US AND THEM: US, UN & Iraq, version 8.0

It's kind of out-dated for the US to be playing that sick schtick in the 21st century - no?

dlowan wrote:

It's kind of out-dated for the US to be playing that sick schtick in the 21st century - no?

Out of deference for my rather punched about admiration for you, Deb, I am walking away from this one.

Still, I would like to make a prediction that in the coming decades the American century will be looked upon rather wistfully. In regards to what's brewing in the East, the MiddleEast, and the sub-continent, I'm afraid mankind ain't seen nothing yet.

Regards.

WhoodaThunk wrote:

dlowan wrote:

It's kind of out-dated for the US to be playing that sick schtick in the 21st century - no?

Out of deference for my rather punched about admiration for you, Deb, I am walking away from this one.

Still, I would like to make a prediction that in the coming decades the American century will be looked upon rather wistfully. In regards to what's brewing in the East, the MiddleEast, and the sub-continent, I'm afraid mankind ain't seen nothing yet.

Regards.

If you had quoted the entire post, I might respond. Let me know if you ever do.

This whole "we've done it for the good of the world and the Iraqi people" horseshit was cobbled together after the fact, when no evidence of weapons of mass destruction or a connection to the September 11th attack was forthcoming. So you not only know jack **** about history, you're trying to re-write the history of the last few years.
I've dug no hole, and i've nothing i am either ashamed of or embarrassed by in this thread. You spew nonsense all over these boards every day. I take very little notice of it, but i do enjoy rubbing your nose in it from time to time.

An interesting aside: Napoleon arrived in Toulon as captain and left the town as general: made up four ranks within four months.

... I stand by the statement that Ican knows nothing about history and that he spews nonsense all over these boards. As i wrote, i've nothing i am either ashamed of or embarrassed by in this thread. This was only the latest example of Ican's attempt to use distorted characterizations of history to support his thesis. ...

Main Entry: de·ceive
Pronunciation: di-'sEv
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): de·ceived; de·ceiv·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French deceivre, from Latin decipere, from de- + capere to take -- more at HEAVE
transitive senses
1 archaic : ENSNARE
2 a obsolete : to be false to b archaic : to fail to fulfill
3 obsolete : CHEAT
4 : to cause to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid
5 archaic : to while away
intransitive senses : to practice deceit; also : to give a false impression <appearances can deceive>
- de·ceiv·er noun
- de·ceiv·ing·ly /-'sE-vi[ng]-lE/ adverb
synonyms DECEIVE, MISLEAD, DELUDE, BEGUILE mean to lead astray or frustrate usually by underhandedness. DECEIVE implies imposing a false idea or belief that causes ignorance, bewilderment, or helplessness <tried to deceive me about the cost>. MISLEAD implies a leading astray that may or may not be intentional <I was misled by the confusing sign>. DELUDE implies deceiving so thoroughly as to obscure the truth <we were deluded into thinking we were safe>. BEGUILE stresses the use of charm and persuasion in deceiving <was beguiled by false promises>.

Posted on Fri, May. 13, 2005


R E L A T E D L I N K S
• Two more Gulfport-based Marines reported injured
• Two Harrison County Marines injured
• Gulfport-based Marines have been SH's faces of war

Marines brave fire to save their own

By ERIN KNICKMEYER

THE WASHINGTON POST

HABAN, Iraq - The explosion enveloped the armored vehicle in flames, sending orange balls of fire bubbling above the trees along the Euphrates River near the Syrian border.

Marines in surrounding vehicles threw open their hatches and took off running across the plowed fields toward the already-blackening metal of the destroyed vehicle. Shouting, they pulled to safety those they could, as the flames ignited the bullets, mortar rounds, flares and grenades inside, rocketing them into the sky and across pastures.

Gunnery Sgt. Chuck Hurley emerged from the smoke and turmoil around the vehicle, circling toward the spot where helicopters would later land to pick up casualties. As he passed one group of Marines, he uttered just one sentence: "That was the same squad."

Among those killed or wounded when an explosive device erupted under their Amtrac on Wednesday were the last battle-ready members of a squad that four days earlier had battled foreign fighters holed up in a house in the town of Ubaydi. In that fight, two squad members were killed and five wounded.

An American military spokesman said two Marines were killed and 14 wounded in Wednesday's blast.

In 96 hours of fighting and ambushes in far western Iraq, the squad had just ceased to be.

Every member of the squad - one of three that make up the 1st Platoon of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment - had been killed or wounded, Marines here said. All told, the 1st Platoon - which Hurley commands - had sustained 60 percent casualties, demolishing it as a fighting force.

"They used to call it Lucky Lima," said Maj. Steve Lawson, commander of the company. "That turned around and bit us."

Sgt. Dennis Woullard of D'Iberville, who survived the explosion, sat glassy-eyed and bare-chested under a nearby building on the edge of the field. He lamented that he couldn't save all the men inside. Thursday's Sun Herald had a Page One story about Woullard's dash through a fusillade of machine-gun fire on Sunday to retrieve a fallen Marine.

"I was at the back door," Woullard said of the Amtrac explosion. "I couldn't get 'em all. There had to be six still in there. I don't know how they could've gotten out."

Another Marine, speaking with a senior officer, held back tears.

"I couldn't get to them all, sir, it was just too hot," he said, shaking his head.

