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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:tom clancy is busting out his kleenex again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgSSRE27GQ0
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# ? Jun 14, 2014 16:19 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 08:04 |
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Whip Slagcheek posted:"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter!" About ten years ago when Fallujah really kicked off, there were chunks of the internet so determined to pooh-pooh the war that they were saying the same thing. I wasn't reading SA forums much that far back, but it was pretty standard DailyKos filler. More or less the same when Mosul got really hot a little while later. Everything old is new again. I was trying to find a different old article but came across these tales of freedom fighting instead: http://www.michaelyon-online.com/bless-the-beasts-and-children.htm http://www.michaelyon-online.com/baqubah-update-05-july-2007.htm quote:Since my reporting of the massacre at the al Hamari village, many readers at home have asked how anyone can know that al Qaeda actually performed the massacre. The question is a very good one, and one that I posed from the first hour to Iraqis and Americans while trying to ascertain facts about the killings. Some guys here don't like Yon's writing because the guy is an rear end in person, so here's another, read the whole thing: http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/03/the-liberation.php quote:“I had a good conversation with Iraqi Police Lieutenant Colonel Sattar about this last night,” Lieutenant Macak said. “I said Why are your family members the ones kidnapping you, beating you up, and killing your people?”
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# ? Jun 14, 2014 17:45 |
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Snowdens Secret posted:Did you even look at what you linked? The 'terrorist incidents' listed are suicide bombings, which are pale shadows of the open sectarian war pre-Surge, and which essentially bottom out in '09. Weak groups sending out suicide bombers aren't seizing police stations or whole towns; by Mideast standards of chaos that's about as peaceful as it gets. US media was having fun pointing out how more Americans were dying in a normal weekend of Chicago violence than in months in Iraq. Guys in this very forum were griping about how boring deployments were getting, how they didn't have any chance to 'get some' etc. The ethnic lines had largely been redrawn by 2008 and we were paying favorable sheiks who had been bombing us to instead chill out, but the ongoing wave of ethnic suicide bombing and terrorism makes clear that the "sources of Sunni violence" had hardly "been eliminated." Their focus just shifted from attacking Americans do terrorizing their generally no-longer neighbor Shiites. And in Diyala, the neighbor on neighbor violence continued. Conflating a drop in attacks on U.S. forces with peaceful coexistence in Iraq is one of the many reasons we were so terrible at doing anything positive in that country. As for Maliki really wanting us to stay, I have never heard that but I am willing to bet it is coming from the same people who thought Chalabi was on the level and that we would be welcomed as liberators, given its freshness, political convenience, and rewriting of history. Articles and first person interviews contemporary to our actual departure talk about how Maliki definitely wanted us out, both from his mouth and from his aides and his government. 2008: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/as-soon-as-possible-iraq-leader-maliki-supports-obama-s-withdrawal-plans-a-566841.html quote:Maliki has long shown impatience with the open-ended presence of US troops in Iraq. In his conversation with SPIEGEL, he was once again candid about his frustration over the Bush administration's hesitancy about agreeing to a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops. But he did say he was optimistic that such a schedule would be drawn up before Bush leaves the White House next January -- a confidence that appeared justified following Friday's joint announcement in Baghdad and Washington that Bush has now, for the first time, spoken of "a general time horizon" for moving US troops out of Iraq. 2009 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8020815.stm quote:Mr Maliki said the upsurge in violence had had no effect on the timetable for the withdrawal of US forces. 2010 http://www.usip.org/conversation-iraq-s-prime-minister-nuri-al-maliki/read-the-transcripted-remarks quote:Thank you. Spencer Ackerman with the Washington Independent. I was wondering, Mr. Prime Minister, what you think the U.S.-Iraqi security relationship ought to be after 2011. Should there be any form of residual U.S. military presence in Iraq? What size, and for what purpose, if so? And do you foresee a situation where the status report to the agreement might need to be renegotiated? 2011 http://www.npr.org/2011/01/04/132632709/in-surprise-iraq-may-enforce-withdrawal-deadline quote:
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# ? Jun 14, 2014 21:00 |
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Mike-o posted:we got into a firefight with some dudes, the IP wouldn't come pick his dead rear end up because they were loving worthless. we wrapped his bloody dead body in a white bedsheet and tied him to the hood. buddy was blasting rock you like a hurricane through the loudspeaker as we rolled through the gate to our FOB. lmao god drat I wish I did cool stuff like this instead of jacking off about pressure gages or w/e on a gay rear end lil submarine Are Iraqi Special Forces dudes at least capable? genderstomper58 fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Jun 14, 2014 |
