THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

Sir
If is the only individual like Rama Fuchs one can ignore.
I was there in Bagdad last year and I had never been to Hell which I had endured in Bagdad.
English language is not my mother- tongue.

Let us relax.
Iraq war is a criminal war with barbaric behaviour.
Try to civilize your village and supply soup for the NO( a state devasted by the natural disaster.) Still those citizens seek soup and I don't know what is UNIted amonst U?

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Quote:

U.S. Steps Up Unilateral Strikes in Pakistan
Officials Fear Support From Islamabad Will Wane
By Robin Wright and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 27, 2008; Page A01

The United States has escalated its unilateral strikes against al-Qaeda members and fighters operating in Pakistan's tribal areas, partly because of anxieties that Pakistan's new leaders will insist on scaling back military operations in that country, according to U.S. officials.

Washington is worried that pro-Western President Pervez Musharraf, who has generally supported the U.S. strikes, will almost certainly have reduced powers in the months ahead, and so it wants to inflict as much damage as it can to al-Qaeda's network now, the officials said.

Over the past two months, U.S.-controlled Predator aircraft are known to have struck at least three sites used by al-Qaeda operatives. The moves followed a tacit understanding with Musharraf and Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani that allows U.S. strikes on foreign fighters operating in Pakistan, but not against the Pakistani Taliban, the officials said.

About 45 Arab, Afghan and other foreign fighters have been killed in the attacks, all near the Afghan border, U.S. and Pakistani officials said. The goal was partly to jar loose information on senior al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, by forcing them to move in ways that U.S. intelligence analysts can detect. Local sources are providing better information to guide the strikes, the officials said.

A senior U.S. official called it a "shake the tree" strategy. It has not been without controversy, others said. Some military officers have privately cautioned that airstrikes alone -- without more U.S. special forces soldiers on the ground in the region -- are unlikely to net the top al-Qaeda leaders.

The campaign is not designed to capture bin Laden before Bush leaves office, administration officials said. "It's not a blitz to close this chapter," said a senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of ongoing operations. "If we find the leadership, then we'll go after it. But nothing can be done to put al-Qaeda away in the next nine or 10 months. In the long haul, it's an issue that extends beyond this administration."

Musharraf, who controls the country's military forces, has long approved U.S. military strikes on his own. But senior officials in Pakistan's leading parties are now warning that such unilateral attacks -- including the Predator strikes launched from bases near Islamabad and Jacobabad in Pakistan -- could be curtailed.

"We have always said that as for strikes, that is for Pakistani forces to do and for the Pakistani government to decide. . . . We do not envision a situation in which foreigners will enter Pakistan and chase targets," said Farhatullah Babar, a top spokesman for the Pakistan People's Party, whose leader, Yousaf Raza Gillani, is the new prime minister. "This war on terror is our war."

Leaders of Gillani's party say they are interested in starting talks with local Taliban leaders and giving a political voice to the millions who live in Pakistan's tribal areas. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte and Assistant Secretary of State Richard A. Boucher heard the message directly yesterday from tribal elders in the village of Landi Kotal in the Khyber area.

"We told the visiting U.S. guests that the traditional jirga [tribal decision-making] system should be made effective to eliminate the causes of militancy and other problems from the tribal areas," said Malik Darya Khan, an elder. "We also told them that we have some disgruntled brothers" -- an indirect reference to local Taliban and militants -- who should be pulled into the mainstream through negotiations and dialogue, he said.

"The tribal turmoil can be resolved only through negotiations, not with military operations," Khan added. But he and others have said little specifically about how the new government should cope with foreign fighters, causing the Bush administration to engage in heavy lobbying on that issue.

President Bush called Gillani on Tuesday, for example, to stress the importance of the U.S.-Pakistani alliance and to emphasize that "fighting extremists is in everyone's interest," a White House spokesman said.

Daniel Markey, a former State Department policy planning staffer who is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said "the new faces" in Pakistan's leadership "are not certain how they want to manage their relationship with the United States. You can't blame them," because they are pulled in opposite directions by their electorate and the Bush administration.

But Kamran Bokhari, a Pakistani who directs Middle East analysis for Strategic Forecasting, a private intelligence group in Washington, said the new government will almost certainly take a harder line against such strikes. "These . . . are very unpopular, not because people support al-Qaeda, but because they feel Pakistan has no sovereignty," he said.