As Marines treated their wounded comrades, former Lt. Col. Oliver North, the Iran-Contra figure, filmed the operation with a mini-DV recorder issued by his employer, Fox News. North, who was dressed in Marine camouflage, is traveling with Kilo company.

About a half-hour after the explosion, two Blackhawk helicopters swooped down to take the wounded to the Marine base at Al Qaim near the Syrian border.

Wednesday was the fourth day of fighting in far western Iraq, as the U.S. military continued an assault that has sent more than 1,000 Marines down the ungoverned north bank of the Euphrates River in search of foreign fighters crossing the border from Syria. Of seven Marines killed so far in the operation, six came come from Lima Company, 1st Platoon.

Lima Company drew Marine reservists from across Ohio into the conflict in Iraq. Some were still too young to be bothered much by shaving, or even stubble.

They rode to war on a Marine Amtrac, an armored vehicle that travels on tank-like treads. The Marine Reserve unit in Gulfport is an Amtrac unit.

Marines in Iraq typically crowd hip to hip in the Amtrac, with one or two men perched on cardboard boxes of rations. Only the gunners manning the top hatches of Amtracs have any view of the passing scenery. Those inside find out what their field of combat is when the rear ramp comes down and they run out with weapons ready.

Marines typically pass travel time in the Amtrac by extracting favorite bits from ration packets, mercilessly ribbing a usual victim for eating or sleeping too much, or sleeping themselves.

On Monday, when the Marine assault on foreign fighters formally began, the young Marines of the squad from 1st Platoon were already exhausted. Their encounter at the house in Ubaydi that morning and the previous night had been the unintended first clash of the operation, pitting them against insurgents who fired armor-piercing bullets up through the floor. It took 12 hours and five assaults by the squad - plus grenades, bombing by an F/A-18 attack plane, tank rounds and rockets at 20 yards - to kill the insurgents and permit recovery of the dead Marines' bodies.

Afterward, they slept in the moving Amtrac, heads back and mouths open. One stood up to stretch his legs. He fell asleep again standing up, leaning against the metal walls.

Squad members spoke only to compare their knowledge on the condition of their wounded. Getting the latest news, they fell silent again. After one such half-hour of silence, a Marine offered a terse commendation for one of the squad members shot at Ubaydi: "Bunker's a good man."

With the operation under way, Marine commanders kept the 1st Platoon largely to the back, letting its men rest.

Commanders had hoped the operation would swiftly capture or kill large numbers of foreign fighters. But the foreigners, and everyone else here, had plenty of warning the Marines were coming - including the unplanned battle at Ubaydi.

By the time the squad from Lima Company crossed north of the Euphrates, whole villages consisted of little more than abandoned houses with fresh tire tracks leading off into pastures or homes occupied only by prepubescent boys or old men. Men of fighting age had made themselves scarce. The AK-47 assault rifles ubiquitous in Iraqi households had disappeared.

Many Marines complained bitterly that commanders had pulled them out of the fight at Ubaydi while the insurgents were still battling, to start the planned offensive. "They take us from killing the people they want us to kill and bring us to these ghost villages," one said Wednesday on the porch of a house commandeered as a temporary base.

Uneventful house searches stretched into late afternoon, the tedium broken only by small-arms fire and mortar rounds lobbed by insurgents hiding on the far side of the river.

This correspondent had just gotten off the Amtrac and the reconstructed squad from 1st Platoon was rolling toward the Euphrates in a row of armored vehicles, headed for more house searches, when the vehicle rolled over the explosive.

Marines initially said they believed the blast was caused by two mines stacked on top of each other. But reports from Marines that they had seen an artillery round and two hand-held radios near the blast site raised suspicions that a remotely activated bomb had been used, Lawson said.

Hurley and others pulled passengers out of the Amtrac as flames detonated - or "cooked off," in military jargon - its ammunition. As Marines carrying stretchers ran to the Amtrac, bullets snapped out of the burning hulk and traveled for hundreds of feet. The Marines ran back through the fusillade, carrying out the wounded. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon," some shouted, desperate to get the wounded out.

The four dead were trapped inside the vehicle, Lawson said.

"We passed right over it. We passed right over it," one of many Marines in the convoy ahead of the burning Amtrac said of the explosive, puzzling over why he was still alive.

"That's the last of the squad," said another, Cpl. Craig Miller, whose reassignment last month had taken him out of the unit. "Three weeks ago, that would have been me."

Late Wednesday, helicopters flew out Hurley and the remaining members of 1st Platoon for time off. They are to return after the platoon is remade with new members, Marines said.

Another Lima Company platoon commander ordered his men to bed early, in preparation for the next day's operations. Grieving could wait, the commander said.

"We don't have time," he said.

About Amtracs

Amtracs, or amphibious tractors, are the Marines' amphibious assault craft.

• Crew: 3 (driver, crew chief, 3rd crew)

• Capacity: Crew plus 18 infantry

• Speed: 45 mph, 9 mph in water

• Weight: 27 tons

• Weapons: .50-caliber machine gun, 40mm grenade launcher

• Other: Amtracs can cross an 8-foot ditch and climb a 3-foot wall
Information from The Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press were added to this report.

Apropos of someone's post ten or so back:

I believe that it was ex-President Clinton, who, upon being asked why he did what he did with Monica in the Oval Office, replied: "I did it for the worst possible reasons. Because I could."

Still tryin' to pick a fight, huh, Whooda?