# ? Jun 14, 2014 21:27 |
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genderstomper58 posted:Are Iraqi Special Forces dudes at least capable? yeah, they're the only dudes that legitimately wanted to learn, paid attention, and actually applied the poo poo they learned, they were p cool
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# ? Jun 14, 2014 22:32 |
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genderstomper58 posted:lmao god drat I wish I did cool stuff like this instead of jacking off about pressure gages or w/e on a gay rear end lil submarine http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/12/17/981217-usn-airstrike.htm
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# ? Jun 14, 2014 22:38 |
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genderstomper58 posted:Are Iraqi Special Forces dudes at least capable? They range from pretty ok to really good. The guys we worked with had a shitton of hands on time with our SF guys. I didn't trust them anymore than any other local national but you could count on them to actually shoot back and probably hit the target. Also they generally did not gently caress up spectacularly when doing raids and etc. I can't really think of anything bad to say about them other than a general feeling that some of them were untrustworthy as gently caress. This was back in 2005-06 though so who knows nowadays.
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# ? Jun 14, 2014 23:43 |
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The only Iraqis I ever trusted were our Kurdish gate guards. Those dudes were pro, would loving shoot at anyone for almost any reason. When we would run low on smokes they would give us whole packs for free, never asked for anything in return.
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# ? Jun 14, 2014 23:53 |
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Best Friends posted:The ethnic lines had largely been redrawn by 2008 and we were paying favorable sheiks who had been bombing us to instead chill out, but the ongoing wave of ethnic suicide bombing and terrorism makes clear that the "sources of Sunni violence" had hardly "been eliminated." Their focus just shifted from attacking Americans do terrorizing their generally no-longer neighbor Shiites. And in Diyala, the neighbor on neighbor violence continued. Look bro I'm gonna lay this out to you, even though it frustrates me to have to type it out - What career diplomats say to press conferences and major newspapers is not truth, it is signaling and kabuki dance. Never, ever take it at face value. That's true even of our diplomats (and politicians) and we're far and above the most straightforward on the planet - That goes double, triple for guys that are survivors of poo poo regimes who have been bullshitting to stay alive for years/decades - That goes loving 10x for an Iraqi Arab like Maliki who probably rips rear end in bed at night and tells his wife it was invisible Zionists Otherwise you're making the exact same mistake you're accusing the Chalabi-fans etc of doing. What I was talking about is neither new or fresh, it's all from around the surge / end of surge which predates almost all of your links. The Iraqis wanted a long-term (essentially permanent) American force of at least roughly pre-surge level. They wanted a long-term SOFA (like 15+ years at least) that would've left us in charge of big chunks of the security picture that whole time. This was all communicated through (mostly mil to mil) back channels, which is where this business really gets conducted, but it was not at all secret and was all over the usual mil / GWOT sites and I'd Google links but I've already put way more effort into this post than it deserves. The long term commitment, high troop levels and continuing American security responsibilities were obvious non-starters with the American political atmosphere of the time (remember what Congress was like), and were obvious non-starters the oncoming administration, who had loudly proclaimed during the campaign (again, signaling) that they were leaving come hell or high water. About the only thing Maliki could have done to make his survival chances worse would have been to publicly announce that he really loved the Americans and wanted a shitload of them to stay because his government and his police forces were still doodoo, but they told him to piss off and left anyway. That should be painfully obvious (and again it frustrates me to have to type this out) and it's one of many reasons why you don't go "Gee, I wonder what the Iraqi government is really thinking, lemme see what their press guy is telling Der Spiegel." gently caress it here's a few quick links: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/08/iraqis_standing_up.php That's our plan for withdrawal, in mid-08, presented by the warmongering bloodthirster Petraeus, showing a withdawal plan that shockingly matches up almost exactly to what we were 'forced into' later. It also mentions several progress checkpoints that if the Iraqis don't meet, we don't leave - this was ignored, by us, years later. Note this: quote:The Iraqi Minister of Defense has stated it will be 2018 before Iraq can fully defend itself. Iraqi Ground forces will be capable of controlling and defending their country in 2011, but the Iraqi Air Force will still be seven years from providing adequate air defense. The Iraqi Air Force plans to have only 376 aircraft by 2020. US air cover will be needed. The ISF will probably assume fully independent national defense in 2018-2020. While the tactics and operations have continually adjusted, US strategic policy for Iraq has not changed: "As the Iraqis stand up..." http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/06/iraqi_politicians_ta.php