Yeah!!!! Stick it to those mother$%^& and break it off!!!!

[MrFun]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Prior to May 1, I think it's something like 3:1 between combat and non-combat fatalities. Closer to 2, 2.5:1 since May 1.

The similarity in the numbers is deceptive - remember you had some helo crashes prior to the invasion, etc., and the Iraqis didn't put up a real hard fight anywhere except around Nasiriya. Against a stubborn, competent enemy you'd expect battle to non-battle fatalities to be 10, 15, 20 to 1 when in a major combat period.

thanks

[Ned]

shawnmmcc, I agree with your post. But rather than complaining, what is your solution other than educting our troops in Arabic, which I still think is a good idea.

Would you support turning the policing over to the Iraqi's themselves ASAP?

MtG and others point out the obvious security problems this entails. We might lose a few Ba'athist bigwigs as they escape. So we lose a few battles, but we win the war. We win it because the people will be on our side more than they are now. With an established police force and army, we can withdraw or minimize our footprint sooner.

MtG, what was worse for the Confederacy? The war or reconstruction? Reconstruction, what a farcial name for rape! Dismissing the Southern armies and replacing them with an army of occuppation was a tragic mistake. Lincoln was not in favor of occuppation IIRC.

In Germany, we dismissed the entire army and police force because we wanted to de-Nazify Germany. The Germans didn't have police of their own until '48. Now surely we got rid of the Nazi's. But was what we did the right thing to do given that Germany became one of our best allies in the end? Couldn't we have trusted them sooner?

In Japan, we did not dismiss the police and our occuppation went smoother than any other. The Japanese people began to really like us Americans.

In Vietnam, there is no doubt that a large percentage of the people who were allegedly were dying for, the people of South Vietnam, began to hate us because we essentially became a somewhat hostile army of occuppation.

Learn from history, God damnit.

[Ted Striker]

I don't have the article right now but the Iraqi Civil Defense Force is actually coming along stronger than previously expected and is getting close to being ready for deployment. (Within a couple of months...)

And they US has also been very aggressive in training the Iraqi police but they can't be very effective against things like RPGs where you need a paramilitary group to really go after those dumbass Fedayeen guys for example

Do you guys not remember the DAILY stories of Iraqi policemen getting killed alongside American soldiers?

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Ned
---

In Japan, we did not dismiss the police and our occuppation went smoother than any other. The Japanese people began to really like us Americans.

You did not dismiss Emperor Hirohito either, and the people kept on obeying him as they always had done. When he decided the war was over, the people did too. He was in charge all the way into the 1990's. In the Saddam case, that was not really an option, as we all would agree on.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Ned


MtG, what was worse for the Confederacy? The war or reconstruction? Reconstruction, what a farcial name for rape! Dismissing the Southern armies and replacing them with an army of occuppation was a tragic mistake. Lincoln was not in favor of occuppation IIRC.

Learn from history, God damnit.

Trusting recent traitors to reintegrate their own states in good faith, within the legal government of the United States AND enacting enforcement of civil rights for freed blacks??

yeah, right

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by MrFun




Trusting recent traitors to reintegrate their own states in good faith, within the legal government of the United States AND enacting enforcement of civil rights for freed blacks??

yeah, right

I can't imagine what an Iraqi version of the KKK would be like. Suppose they held an international KKK jamboree and the Iraqi KKK showed up? Now that would be interesting!

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


I can't imagine what an Iraqi version of the KKK would be like. Suppose they held an international KKK jamboree and the Iraqi KKK showed up? Now that would be interesting!

Yeah, AD70 Christians and their supporters are a different breed than the KKK type.

[Ned]

The KKK was the equivalent of the Iraqi resistance. It would not have been created at all had the South not been occuppied.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


I can't imagine what an Iraqi version of the KKK would be like. Suppose they held an international KKK jamboree and the Iraqi KKK showed up? Now that would be interesting!

This is retarded -- I never thought anyone here would have found a way to bring up the KKK of 19th century United States for arguing a position for 21st century, transitory Iraq.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Ned
The KKK was the equivalent of the Iraqi resistance. It would not have been created at all had the South not been occuppied.

The KKK arose to make sure that blacks would know better than to believe that their status had actually changed. Your statement is correct only to the extent that the occupation of the South gave blacks hope that emancipation might really mean something.

[Dinner]

shawnmmcc : You just keep playing samantic games. I never demonized a whole race or a whole group of people instead I called a specific person commiting a specific stupid action as "stupid sack of ****". I fully understand your point about demonizing and dehumanizing whole groups but it is a complete mischaracterization to pretend I did that.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by Oerdin
shawnmmcc : You just keep playing samantic games. I never demonized a whole race or a whole group of people instead I called a specific person commiting a specific stupid action as "stupid sack of ****". I fully understand your point about demonizing and dehumanizing whole groups but it is a complete mischaracterization to pretend I did that.

No, you characterized a young man in a BMW who was speeding and ran into a checkpoint as a "stupid sack of ****". This is pretty common behaviour for privileged young men around the world, including in the US. If there was an Iraqi checkpoint in Cleveland, for example, and they shot and killed someone for doing that, you can imagine how Americans might feel about it. Especially if some Iraqi hothead called him a "stupid sack of ****" for getting killed.

[Kuciwalker]

techumseh, give it up. If I called a bad driver who happened to be tailgating me a stupid fvcker, would you lecture me too on degrading people?

[Ned]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


The KKK arose to make sure that blacks would know better than to believe that their status had actually changed. Your statement is correct only to the extent that the occupation of the South gave blacks hope that emancipation might really mean something.

Reconstruction only resulted in ten years of chaos and hate. In the end, the white southerners resumed power because they were the majority. Had the North followed Lincoln's plan, the South would have been much better off. Without all the chaos and hate engendered by Reconstruction, the condition of blacks in the South might of improved much faster. But as a result of Reconstruction, their true liberation in the South was postponed until the 1950's and '60s.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by techumseh


No, you characterized a young man in a BMW who was speeding and ran into a checkpoint as a "stupid sack of ****". This is pretty common behaviour for privileged young men around the world, including in the US. If there was an Iraqi checkpoint in Cleveland, for example, and they shot and killed someone for doing that, you can imagine how Americans might feel about it. Especially if some Iraqi hothead called him a "stupid sack of ****" for getting killed.

He would be a stupid sack of ****, especially for ignoring warnings and trying to force his way through.

I cross the US-Mexico border all the time, and there's no war zone, but if I try to ram and speed my way through and I appear to present a lethal threat, I can reasonably expect there are some potentially very unpleasant consequences.