The latest Predator strike, on March 16, killed about 20 in Shahnawaz Kot; a Feb. 28 strike killed 12 foreign militants in the village of Kaloosha; and a Jan. 29 strike killed 13 people, including senior al-Qaeda commander Abu Laith al-Libi, in North Waziristan.

U.S. intelligence officials estimate that al-Qaeda has several hundred operatives in the Waziristan tribal region. "But as we learned on 9/11, it only takes 19," said the senior U.S. official. "These are not Tora Bora bomb-everything operations," he added, referring to the blanket bombing of Afghanistan's mountainous area where al-Qaeda leaders were hiding in late 2001.

A spokesman at CIA headquarters declined to comment on the strikes. The agency officially maintains a policy of strict secrecy regarding its counterterrorism operations in the border region and does not announce Predator strikes.

But other U.S. officials said that after months of prodding, the Bush administration and the Musharraf government this year reached a tacit understanding that gave Washington a freer hand to carry out precision strikes against al-Qaeda and its allies in the border region. The issue is a sensitive one that neither side is willing to discuss openly, the officials said.

Asked to comment, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell denied that the two governments have an "arrangement" or an "understanding." But he said that they face a mutual enemy and that "everything we do to go after terrorists operating there is in consultation and coordination with the Pakistani government."

Thomas H. Johnson, a research professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., said: "People inside the Beltway are aware that Musharraf's days are numbered, and so they recognize they may only have a few months to do this. Musharraf has . . . very few friends in the world -- he probably has more inside the Beltway than in his own country."

The administration's intensified effort against al-Qaeda also has benefited from shifting loyalties among residents of the border region. Some tribal and religious leaders who embraced foreign al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters as they fled from Afghanistan in 2001 now see them as troublemakers and are providing timely intelligence about their movements and hideouts, according to former U.S. officials and Pakistan experts.

"They see traffic coming and going from the fortress homes of tribal leaders associated with foreign elements, and they pass the information along," said Shuja Nawaz, a Pakistani journalist in Washington and the author of a book on Pakistan's army. "Some quick surveillance is done, and then someone pops a couple of hundred-pound bombs at the house."

Yet despite a series of strikes, some U.S. military officers and experts question whether the strategy will be effective and worth its political costs.

"Jarring information loose is a method, but is it the most productive method? No. You need exploitation, troops on the ground. It's a huge operational stress, and it's probably not going to get the senior leadership," said a military officer with long experience in the region.

Local politicians also complain that the strikes only encourage militants to undertake retaliatory actions in urban areas. The politicians point to the recent string of suicide bombings of high-profile government targets in Rawalpindi, Lahore and Islamabad as evidence that militants are determined to take revenge for losses in the tribal areas.

"There's no way Pakistan can afford to follow a policy that is causing a war at home," said Khawaja Imran Raza, a top spokesman for former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N faction. "There's a need to revisit the policy and there's a need to reassess because the domestic cost is so huge. We have lost a prime minister -- our top opposition leader. We have lost generals, and just look at our losses in Lahore."

In 2005, the United States also attacked al-Qaeda sites in tribal areas, killing top operative Abu Hamza Rabia. In 2006, a Predator strike targeting three top al-Qaeda operatives killed only local villagers.

U.S. strategy could backfire if missiles take innocent lives. "The [tribal] Pashtuns have a saying: 'Kill one person, make 10 enemies,' " Johnson said. "You might take out a bad guy in one of these strikes, but you might also be creating more foot soldiers. This is a war in which the more people you kill, the faster you lose."

Correspondent Candace Rondeaux in Islamabad and special correspondent Imtiaz Ali in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

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Quote:

You are fed up, but most of the Iraqi people want us to stay until they and their government can protect themselves without our help. They do not want to experience a return to this kind of horror:

This statement is not backed up with any kind of actual truth but only your thoughts of what they should want.

Seven out of 10 Iraqis want foreign forces to leave: poll ORB and its local partner IIACSS interviewed 4,000 Iraqis in person between February 24 and March 5.