Again from mid-08 but contains diplospeak: quote:Maliki understands the need for an arrangement that guarantees US support for his government. As the leader of a political party that does not possess a significant armed wing, he appears to realize that maintaining long-term US military presence in Iraq is essential for protecting a peaceful political process in which he and his party can compete with others. Despite his open support, Maliki announced on June 13 that the negotiations had reached an impasse, but stressed that talks will continue until an agreement that satisfies both sides is reached: "The first drafts presented left us at a dead end and deadlock. So, we abandoned these first drafts. The negotiations will continue with new ideas until the sides reach a formula that preserves Iraq's sovereignty." Also just for fun (the Kurds had been talking like this basically since day 1): quote:Kurdish Parties, the KDP of Masoud Barazani and PUK of President Talabani: Iraqi Kurds consider themselves natural allies of the US and have often said proudly that they are America's best friends in the Middle East. Whenever the issue of permanent US bases in Iraq surfaced, Kurdish leaders would step forward and issue statement of support such as, "if Iraq's Arabs don't want permanent American bases then Kurdistan would gladly host these bases." The same offer was recently reiterated by parliament member Mahmoud Othman, who said that the government of Kurdistan would not mind hosting permanent American bases in the region. Also this, which is mostly interesting because it comes from State channels, and State's been in Lala-land with Iraq since before the invasion. This is 2011 and the Iraqis' ambitions are much, much smaller: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2012/11/iraqi_politicians_backed_into.php quote:Jeffrey didn't necessarily support the larger troop footprint envisioned by military leaders at the time, which reportedly ranged from 8,000 to 16,000 to 24,000 troops, depending on the military official. But he said he firmly believed that troops in Iraq past 2011 were needed and wanted by the Iraqi government. quote:But recent reporting by The New York Times' Michael Gordon paints a more complicated picture of U.S. incompetence and disengagement. Most notably, the Obama administration's insistence that any Status of Forces Agreement be ratified by Iraq's parliament set the stage for the inevitable failure of any agreement. As for violence levels, Americans (at least the press) pre-'08 gave zero shits about violence between Iraqis, they only noted the grim statistics of American casualties. (You literally had a running ticker every night on CNN news totalling American casualties over the course of the war, and priority #1 for the administration was making that ticker go away - not necessarily do squat about the numbers, but if they did, bonus.) No one gives two fucks to research what kind of civilian casualty levels were present pre-war (you know, when Hussein's persistence in ethnic cleansing and general shitbaggery was uninterrupted by the no-fly zones etc, to the point where Clinton was already talking up ways of going back in.) No one tries to figure out what sort of baseline level of general violence should be expected in a failed state shithole before you add whatever sectarian war we were supposed to be fighting there. No one tries to figure out what's a 'terrorist attack' and what's an honor killing or mob hit or other tomfoolery that runs rampant over there, certainly not just in Iraq. As I said before you were looking at violence levels that on their low end were comparable to civilian casualty rates in American urban areas, and no one really likes to talk root causes and solutions there, either. Here are some numbers that are (due to the source) probably hokum, but hokum on the upside if they are: https://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/ ('Any perpetrators' includes US and Iraqi security forces, so the red line includes people we shot/blew up. Lord only knows how they determined what suicide bombers' motivations were, maybe they checked their Facebook feeds.) That level post-surge is drat decent for the neighborhood (I'm assuming you're not trying to argue the surge didn't work, which would be absurd.) Hell, like I've said it'd be drat decent for some of our own shitholier cities. A real completionist would recognize Iraq is only a part of a larger regional conflict, and overlay at least Syrian Civil War deaths on there if not Egypt, Yemen etc violence, but for some people that ruins the narrative. E: Guys talking about secfor they trained, keep in mind Americans were mostly in Sunni areas and were training mostly Sunni dudes and that those guys were essentially all fired in the last three years or so. If you're lucky they opened up shops and poo poo and didn't follow the money to Syria. Snowdens Secret fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Jun 15, 2014 |
