Am I Right to be Angry About This?

[Lord Merciless]

He would be whining even more if deployed as a cop in US inner cities.

Now a hypothetical question to you all:

Suppose the US government (including the other 50 states) decide that Californians need to be disarmed despite high crime rate, send in 200,000 troops, and perform door-to-door intrusive weapon searches, how many attacks on these troops would happen?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
And who are we going to be using to occupy Iraq but reservists? After all, The prez. said all this about bringing the noys back home. Someone has to take their place.

thats a good question - if this is COMMON in the reserves, there are going to be big questions in the Pentagon about US force structure.

I dont think they were planning on replacing most of the guys over there with reservists though - generally we dont like to put reservists on long tours abroad, IIUC. The 3rd ID and the Marines are supposed to come back. The original Pentagon plan was to reduce total force levels, using the INC folks to organize local police and security. For a variety of political reasons the INC is not being used that way, and so there arent enough troops. We may well invite non-coalition of the willing troops in, even at the cost of some loss of political control. (French oil companies, youre in luck) Or if necessary send in more active units - the 1st Infantry is available - in order to get the 3rd ID out.

[GePap]

In general the military in Iraq has been damned good at adjusting to situations not typical of the US - going for days with only MREs, no showers, getting shot at, out of contact with families etc. All kinds of things. So the guy seems a contrast to the combat troops who won the war.

But this is not a combat team, and the guys who will be running Iraq won't be doing combat either. this is a man who has to get the country back together, and those 19 year olds with guns aren't the ones who are going to do it.

Oh, and before the war you did hear a lot about troops wanting to get on with it so they could go back home (a lot of such reports in mid-march). How many of them tought they would be forced ot remain in Iraq for months more after the war ended?

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by GePap
HOnestly, what do you expect?

Americans are not very good at adapting to non-American situations, and those in the military are not going to be different.

i dont think that is very fiar to generalize that broadly. I dont think americans are any worse at adapting to foreign situations than anyone else

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


Well, being an American citizen, and having lived here for over 50% of my life? hmmm?

Been a long time since you visited some of the "nether districts" of NYC, eh GePap?

A guy from the worst parts of this city would go to Paris and complain still (people are rude, the waiters are slow, where can I get a good burger, why do people smell..). Now take them to Baghdad.

yup thats why americans never pay to visit Paris, and if they do they never come back. And the dirt and crime account for why no one goes to Tiajuana or other border towns. And you never meet Americans at youth hostels overseas. Etc.

Arent generalizations great?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap

In general the military in Iraq has been damned good at adjusting to situations not typical of the US - going for days with only MREs, no showers, getting shot at, out of contact with families etc. All kinds of things. So the guy seems a contrast to the combat troops who won the war.

But this is not a combat team, and the guys who will be running Iraq won't be doing combat either. this is a man who has to get the country back together, and those 19 year olds with guns aren't the ones who are going to do it.

Oh, and before the war you did hear a lot about troops wanting to get on with it so they could go back home (a lot of such reports in mid-march). How many of them tought they would be forced ot remain in Iraq for months more after the war ended?

i dont think being a combat team has much to do with it- lots of the regular military is non-combat as well, and i havent heard this sort of thing from them.

Ultimately its Iraqis who have to run Iraq - and from the article, are quite eager to. How much we rely on reservists for MP duty I dont know - quite frankly nothing this guy said indicated that hed do a better job working with local cops than young combat sergeant.

and i have nothing against them wanting to go home - its more this guys general attitude.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Ultimately its Iraqis who have to run Iraq - and from the article, are quite eager to. How much we rely on reservists for MP duty I dont know - quite frankly nothing this guy said indicated that hed do a better job working with local cops than young combat sergeant.

A young combat captain has no practice in training police, and would porbalby do a much worse job. As for Iraqis taking over the country, fine sentiment, but is what you want is a pro-US secular democratic Arab state, then that is not going to happen anytime soon.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
Oh, and before the war you did hear a lot about troops wanting to get on with it so they could go back home (a lot of such reports in mid-march). How many of them tought they would be forced ot remain in Iraq for months more after the war ended?