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Coalition jets drop bombs in Basra

Quote:

BAGHDAD - Coalition jets dropped bombs overnight in Basra for the first time since clashes between Shiite militias and Iraqi security forces erupted in the southern oil port this week, British officials said Friday.

Shiite militants also clashed with government forces for a fourth day in Iraq's oil-rich south and sporadic fighting broke out in Baghdad, despite a weekend curfew in the capital.

Five years later we are still fighting but hey; "normalcy is returning back to Iraq."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/whitehouse/story/31825.html

And we always knew this was going to be easy and we wouldn't have to house fight and the Shia and Sunni were always going to get along.

Go figure

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Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just write a script for conducting a war and follow it? Let's see....we will shoot X number of your combatants on Thursday and you can shoot X number of our soldiers on Friday. By next Thursday the number of hostilities will be reduced by X amount.

War is never like that, however, and there will be really bad times, better times, improving times, set backs, solutions found, new problems that turn up, progress and disappointments.

Those who have been to and fought in Iraq will have a much different perspective of the situation over there than will those whose only knowledge comes through media filters. Those of us old enough to remember past wars, who have friends and families who were there, some who died there, might have a better handle on the realities of war that cannot be just lined up in a nice neat order and say that this is the way it is or should be.

It doesn't help when the situation is described dishonestly by either side. Currently John McCain is being hammered by Democrats who claim he wants to keep fighting in Iraq for a 100 years. McCain didn't say anything even remotely like that, but the truth doesn't seem to matter much anymore.

March 28, 2008
The 100 Year Lie
By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- Asked at a New Hampshire campaign stop about possibly staying in Iraq 50 years, John McCain interrupted -- "Make it a hundred" -- then offered a precise analogy to what he envisioned: "We've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so." Lest anyone think he was talking about prolonged war-fighting rather than maintaining a presence in postwar Iraq, he explained: "That would be fine with me, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."

And lest anyone persist in thinking he was talking about war-fighting, he told his questioner: "It's fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintained a presence in a very volatile part of the world."

There is another analogy to the kind of benign and strategically advantageous "presence" McCain was suggesting for postwar Iraq: Kuwait. The U.S. (with allies) occupied Kuwait in 1991 and has remained there with a major military presence for 17 years. We debate dozens of foreign policy issues in this country. I've yet to hear any serious person of either party call for a pullout from Kuwait.

Why? Because our presence projects power and provides stability for the entire Gulf and for vulnerable U.S. allies that line its shores.

The desirability of a similar presence in Iraq was obvious as long as five years ago to retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, one of Barack Obama's leading military advisers and his campaign co-chairman. During the first week of the Iraq War, McPeak (a war critic) suggested in an interview that "we'll be there a century, hopefully. If it works right." (Meaning, if we win.)

Why is that a hopeful outcome? Because maintaining a U.S. military presence in Iraq would provide regional stability, as well as cement a long-term allied relationship with the most important Arab country in the region.

As McPeak himself said about our long stay in Europe, Japan and Korea, "This is the way great powers operate." One can argue that such a presence in Iraq might not be worth the financial expense. A legitimate point -- it might require working out the kind of relations we have with Japan, which picks up about 75 percent of the cost of U.S. forces stationed there.

Alternatively, one might advocate simply bolstering our presence in Kuwait, a choice that would minimize risk, albeit at the sacrifice of some power projection. Such a debate would be fruitful and help inform our current negotiations with Baghdad over the future status of American forces.

But a serious argument is not what Democrats are seeking. They want the killer sound bite, the silver bullet to take down McCain. According to Politico, they have found it: "Dems to hammer McCain for '100 years.'"

The device? Charge that McCain is calling for a hundred years of war. Hence:

-- "He (McCain) says that he is willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq" (Barack Obama, Feb. 19).

-- "We are bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another 100 years" (Obama, Feb. 26).

-- "He's (McCain) willing to keep this war going for 100 years" (Hillary Clinton, March 17).

-- "What date between now and the election in November will he (McCain) drop this promise of a 100-year war in Iraq?" (Chris Matthews, March 4).

Why, even a CNN anchor (Rick Sanchez) buys it: "John McCain is telling us ... that we need to win even if it takes 100 years" (March 16).

As Lenin is said to have said: "A lie told often enough becomes truth." And as this lie passes into truth, the Democrats are ready to deploy it "as the linchpin of an effort to turn McCain's national security credentials against him," reports David Paul Kuhn of Politico.