# ? Jun 15, 2014 00:00 |
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Snowdens Secret posted:Look bro I'm gonna lay this out to you, even though it frustrates me to have to type it out No kidding, which is why I am wondering where your special insight into the heart of Maliki comes from. It isn't reflected in any of your links below, which all seem to say that Maliki would not budge on the status of forces agreement. Also, in our society every agenda leaks to someone about everything, so I am very curious why there is such a lack of documentation or off the record talks about what you are saying. As for if violence reduced after the surge, yes, it did. Like I said and like the numbers bear out, it reduced from full on warfare to merely terrorism many levels beyond what America experienced on 9/11 monthly. This can be traced pretty clearly to our policy of delivering large quantities of cash to selected former enemy sheiks, increased U.S. troop presence, and most critically the bulk of the ethnic cleansing had already happened. If you are going to tell me that even post surge Iraq was more safe than U.S. cities for Iraqis you are huffing pure Weekly Standard farts. I was in Ramadi during the surge and gunfire and random explosions in the city was still a regular thing. It just wasn't happening to us which is why, like you point out, everyone was thrilled back in America and absurd articles about how Baghdad was safer than Detroit started circling in the right wing media. "Almost no Americans are being killed and open warfare stopped" does not equal "root causes fixed, Iraq is fine now." The root causes absolutely remained and that is why we are seeing what we are seeing right now. Any amount of reduced violence does not mean the "root cause" of the violence had been eliminated. Nothing had been eliminated, we were just paying people off and the killing had cooled. Those same guys are still alive and are currently cutting off heads right now with their old friends in ISIS.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 00:16 |
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LOL at that AF General talking about how Russian bombers have never flown that close. Christ, what a dipshit.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 00:20 |
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GENDERWEIRD GREEDO posted:Well duh, I just want to see someone say that they're ok with people killing each other like animals while the rest of the world does literally nothing without also talking about specific mistakes the administration made as if it could have been handled properly by a 17 year old goon with a few counter culture history novels under his belt. Ah, gotcha. Related, I'm just going to restate my favorite part from Gates's memoirs..."so-called 'experts' like Samantha Power." Left unstated was "...and all the other loving idiots who thought up R2P." Whip Slagcheek posted:lol k hahahahahahahahahaha funniest thing I've read all day of course the really sad thing is that Brzezinski is indeed a wise man compared to 95% of the morons handling foreign policy in the last two administrations.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 01:05 |
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That's really first place in the special Olympics territory tbqh
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 01:08 |
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I think my favorite part of listening to armchair politicians and their little beliefs is the idea that everyone is a rational actor and all you have to do is approach them correctly and they'll act rationally and in everyone's best interest. It surprises the poo poo out of me that so many people seem to think that 'oh, it's the 21st century, k, they'll just set aside their old rivalries and hatred and everything else and do what is best for their nation [as I see fit]!" without realizing that some motherfuckers just aren't rational and aren't going to let poo poo go. A lot of the people in the political science and ethics courses I took just couldn't seem to understand just how big a part of a person's life religion can be, along with upbringing. A lot of seems like culture problems, like they couldn't understand why someone would lay down their life for a belief, because they wouldn't do the same. They kept claiming you just have to make them understand that acting rationally is in their best interest and everyone's best interest. They really seemed to have a problem with viewpoints that weren't beep boop beep insert logic. Anyway, enough bullshit. Hell, if the Iranians can lay their hands on the avionics and parts for the F-16's out of the whole deal, they might just consider that they came out ahead of the game. Wonder if that was part of the decision making process, or what. I keep hearing that the Iranians are actually working with the US this time, as well as with Iraq, and (if it is true) I wonder what led to that.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 01:47 |
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We should've sold Iraq F-16s from the boneyard, not new-builds. What loving dolt came up with this idea?Whip Slagcheek posted:That's really first place in the special Olympics territory tbqh Or the World Cup.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 01:54 |
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Godholio posted:We should've sold Iraq F-16s from the boneyard, not new-builds. What loving dolt came up with this idea? Lockheed.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 02:01 |
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Godholio posted:We should've sold Iraq F-16s from the boneyard, not new-builds. What loving dolt came up with this idea? They're new-builds but they're waaaaay export downgraded...no 1760-bus JDAM capability, no AMRAAM capability (we're selling them Sparrows instead ), I can only imagine how much of a joke the radar is, I'm not even sure if we're selling them Sniper pods. Most advanced munitions they're going to be able to carry are LGBs and Mavericks. Duffelblog continues to hit it out of the park.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 02:05 |
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Interesting. I wonder what the radar is though...I can't imagine they'd be able to scrape together any APG-66s, but I also wouldn't have expected Sparrow-level BVR. V That would be the 66. Godholio fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Jun 15, 2014 |
# ? Jun 15, 2014 02:07 |
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They cooked up some giant eggo waffles, threw it in the radome, and told the Iraqis it's the newest bestest radar we have.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 02:11 |
