

 

[J-State Tiger]

JC

But the coalition didnt even bother to go into Basra or Nasyria. They went into Umm Qasr, claim the captured it, but they overlooked 120 troops.

The Military bought the lines from Bush Powell and Rumsfeld, that The people in iraq were going to welcome the troops in with hugs and flowers. They also believed that the Iraqi military was going to just go home, or lie down in the sand while the tanks rolled by.

Well guess what? None of that has come to pass. They are giving up. When we get to baghdad, we are going to have to go in and get saddam. We might have to Fight our way in to Baghdad. keep in mind that we couldnt fight our way into Basra. We might have to search door to door in civillian communities to find him. Well how would you feel if some iraqis busted in your house looking for GW Bush? You might bust a cap in one of them is you had a gun.

Bottom line is GWB and rumsfeld thought we were going to march into baghdad like we marched into Paris and down the Champs Elysees after kicking the Germans out. Its not going to happen.

 

[J-State Tiger]

By the way.... this latest report that they have found some hugh Chemical weapons facility reaks of BS. How is there a ant hill that we haven found in 12 years of inspections, overflights, and Spy satellite obvservation? Now there is all of a sudden this huge plant. SMH.

 

[EB]

Re: Re: Re: Iraq/Mogadishu situation?

First of all I will agree that this administration does not care what the world thinks of them. It does not have a multilateralist policy like the Clinton administration did. When Bush came into office, Blair had problems with him because Bush had the mindset of doing things his way and only his way.

Originally posted by Bartram


Terrorist attacks during the Reagan years were not a top priority. If they were, the terrorists would have been smashed like you stepping on a roach. There was something still going on during the Reagan?s years called a cold war with Russia. So no, I would not say those acts were a sign of weakness of the Reagan admin.

.....

Actually the goal of the Reagan administration was fighting international terrorism. Officials said it when they came into office. Remember the bombing of Libya? Remember the later bombing of the Pan Am flight over Scotland? Qaddafi was public enemy number one with Reagan. Hostages were taken in places like Lebanon. The Aquili Larrow (sp ??), an ocean liner in the Mediterranean, was high jacked, and an American was killed. Terrorism had the administration occupied. As we have seen throughout the nineties and on 9/11/01, the terrorists were not smashed like a cockroach.

Originally posted by Bartram


......

Clinton may have inherited the situation, but that's no different than Bush inheriting the situation that Clinton gave him,, that was left from Bush senior. The thing with Clinton was the mindset. Clinton's doctrine was humanitarian and consumed with what the world thought,, public opinion, not with allowing the military to do it's job. Plus too,,,, if it was such a bad thing to inherit, Clinton could have just as easily pulled out. Apparently he thought the situation was a worthy cause to continue on with what Bush gave him,,, until the first nutt check,, and then to pull out.

.....

I guess you forgot the PR job that the republicans do. As a matter of fact they are better at it than the dems. So Clinton was not the only one concerned with public relations. Remember. Clinton did not leave Bush with a situation like Somalia. If so where?

At first the situation was a humanitarian cause. But it turned into a fight. I have read stories on both sides, pro and anti-American. I cannot say what the exact truth is. I am neither a military expert. But I can tell you that the American military is not the only force that can fight. The Somalis were armed to the teeth and were seasoned fighters.

With problems like the environment, anti-ballistic missiles, land mines, terrorism, the US will have to work with the rest of the worlds to solve them. We do not have a choice. If this administration is to catch bin Laden, they need the world's help. The last high-ranking official that was caught was caught by the Pakistanis.

Originally posted by Bartram


.....

There are more forces in Iraq, but proportionally there are more American forces also.

....

Like I said there are more Americans in and around Iraq. There were not 250,000K+ forces in Somalia.

But I suppose that if Clinton completely flattened the Balkans and killed innocent civilians as well as the Serb troops, you may have been happy. Did you want to see the US forces bomb the Balkans more? They bombed that area quite a bit.

Originally posted by Bartram


.....

The world doesn't want to reduce weapons of mass destruction, the world couldn't care less, all the world wants to do is be happy and oppose the king of the hill. I think the world would like to see WMDs used on the US to "bring the US down a notch or two". Would you not agree?

While there are some that would love to see the US fall, I will not agree with your statement. Many people around the world have not problems with the American people but this administration. If this administration works with the rest of the world instead of bullying it, it can isolate the Osama's of the world and put them out of their misery.

I will not spend too much more time in this thread. There are a lot of writings on what happened before 9/11 and what is happened before the action in Iraq. I posted a few in another thread. As for me I am all for our national self-defense and working with our allies on problems. But to me there is a difference between self-defense and bullying/arrogance. This administration is highly arrogant. I am not for pre-emptive wars. You may like the concept of pre-emptive wars. Then again I maybe wrong.

I see that you did not answer my questions about Kosovo.

Look at the link I provided in my last post. Clinton was not the nicest guy.

 

[Bartram]

But here is the thing Mike,,,

Originally posted by Mike
Bartram,

I think you missed alot of what EB was saying. But, I understand what you are trying to convey. The thing is, why does the world want to see us taken down a notch? Have we done something to others that would warrant them to want this? The answer to that could go to both sides. The main thing is that we are playing Captain-Save-a-Country way to often.

Sometimes it might be best if we let people settle their own disputes. That way when countries like France and Germany don't back us. We can by-pass them like we are doing now.