How many of them expected the war to be "over" that fast? BTW - who said the war ended - major combat operations ended, the war hasnt ended, obviously.

[GePap]

Oh, so now the war hasn't ended. Hmm, so I guess those guys who thought that the war would be under 2 months were wrong, we are at 3 months and counting? r did I miss the whole victory plane flight and the declarations that Iraq had been liberated?Actually, I think most people did expect this war to be done with wuickly, and for the troops to be back home promptly, including the majority of troops themselves. After all, they are soldiers, not peacekeepers or policemen.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


A young combat captain has no practice in training police, and would porbalby do a much worse job. As for Iraqis taking over the country, fine sentiment, but is what you want is a pro-US secular democratic Arab state, then that is not going to happen anytime soon.

doesnt sound like this guy is doing any training, so i cant see how anyone could be doing a worse job.

I want a democratic Iraq. It doesnt have to be pro-US. And it doesnt have to have a wall of seperation between church and state. As far as I can tell Ayatollah Sistani and most Shiites want a democratic state, as do almost all the Kurds and quite a few Sunni Arabs. But time will tell.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
Oh, so now the war hasn't ended. Hmm, so I guess those guys who thought that the war would be under 2 months

citation please.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
Oh, so now the war hasn't ended. Hmm, so I guess those guys who thought that the war would be under 2 months were wrong, we are at 3 months and counting? r did I miss the whole victory plane flight and the declarations that Iraq had been liberated?.

Iraq is liberated - have you noticed that Iraqis are constantly speaking their minds, whether its against Saddam, against the US, for Sistani, against Sistani, for Chalabi, against Chalabi, etc? But its not at peace.

[GePap]

citation please.

Look up the polls we did pre-war. I will not bother. And that was here.

We are in the post war situation currently, not still fighting the war. Not even this admin. will call what is currently going on "war".

doesnt sound like this guy is doing any training, so i cant see how anyone could be doing a worse job.

He has to train and manague, with the purpose of remaking the Iraqi police. And yes, there are many people who could do much worse than him, including both of us.

I want a democratic Iraq. It doesnt have to be pro-US. And it doesnt have to have a wall of seperation between church and state. As far as I can tell Ayatollah Sistani and most Shiites want a democratic state, as do almost all the Kurds and quite a few Sunni Arabs. But time will tell.

The US does not go to war simply to install dmeocracies: we go to war to instal friends. As for the Kurds, they might want a dmeocracy, but the question is, one of thier own, or as part of Iraq. Remember that this admin. pledged Iraq's territorial integrity.

[lightblue]

I don't think that US forces are necessarily the best for peacekeeping/policing. The British army has had far more experience in this (primarily in Northern Ireland) and is seemingly coping better, barring the incident the other week.

The whole going out in full body armor in groups of armored vehicles, as well as not attempting to learn the language and customs by the looks of it, instead of the British socalled "softly softly" approach of 3 soldiers on foot or opentopped jeeps, in fatigues and berets, probably does not induce nice feelings in the local population.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap

citation please.

:The US does not go to war simply to install dmeocracies: we go to war to instal friends. As for the Kurds, they might want a dmeocracy, but the question is, one of thier own, or as part of Iraq. Remember that this admin. pledged Iraq's territorial integrity.

in this instance a democracy of any kind is in our interests - ANY democracy creates momentum for change in Iran, Saudi etc.

And of course you did not ask what the US went to war for - you asked what I wanted for Iraq. I would really appreciate if you would stop consistently twisting the subject when we discuss something. It really isnt cute anymore.

Re: the Kurds. Their quite intelligent enough to see that an independent Kurdish state would be overrun by Turkey, and that their best hope is autonomy withing a federal Iraq. And they have been making it clear that they feel that way since well before the war, and consistently since the war. Despite that those who wanted to believe the war could lead only to disaster have consistently ignored this.

Now if you want to go on about pre-war expectations, i may just go back and search for some things that were posted here. And see how they look now.