Hence: A Howard Dean fundraising letter charging McCain with seeking "an endless war in Iraq." And a Democratic National Committee press release in which Dean asserts: "McCain's strategy is a war without end. ... Elect John McCain and get 100 years in Iraq."

The Annenberg Political Fact Check, a nonprofit and nonpartisan project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, says: "It's a rank falsehood for the DNC to accuse McCain of wanting to wage 'endless war' based on his support for a presence in Iraq something like the U.S. role in South Korea."

The Democrats are undeterred. "It's seldom you get such a clean shot," a senior Obama adviser told Politico. It's seldom that you see such a dirty lie.
LINK

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Charles Krauthammer wrote:

There is another analogy to the kind of benign and strategically advantageous "presence" McCain was suggesting...

I like it. Look at the current situation in Iraq: we've been told, 5 years ago, that the war is over. By definition, the current military occupation is the 'postwar phase'. With tens of thousands of people killed in tribal fighting, militia warfare, terrorist attacks. With thousands of American soldiers dead, and many more wounded.

But fersure, as long as the deaths could be limited to non-Americans, we could it even call a benign and strategically advantageous "presence".

Funny.

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old europe wrote:

Charles Krauthammer wrote:
There is another analogy to the kind of benign and strategically advantageous "presence" McCain was suggesting...

I like it. Look at the current situation in Iraq: we've been told, 5 years ago, that the war is over. By definition, the current military occupation is the 'postwar phase'. With tens of thousands of people killed in tribal fighting, militia warfare, terrorist attacks. With thousands of American soldiers dead, and many more wounded.

But fersure, as long as the deaths could be limited to non-Americans, we could it even call a benign and strategically advantageous "presence".

Funny.

Try to focus now OE. Can you not see that Krauthammer is saying that McCain was/is specifically talking about the kind of presence we have in Kuwait? In Korea? In Bosnia? In Germany? In Japan? Do you think those presences are related to deaths, American or nonAmerican? Surely even somebody as anti-American as you can see what his point is in that article.

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Foxfyre wrote:

old europe wrote:
Charles Krauthammer wrote:
There is another analogy to the kind of benign and strategically advantageous "presence" McCain was suggesting...

I like it. Look at the current situation in Iraq: we've been told, 5 years ago, that the war is over. By definition, the current military occupation is the 'postwar phase'. With tens of thousands of people killed in tribal fighting, militia warfare, terrorist attacks. With thousands of American soldiers dead, and many more wounded.

But fersure, as long as the deaths could be limited to non-Americans, we could it even call a benign and strategically advantageous "presence".

Funny.

Try to focus now OE. Can you not see that Krauthammer is saying that McCain was/is specifically talking about the kind of presence we have in Korea? In Bosnia? In Germany? In Japan? Do you think those presences are related to deaths, American or nonAmerican? Surely even somebody as anti-American as you can see what his point is in that article.

What makes you think there's any similarity to Iraq? Cool

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Foxfyre wrote:

Try to focus now OE.

I notice some hostility there, Foxy.

Foxfyre wrote:

Can you not see that Krauthammer is saying that McCain was/is specifically talking about the kind of presence we have in Korea? In Bosnia? In Germany? In Japan?

Yes, I can see that. I'm just saying that the comparison is ridiculous. The military presence in post-war Germany (or in those other countries) did, at no point in time, even vaguely resemble the current military 'post-war' occupation of Iraq.

What a silly idea.

Foxfyre wrote:

Do you think those presences are related to deaths, American or nonAmerican?

Well, that's the point, isn't it? How many Americans have been killed in South Korea, Japan or Germany after the end of 'main battle operations'? During the reconstruction phase. Where troops were only present to safeguard rebuilding democracies?

Rough estimate?

Foxfyre wrote:

Surely even somebody as anti-American as you can see what his point is in that article.

Back off, Foxy. Calling somebody "anti-American" because he doesn't agree with you is really pathetic. Even for you.

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old europe wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
Try to focus now OE.

I notice some hostility there, Foxy.

Foxfyre wrote:
Can you not see that Krauthammer is saying that McCain was/is specifically talking about the kind of presence we have in Korea? In Bosnia? In Germany? In Japan?