Did you get what I just said? There is a message there.

Also, the scarey thing is that Revelations has provided us with so much knowledge of the future and we pay no attention to it. I'm guilty of that as well.

The thing is, when it all boils down,, rather they want to see us taken down a notch or not,,,, the bottom line is we are all in this country and I don't think (just as was proven on 911) that "they" are going to say,,, "we hate the U.S.,, everybody in the U.S.,, except for blacks because they have been done wrong by the U.S. and they feel our pain. we hate the rest of the U.S. so black folks,, we are going to bomb/attack xyz sight so you need to stay away from that sight because we are mainly going after the opressor".

As far as letting people settle their own disputes,,, no problemo with that chief,,, but the thing is,,, how can "we" (politicians and all these protestors) sit up here and flip-flop on "letting people settle their own disputes" just because the leadership of the US goes from democrat to republican??

Where was all this protest when Clinton was in office especially as it relates to democrats in D.C.?? It's all political,,, from the politicians to most (not all, but most) demonstrators on the street. When Clinton was in office,,, you bet,, send troops to Africa to distribute food, stop attrocities,, blah, blah, blah. dems/liberals were mildly critical to silent. oh but now that a republican is in charge,,, now we need to let a country settle their own problems,,, even if the country is, at this point, an indirect threat to us. If Gore was in office I dont' think there would be so much opposition.

 

[EB]

I was watching a little bit of BCC America after the game ended. They said that an American network reported that some chemicals were found. I am not totally surprised. However, I wonder why didn't this administration share their intelligent with the UN inspectors if they just wanted Saddam to disarm.

 

[J C]

J-State Tiger

Originally posted by J-State Tiger
JC

But the coalition didnt even bother to go into Basra or Nasyria. They went into Umm Qasr, claim the captured it, but they overlooked 120 troops.

The Military bought the lines from Bush Powell and Rumsfeld, that The people in iraq were going to welcome the troops in with hugs and flowers. They also believed that the Iraqi military was going to just go home, or lie down in the sand while the tanks rolled by.

Well guess what? None of that has come to pass. They are giving up. When we get to baghdad, we are going to have to go in and get saddam. We might have to Fight our way in to Baghdad. keep in mind that we couldnt fight our way into Basra. We might have to search door to door in civillian communities to find him. Well how would you feel if some iraqis busted in your house looking for GW Bush? You might bust a cap in one of them is you had a gun.

Bottom line is GWB and rumsfeld thought we were going to march into baghdad like we marched into Paris and down the Champs Elysees after kicking the Germans out. Its not going to happen.

I agree with what you have said. I don't like the way the word "coalition" is being used. It makes it sound like there are many nations involved in this fight. Its only us and the Brits. The Brits refused to go into Basara fearing the street fighting that would take place. Our only advantage in this urban environment would be our close air support for the ground troops provided by the apaches and A-10s.

 

[J-State Tiger]

They cant fly Apaches and A-10s down the streets of Baghdad. If it comes to that, all hell will have broken loose.

 

[Bartram]

huh?

Originally posted by EB
I was watching a little bit of BCC America after the game ended. They said that an American network reported that some chemicals were found. I am not totally surprised. However, I wonder why didn't this administration share their intelligent with the UN inspectors if they just wanted Saddam to disarm.

You saying the US knew about this fascility all along???

 

[Mike]

Re: huh?

Originally posted by Bartram


You saying the US knew about this fascility all along???

They said that they knew about it. Remember when Colin went in front of the UN? He said it then, but said that they couldn't give them more info because it would jeopardize the person that gave them the info. If the person that gave them that info was that close to Saddam and the weapons, I'm sure Saddam will have him killed anyway.

I think that if we reallly wanted the UN to get in this we would've turned over all the information that they need to get the job done. But, this war is about more than just that. This is just a small portion of what they want us to know.

Has anyone noticed how now all of a sudden the administration has just come out and said that Germany was selling the Iraq jammers? These units are supposed knock out the GPS systems of the missiles.

They are endangering the troops lives by with-holding this stuff.

:smh:

 

[EB]

Re: huh?

Mike makes some excellent points, but....

Originally posted by Bartram


You saying the US knew about this fascility all along???

I do not know what all the administration knows. But if they had the intelligence that they say they had, I wonder why did they not turn the information to the UN inspectors. If they did that Powell's presentation may not have been necessary at the UN.

 

[TSU/BAMA]

Innocent people will die so political leaders can save face.

:smh:

 

[Mike]

Man!

I wish yall would've seen what they was saying on Fox News. This dude just said everything that I was saying and more. He mentioned how the U.S. helped the rebels in Afganistan and then they later turned on the U.S. I hope they put a clip on the website of that interview.

His last statement was "Wait a few years and see how this turns out in the long run. We never know how wrong or right we will be until years later".

 

[Attack Dog]

Re: Re: huh?

Originally posted by Mike




Has anyone noticed how now all of a sudden the administration has just come out and said that Germany was selling the Iraq jammers? These units are supposed knock out the GPS systems of the missiles.

They are endangering the troops lives by with-holding this stuff.

:smh:

I think it was Russia instead of Germany. So does this mean we are going after them next? Or do we just attack non Europeans and non Christians?

 

[Mike]

We randomly go from one thing to another in this Administration. Ain't no tellin' what we gonna do next week, if you ask me....

:smh: