The US, UN & Iraq II

Frolic wrote:

I've read in a Newsletter of Elsevier(IMO a rightwing magazine in Holland) that there is an internal Nota of the BBC saying that the reports of the war do not correspond with what's happening on the battlefield. The reports are much to negative.

Walter and Tartarin

This may be of some help in confirming the BBC report.

in full:
BBC news chief admits problems of accuracy

President George W. Bush and Tony Blair have called on the United Nations to immediately resume the oil-for-food program in Iraq.

And i thought the UN was irrelevant. How come they gained relevance now? Is it because they want to use the oil-for food program to buy the goodwill of the Iraqi people? Use their oil to buy food for them, and then say "Look how good we are"!

Those guys make me real sick.

Thanks, Frolic! I ran Paul Adams' name through a search and came up with about five reports on his complaint. I think what may have happened is that he hasn't been subjected to the same barrage of optimistic predictions many of us have, particularly here in the US. The government and (their) media made the whole invasion look like a cakewalk, for their own reasons. Now that it's not, every single US or Brit casualty is noted as not being in line with predictions. In this I think the administration has to carry the can. Adams -- rightly as it turned out -- sees the invasion as costly by nature and believes it has been much less costly than it might have been.

frolic, you posted a piece from the New Statesman on another thread. Would you do a link here? It is an excellent article.

"Those guys make me real sick."

I'm damned if I can understand how Blair goes along with this...

Frolic

Thanks for providing your factual information. Your quote from BBC is exactly what was reported yesterday---I just couldn't duplicate it for the participants of this forum.

I heard this morning and also in Tartarin's earlier post about Iraqis that have fled to Jordan now on their way back to "defend their country from American invaders". Since I have heard and seen this from 2 sources it has validity.

Should we try to get Jordan to stop them at the border or invest a team of special forces to stop them and save their lives?

Why would these fellows do this? Are they just Patriotic? This might ring true if they had not fled their country to get away from Saddam, which they openly admit they did, but this is not the case. Why would you come back and actively seek to restore the very regime you fled?

At first I thought this was just another Saddam ploy, paying these guys to come back and fight, but why would they fight in defense of a regime they originally fled and knew they were against? I did hear that they were promised amnesty for their "crimes against the regime" if they fought for Saddam.
However, one must certainly question the promises of a man such as Saddam who promised his son-in-law all was forgiven, after he defected to the other side, welcomed him home and then promptly shot him as an example.

What's the Deal with these guys?

Are these fellows just some poor smucks suffering from a severe case of information paucity or is there something else going on here? Is it the "Islam against the Christian/Zionist no matter what" thing? Anybody know their educational background?
If anyone has any info on this or comments please enlighten me.

JM

Nationalism and patriotism is a link with the land and the people - not the leader!

James -- There have been a lot of reports (primary on the BBC and also picked up by NPR) that there is growing support for the Iraqis vs. the US in neighboring countries. There is also some suspicion that Bush intends to invade Syria. Whatever the details, it's becoming clear to me that Arab countries may be coalescing and see the US as the enemy. I can't give you links on this stuff -- I have NPR and the BBC on in the background almost all day and don't stop in my tracks to jot down the source every time something "hot" comes up. But generally speaking, I think if you meander around the BBC site and probably Al Jazeera (which has had some very good, even prescient reporting), the picture will begin to pull together. Speaking of picture, I saw one of a busload of Iraqis leaving Jordan and at least some seemed to be women.

As for information paucity, I think we Americans (at least those who are not shopping for news outside of the mainstream media here) are suffering the worst.

Kara, your link

How we patronise the Iraqi people

"...patriotism is a link with the land and the people - not the leader!.."

Which is precisely a description of those patriots in the US who are so opposed to Bush and so ardent in their patriotism they express dissent and march on behalf of our land and people -- not to mention the Constitution and guarantees of the Bill of Rights.

I can't speak for others, but my main issue with France is that they are pretending moral superiority here, while their motives are as base as they come. A) They have lucrative business deals that will be void once Saddam's government is gone. B) I believe (this is an opinion) that they refused to back military action out of fear of what documents will be uncovered in a post Saddam Iraq showing France to have been illegally helping Saddam to build his military (replacement parts for French jets, etc.). C) The French, more than any other country, owe a debt of loyalty to the US, and it is one that they have NEVER acknowledged. They are frustrated at being a second-tier power and see any opportunity to block the US from using its power as the only way they can even pretend to matter anymore.

As I've said a couple of times, I don't see France as all that morally superior, just morally superior to the US at the moment.

Tres -- I don't know if you've ever been to the memorial fields at Normandy, but if you had, I doubt you would think France's debt to the US soldier has gone unacknowledged. But that was a couple of generations ago. This is now. The US is wrong. France has the guts to say it.

(from NYT Online, link at bottom)

The subtleties surrounding the sensitive role oil plays in the Iraqi war may have eluded the United States Army. Deep in some newspaper coverage yesterday was a report that the 101st Airborne Division had named one central Iraq outpost Forward Operating Base Shell and another Forward Operating Base Exxon.

The Pentagon shrugged off concerns that now might not be the time to mention the names of foreign oil companies on Iraqi soil. "The forward bases are normally refueling points ?- they're basically gas stations in the desert," a Pentagon spokeswoman said. "Whether or not we're going to lecture everyone that, due to political sensitivities, you should be careful what you call your gas stations, I don't know if that's something that should be done or would be done."

****

But others involved in the oil industry say the Pentagon's indifference to the names of the bases was poorly considered. "You have this atmosphere of suspicion and apprehension now, and that's just among your allies," Jan Stuart, head of research for global energy futures at ABN Amro, the Dutch investment bank, said. "And in this atmosphere, you call your own supply effort this. It's mind-boggling the degree of insensitivity. There is little doubt the Americans will win the war, but you have to wonder how people who are so insensitive are going to win the peace."

New York Times

Look, I realize these things are just little jokes by these folks, but they're doing a wonderful job providing ammo for the other side's propaganda.

That's rich, PDiddie. Perhaps soldiers are capable of irony and humor during war?

Or, are they just realistic?

From the NewsHour:

GWEN IFILL: Is the plan an undercapitalization of coalition forces?

COLONEL W. PATRICK LANG: I think so. I'm sure the game, whatever it was, showed 36 maneuver about battalions would be enough but I think as Sam says what has been revealed the real circumstance in Iraq changes the situation. You have to adapt to that. You know? What we have tonight out in the desert with sand blowing in their faces we have the third infantry division waiting to receive the attack of whatever it is that's coming south from Baghdad. There isn't any momentum there; they are sitting in the desert with a lot of broken down vehicles waiting to receive this attack. So I think the period of consolidation would not be a bad idea...

COLONEL SAMUEL GARDINER: No. I just want to add a political military dimension. Yesterday a very important thing happened. Two retired four-star generals: Wes Clark and Barry McCaffrey, who was a division commander in the first Gulf War, said we don't have enough force. Whether they are right or not, the leadership of the United States has a problem. And that is if we go to Baghdad with two divisions and there are losses, that's regime change kind of stuff. And I don't mean Baghdad regime change. But you don't send American men and women into battle without all it takes to do that. I mean, that's a very serious thing.

Whether they are right or not, the leadership of the United States has a problem. And that is if we go to Baghdad - that's regime change kind of stuff.

not pretending to have any military knowledge (i was just another grunt) but it seems as though Rumsfeld needed the political coup of taking Bagdad immediately sans regard for the back forces needed for support.