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Godholio posted:Interesting. I wonder what the radar is though...I can't imagine they'd be able to scrape together any APG-66s, but I also wouldn't have expected Sparrow-level BVR. This collection of articles says they're getting APG-68(V)9s, but I would imagine they're pretty export downgraded compared to the stuff we sell to folks like Singapore or Poland. It also states that it looks like we're selling them Sniper pods.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 02:14 |
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Hm. Even though the newer designs can be gimped by the software (which is what I assume is happening?) I still wouldn't want hardware that new going over there. Same for SNIPER. Oh well, I'm sure the current crop of military and civilian leadership know what they're doing.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 02:19 |
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D&D has the ability to gaslight its self:Vermain posted:It's actually probably better if the conflict is left to sort itself out while other countries attempt to serve as mediators and negotiators, yes. I have no idea where your optimism with regards to a direct military response is coming from, considering that the most recent example of direct military intervention (Libya) led to a dessicated nation torn apart by warlords.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 02:20 |
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Godholio posted:Hm. Even though the newer designs can be gimped by the software (which is what I assume is happening?) I still wouldn't want hardware that new going over there. Same for SNIPER. Oh well, I'm sure the current crop of This looks more likely. Of course, I'm a little jaded nowadays.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 02:24 |
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Best Friends posted:No kidding, which is why I am wondering where your special insight into the heart of Maliki comes from. It isn't reflected in any of your links below, which all seem to say that Maliki would not budge on the status of forces agreement. Also, in our society every agenda leaks to someone about everything, so I am very curious why there is such a lack of documentation or off the record talks about what you are saying. Because you're talking 6-7 years ago and if you're not the NYT your archives probably don't last that long. Here's a direct quote from an Aswat al-Iraq article from '07 that's no longer online: http://fleetingperusal.blogspot.com/2007/09/breaking-iraq-to-formally-seek-long.html quote:Baghdad, Aug 30,- Iraqi Foreign Minster Hoshyar Zibari said on Thursday an expanded conference for Iraq’s neighboring countries is to convene in Baghdad in early September, unveiling that Iraq is seeking a long-term security agreement with the U.S. next year once the U.N. mandate given to the Multi-National Forces’ presence in the country was over. Iraq wants to establish a long-term U.S. military presence many years into the future, likely to include permanent bases. Hopefully that's clear enough but there's certainly still plenty of articles in the 07-08 timeframe talking about how shitless scared the American Left was that Bushitler was going to get this deal closed and lock us in Iraq forever before a real president could be elected to fix everything: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-dreyfuss/maliki-bush-trample-iraqs_b_77903.html quote:The next battle will be the U.S.-Iraq treaty that will govern the long-term presence of U.S. forces in Iraq, including possible permanent bases. The United States and Iraq are supposed to conclude that accord by July, 2008. That accord will be subject to parliamentary approval, says Maliki--but who knows? He might try to impose that one, too. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18368586 quote:But the White House has already made it clear that in the Iraq agreement, it won't go to Congress to ask for permission. So critics of this agreement, like Congressman Delahunt, believe that White House and Pentagon lawyers will carefully construct the language of the agreement to make it appear as if it's not a treaty. Note they also mention the idea/plan of Maliki 'end-running' around his Parliament so politicians wouldn't have to be put on the spot and could tut-tut the SOFA with appropriate cover. E: Hell, Zebari even lobbied for us to stay in a Wapo editorial: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/03/AR2007050301548.html quote:Today, at an international summit on the future of Iraq in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, my government will ask the international community to maintain its engagement in our country to help us achieve our goals of security and stability. We recognize that our request conflicts with a plethora of voices decrying the situation in Iraq and those in the British and American publics who seek an expeditious withdrawal from a war they claim is all but lost. Man almost sounds like he was right Snowdens Secret fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Jun 15, 2014 |
# ? Jun 15, 2014 02:29 |
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quote:(I'm assuming you're not trying to argue the surge didn't work, which would be absurd.) I'd happily debate this assertion until the oil in the burns out, Hebrew.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 02:55 |
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Obama Africanus posted:I'd happily debate this assertion until the oil in the burns out, Hebrew. Didn't the Surge just happen to coincide with the results of ethnic cleansing, something like that?
