Thread for the old timers: Does Iraq remind you of Vietnam yet?

[MRT144]

actually from what i hear 6th edition fantasy is the best version yet in terms of balance and rules...

[Agathon]

Originally posted by MRT144
actually from what i hear 6th edition fantasy is the best version yet in terms of balance and rules...

I liked the original one in which there was a lot of scope for doing your own thing and customising your own games. Then GW changed the rules of 40K. The Citadel Miniatures used to be a lot better than they are now too.

That new epic scale Fantasy Battle game looks pretty good. Even if the rules are rubbish the miniatures look pretty good. I'd always wanted an epic scale undead army with undead War Elephants backed up by skeleton phalanxes.

[Ramo]

No sand for oil!

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Ramo
No sand for oil!

Do you have any idea how many cat litter boxes can be replenished with that sand?

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by nationalist
Am I the only person who doesn't care if we "liberate" the Iraqis or not? There are people all over the world that are oppressed. What makes the Iraqis an more deserving than a dozen other peoples? Why should billions upon billions of dollars be wasted on it we we could make America better? I don't like the precedent that this sets. If we are worrying about terrorism in America, what will toppling Sadaam do to fix anything? If Sadaam is such a threat to mid-East peace, then wouldn't Israel do something about it? This all seems pointless to me.

Cause Bush's dad said we were going to liberate them and then let them get cut to pieces.

Time to make due on an old pledge.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Bush's dad never said we were going to liberate them.

[Dinner]

He didn't say... he just insinuated.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Actually, that's some form of urban myth, or mythological justification.

The US never said, implied, or suggested that we would aid militarily in overthrowing the Iraqi regime. (The military/foreign policy crew at the time was intelligent enough to figure we'd have to consider arab world opinion).

What we did was let them know that if other elements within Iraq did overthrow Saddam, we wouldn't be displeased, and we'd be prepared to work favorably with a new government in Iraq. (As we would likely have been mightily displeased if someone overthrew the Saudis, because at least we knew the *******s we were dealing with)

At the time, there were strong indications of potential rebellions within the officer corps, due to the execution of numerous senior officers, as well as within the Republican Guard, or what was left of it, and our erroneous assessment was that Saddam and the Baath party were losing their grip on the country.

We were very clear with everyone that we had no desire to get involved in regime change, as we didn't want occupying powers responsibility over the whole damn country.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by spiritof1202
Vietnam limited action in massive ways. Couldn't bomb Saigon

You guys really take this friendly fire thing a bit too far.

Now you're complaining that you weren't allowed to kill your own allies?

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Actually, that's some form of urban myth, or mythological justification.

The US never said, implied, or suggested that we would aid militarily in overthrowing the Iraqi regime. (The military/foreign policy crew at the time was intelligent enough to figure we'd have to consider arab world opinion).

What we did was let them know that if other elements within Iraq did overthrow Saddam, we wouldn't be displeased, and we'd be prepared to work favorably with a new government in Iraq. (As we would likely have been mightily displeased if someone overthrew the Saudis, because at least we knew the *******s we were dealing with)

At the time, there were strong indications of potential rebellions within the officer corps, due to the execution of numerous senior officers, as well as within the Republican Guard, or what was left of it, and our erroneous assessment was that Saddam and the Baath party were losing their grip on the country.

We were very clear with everyone that we had no desire to get involved in regime change, as we didn't want occupying powers responsibility over the whole damn country.

I doubt the message came across as "clear" as you say to them, MTG.

And by the way it was real nice of us to let Saddam mow down the opposition with his helicopter gunships.

[MichaeltheGreat]

The message was pretty clear, but if you were a small rebel leader, talking to other potential rebel leaders (think Abdul's used pink Toyota pickup sales here), would you rather say that you had US military backing, or that you didn't?

[Ted Striker]

There you go blaming the victim again. The b1tch deserved it.

Even if Bush didn't directly say, "go kick his ass and we'll help you," even directly asking them to do it themselves and then not helping out is still leaving them out in the cold.

He should have kept his mouth shut.

[Dinner]

Telling the Iraqi people to "rise up against the terranical regime which has oppressed your country" does imply the U.S. would help them if they heeded the call.

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by DinoDoc

If you could point out a good Heroclix site I would be greatful.

http://www.hcrealms.com/

Yes, it does look familiar.

They do one for MechWarrior, too.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
There you go blaming the victim again. The b1tch deserved it.

Even if Bush didn't directly say, "go kick his ass and we'll help you," even directly asking them to do it themselves and then not helping out is still leaving them out in the cold.

He should have kept his mouth shut.

Blaming the victim my ass. We're talking about armed rebels, who made a choice, not about the common civilians who weren't involved in any political process.

Besides, what more ****ing help did they want? We destroyed 60% of Saddam's AFV's, his three most loyal and most senior IRG divisions, most of his command and control infrastructure all over the country, almost all of his air force when you consider he didn't have access to those planes that boogied to Iran, and he was in the middle of shooting his senior officers who he blamed for failure.

We had gotten military cooperation from the vast majority of the arab world, which was unprecedented, so the last thing we were going to do was lie to them and invade and overthrow an arab government when the only reason the arabs attacked a "brother arab" was because he'd done it first. We had potentially the best relations we'd ever had in the arab world, and the last thing we were going to do is knock over an arab government and have our "boys" take over.

We had a strict doctrinal avoidance of urban warfare, since this was still the era of Air-Land 2000, and our assessment was that an organized, competent revolt would topple the regime. Why the **** are we obligated to do the rebels jobs for them? We've suggested lots of things to lots of folks, but then I guess we should have invaded Cuba and Nicaragua, we should have gone back into Viet Nam in '75, invaded Afghanistan and fought the Soviets and started WW III, and we should invade on behalf of any rebels who think we should help them, because if we say so much as "have a nice day" we've obligated ourselves to bleed and die on their behalf. Bull****.