Yes, I can see that. I'm just saying that the comparison is ridiculous. The military presence in post-war Germany (or in those other countries) did, at no point in time, even vaguely resemble the current military 'post-war' occupation of Iraq.

What a silly idea.

Foxfyre wrote:
Do you think those presences are related to deaths, American or nonAmerican?

Well, that's the point, isn't it? How many Americans have been killed in South Korea, Japan or Germany after the end of 'main battle operations'? During the reconstruction phase. Where troops were only present to safeguard rebuilding democracies?

Rough estimate?

Foxfyre wrote:
Surely even somebody as anti-American as you can see what his point is in that article.

Back off, Foxy. Calling somebody "anti-American" because he doesn't agree with you is really pathetic. Even for you.

The comparisons are so silly, I wonder why they can't even see it themselves. It only shows they are desperate to show there is some support for what we are doing in Iraq, but that fails from beginning to "end."

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old europe wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
Try to focus now OE.

I notice some hostility there, Foxy.

You're darn right. When you presume to look down your nose at us and suggest that we are okay with a 100 year war so long as it is nonAmerican deaths that occur, you can pretty well count on a hostile reaction just about every time you say something like that.

Quote:

Foxfyre wrote:
Can you not see that Krauthammer is saying that McCain was/is specifically talking about the kind of presence we have in Korea? In Bosnia? In Germany? In Japan?

Yes, I can see that. I'm just saying that the comparison is ridiculous. The military presence in post-war Germany (or in those other countries) did, at no point in time, even vaguely resemble the current military 'post-war' occupation of Iraq.

What a silly idea.

In Kuwait you're right. We were never at war with the Kuwaitis. But if you think there was not residual resistance in Korea, Germany, Japan et al after the initial occupation, your history teachers really let you down. At any case, McCain's 100 years certain held the expectation that the current hostilities in Iraq are not a permanent thing. That was sort of the whole point of the article. The Democrats of course don't want that to be the point and you seem unable to grasp that concept either.

Quote:

Foxfyre wrote:
Do you think those presences are related to deaths, American or nonAmerican?

Well, that's the point, isn't it? How many Americans have been killed in South Korea, Japan or Germany after the end of 'main battle operations'? During the reconstruction phase. Where troops were only present to safeguard rebuilding democracies?

Rough estimate?

Apples and oranges. We pretty well bludgeoned Germany into total submission and there weren't other countries infiltrating terrorists into Germany to take potshots at us (or the Germans) after the occupation. Different war - different circumstances. But peaceful presence looks pretty much the same anywhere it exists. McCain's 100 years assumed a mostly peaceful presence. It is dishonest beyond belief to portray it any other way.

Quote:

Foxfyre wrote:
Surely even somebody as anti-American as you can see what his point is in that article.

Back off, Foxy. Calling somebody "anti-American" because he doesn't agree with you is really pathetic. Even for you.

[/QUOTE]

Many many people disagree with me without being unAmerican. Those who suggest that Americans want war and/or want anybody's unnecessary deaths is going to be seen unAmerican by me every single time. Now if you will apologize for implying that or show me how that was not your intention, I will agree that you aren't speaking from an unAmerican perspective.

If you don't want my opinion, please don't respond to my posts.

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It's indeed very funny how Foxy is able to describe anyone "unAmerican" when they can't even see what Americanism is all about.

They probably don't understand the meaning of "racial bigot."

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Foxfyre wrote:

But if you think there was not residual resistance in Korea, Germany, Japan et al after the initial occupation, your history teachers really let you down.

I lived and live in the British Zone of Germany (though we were occupied by the Americans) and indeed, I only know about this by history lessons in school and and studying history at university.

I must have been let down.

But since oe knows more about the American Zone ...

(We had - as youth - quite some trouble with the Canadian troops .... about girls, and in discothecs.)

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Foxfyre wrote:

old europe wrote:
Foxfyre wrote:
Try to focus now OE.

I notice some hostility there, Foxy.

You're darn right. When you presume to look down your nose at us and suggest that we are okay with a 100 year war so long as it is nonAmerican deaths that occur, you can pretty well count on a hostile reaction just about every time you say something like that.

Not war. I specifically said 'post-war'. We're talking about the American occupation of Iraq here.