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 03:07 |
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In response to ISIS slaughtering IA soldiers:illrepute posted:This is amusing to me because America did the same thing in one instance when insurgents attempted to surrender to an apache crew. D&D is so cool
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 03:39 |
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Apache crews have extremely tight legal limitations so that's pretty amusing. e: Although that's not to say that some crews have made terrible decisions.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 04:38 |
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I'm still not sure how Libya is the perfect example of failed intervention DnD wants people to think it is. Job Creator posted:In response to ISIS slaughtering IA soldiers: Haha I think shortly afterward someone tried to make the point that the US has simply become more bloodthirsty in the past few years which is why we never took prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan (apparently). Somewhere a carpet bombed Vietnamese kid is rolling in his little grave.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 04:50 |
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Job Creator posted:In response to ISIS slaughtering IA soldiers: yeah, D&D loves being moral relativists with the worst kind of situations sadly, it didn't help that the next 2 following pages were giant arguments over that post. also, i think alot of the people ISIS killed arnt even soldiers, just shia men they picked up.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 05:11 |
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Dresden, Europe, and the Pacific, all circa 1944 would probably like to have a word with them. I mean, Christ, could you imagine if America started fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan the way they did in the 1940's? Insurgent shoots from the house or you don't like the way it looks? FLAMETHROWER, BABY! The insurgents in that section? gently caress it, carpet bomb or napalm that poo poo to the ground! Could you imagine the screaming if we left Iraq or Afghanistan looking like we did Europe or the Pacific? poo poo, they already pass around pictures of pre-Soviet invasion Afghanistan and act like it was like that when we got there and we're the ones who loving blew it up. poo poo, anyone remember, back in the early days of the Iraq War, there was two videos going around. One showed insurgents pulling weapons off the truck and moving them somewhere else when the Apache shows up and kills them, while another video had been altered to make it look like the one carrying the weapons was a kid skipping along? Those who were trying to paint the US as bloodthirsty monsters were going so far as to edit video and falsify data. (Like the Marine kicking the guy who pulled out the pistol in the face, how it was broadcast as some Marine brutalizing a prisoner by editing out the pistol and making it look like the guy was trying to stop himself from getting kicked in the face) That the anti-war advocates were so dying for war-crimes they could wave around that they were willing to falsify war-crimes just to justify their attitudes. It's always made me wonder if all these people who scream about how 'blood thirsty' US troops are are actually pissed off because we didn't go full on like they thought troops would, so they latch onto the simplest poo poo and act like the whole military is like that, rather than one situation/circumstance or one rear end in a top hat. That they feel somehow robbed that American troops didn't just line up civilians and machinegun them or sell kids to other nation's officers or artillery whole towns into rubble and kill anyone trying to escape. Of course, you have the other side of those guys, who seem to think that combat is like a loving video game, and everyone's head is always clear, focused, and they have all the available data. That can't understand how mistakes are made because beep boop all data recieved is the way they think poo poo goes down. The idea of anyone making a lovely decision is always "Oh, they lust for the blood of civilians!" rather than "What a lovely loving decision." And that leads to the whole 'zero tolerance' poo poo. I mean, poo poo, wasn't it Nimitz who ran a loving destroyer aground? Or am I overthinking poo poo again?
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 05:14 |
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pengun101 posted:yeah, D&D loves being moral relativists with the worst kind of situations sadly, it didn't help that the next 2 following pages were giant arguments over that post. also, i think alot of the people ISIS killed arnt even soldiers, just shia men they picked up. D&D has a hard on for crying about how evil the US is. Literally the US could give foreign disaster victims MREs and they will bitch about the nutritional value. And if its handed out by troops, INVADING MILITARY FORCE. 50 Foot Ant posted:Dresden, Europe, and the Pacific, all circa 1944 would probably like to have a word with them.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 05:30 |
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Paul MaudDib posted:There's ample history of helicopters accepting surrenders, by the way. The Viet Cong were just as capable of disappearing back into the jungle, aircraft would just radio their location and soldiers would come and take them into custody. Like holy gently caress.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 05:42 |
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GENDERWEIRD GREEDO posted:Like holy gently caress. lol even the Brits, king shits of huggy feely let's not kill anyone unnecessarily COIN (which btw worked out swimmingly in Basra) would routinely kill CTs in Malaya in THAT EXACT SITUATION of dudes being located but not able to be immediately captured because jungle.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 05:53 |
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Genocide Tendency posted:D&D has a hard on for crying about how evil the US is. People literally did this when we invaded Afghanistan back in 2001. Bush wanted to buck-up the narrative that we were after AQ, not Afghanis or whatever, so he dumped a bunch of MREs over the hinterlands of Afghanistan so that people would at least have something when winter hit. People over here bitched about the nutritional content, whether or not the food was halal, and that the packaging would make them look like cluster bombs.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 05:59 |
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Holy poo poo. They really don't loving get it, do they? They think that poo poo just follows the AI programming of their favorite video game, don't they? 'just a lot bloodthirstier'? loving really? These guys have seen movies/read books about the Vietnam War, right? They've studied history, right? They're familiar with World War I and World War II, right? poo poo, they're familiar with the Iran/Iraq War and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, right? Or are they so goddamn naive they think that Patton or Grant or Sherman wouldn't have left the Middle East a smoking goddamn crater? EDIT: quote:People literally did this when we invaded Afghanistan back in 2001. People bitched about the nutritional content, whether or not the food was halal, and that the packaging would make them look like cluster bombs. People were bitching the exact same loving thing when we were feeding EPOW's MRE's after they surrendered to anyone they could find. That the air-drop rations we gave the Kurds killed some of the dumb motherfuckers because they stood underneath them trying to catch a pallet of loving MRE's and bottled water. Hell, when I came home on convalescent leave after the Gulf War, people were talking about how the Highway to Hell was a war-crime, because the Iraqi's were just trying to run away and not pulling a fighting retreat. That America was loving terrible because any Iraqi troops were given MRE's without thinking about how it might violate their religious rights. Nice to loving know that people are still that goddamn stupid. Nostalgia4ColdWar fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Jun 15, 2014 |
# ? Jun 15, 2014 05:59 |
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Soooo.. Someone just said that Sherman's Atlanta antics weren't that bloodthirsty. I don't want to go back in there anymore. Or maybe I got caught by Poe's law.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 06:19 |
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50 Foot Ant posted:I mean, Christ, could you imagine if America started fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan the way they did in the 1940's? Maybe we should end it the way we did in the 40s.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 06:21 |
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Do it old school style.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 06:25 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 08:04 |
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Genocide Tendency posted:Soooo.. I'm assuming you're talking about the March to the Sea, because Sherman's campaign in capturing Atlanta was just a normal military campaign, nothing crazy or super violent/destructive about it. If we're talking about the March to the Sea, that's actually a pretty true statement. The idea that Sherman's Army literally raped and pillaged their way to the sea like the second coming of Genghis Khan or something is a popular myth, but it's just that, a myth. Here's an excerpt from his Special Field Orders (I've bolded a few parts): quote:IV. The army will forage liberally on the country during the march. To this end, each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party, under the command of one or more discreet officers, who will gather, near the route traveled, corn or forage of any kind, meat of any kind, vegetables, corn-meal, or whatever is needed by the command, aiming at all times to keep in the wagons at least ten day's provisions for the command and three days' forage. Soldiers must not enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, or commit any trespass, but during a halt or a camp they may be permitted to gather turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables, and to drive in stock of their camp. To regular foraging parties must be instructed the gathering of provisions and forage at any distance from the road traveled. So yeah, Sherman's March really wasn't bloodthirsty at all. It had the intended effect (break the back of the South and completely destroy their ability to wage war) and was absolutely a scorched earth campaign from the sense of destroying warmaking and industrial implements, but the idea that it was a Eastern Front style scorched earth campaign filled with raping and murdering just isn't the case. The direct human costs were pretty low.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 06:29 |