And it's not me looking down my nose, it's McCain. Voilá, from Meet the Press:

Quote:

Q: You were asked, "President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years." You answered, "Maybe 100. We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That'd be fine with me, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, then it's fine with me."

So you'd be all right with having US troops in Iraq for the next 100 years?

McCain: Most importantly, so would the American people if Americans aren't dying.

Of course, he eventually went on to elaborate and said that, hey, Americans would even be fine with 10,000 years occupation, as long as no Americans deaths occur.

Foxfyre wrote:

Quote:
Foxfyre wrote:
Can you not see that Krauthammer is saying that McCain was/is specifically talking about the kind of presence we have in Korea? In Bosnia? In Germany? In Japan?

Yes, I can see that. I'm just saying that the comparison is ridiculous. The military presence in post-war Germany (or in those other countries) did, at no point in time, even vaguely resemble the current military 'post-war' occupation of Iraq.

What a silly idea.

In Kuwait you're right. We were never at war with the Kuwaitis. But if you think there was not residual resistance in Korea, Germany, Japan et al after the initial occupation, your history teachers really let you down.

Okay. Possible. Again, tell me: how many Americans were killed in post-war South Korea/Germany/Japan?

Foxfyre wrote:

At any case, McCain's 100 years certain held the expectation that the current hostilities in Iraq are not a permanent thing. That was sort of the whole point of the article. The Democrats of course don't want that to be the point and you seem unable to grasp that concept either.

The point of the article was to compare post-war South Korea/Germany/Japan to Iraq. And say, hey, it's gone swimmingly in all those countries, and citizens were even okay with American military bases in their countries for decades. Why shouldn't that work in Iraq?

Now here's the question: what would lead you to believe that the situation in Iraq is even remotely similar to the situation after World War II? What aspects, exactly, are so similar that we can confidently expect a similar result?

Foxfyre wrote:

Quote:
Foxfyre wrote:
Do you think those presences are related to deaths, American or nonAmerican?

Well, that's the point, isn't it? How many Americans have been killed in South Korea, Japan or Germany after the end of 'main battle operations'? During the reconstruction phase. Where troops were only present to safeguard rebuilding democracies?

Rough estimate?

Apples and oranges. We pretty well bludgeoned Germany into total submission and there weren't other countries infiltrating terrorists into Germany to take potshots at us (or the Germans) after the occupation. Different war - different circumstances.

Exactly my point. Thank you.

Foxfyre wrote:

But peaceful presence looks pretty much the same anywhere it exists. McCain's 100 years assumed a mostly peaceful presence. It is dishonest beyond belief to portray it any other way.

It may assume a more peaceful presence, but it does that based on the comparison between Iraq and the post-WWII countries/South Korea.

You just said that the situation is not comparable at all. Different wars. Different circumstances.

And now we're being told that in spite of that, it makes sense to expect the same results.

Ridiculous.

Foxfyre wrote:

Quote:
Foxfyre wrote:
Surely even somebody as anti-American as you can see what his point is in that article.

Back off, Foxy. Calling somebody "anti-American" because he doesn't agree with you is really pathetic. Even for you.

Many many people disagree with me without being unAmerican. Those who suggest that Americans want war and/or want anybody's unnecessary deaths is going to be seen unAmerican by me every single time. Now if you will apologize for implying that or show me how that was not your intention, I will agree that you aren't speaking from an unAmerican perspective.

If you don't want my opinion, please don't respond to my posts.

Well, it's not my fault if you read my posts that way. It's not what I had said.

However, it's your fault if you resort to calling people who disagree with you, even on the situation in Iraq, "unAmerican".

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oe, Glad you were able to challenge each "claim" made by Foxy. They are so biased in their thinking, they can't see their own inconsistencies.

Typical.

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OE writes

Quote:

However, it's your fault if you resort to calling people who disagree with you, even on the situation in Iraq, "unAmerican".

The only ones I call "antiAmerican" are those who presume moral superiority, presume to preach to us how we are supposed to conduct our affairs, and then accuse us of absurd motives and intended activities.

Yeah, I see those who see America that way, both homegrown and abroad, as generally antiAmerican.

You can pretty well count on that.

And it has absolutely NOTHING to do with disagreements re Iraq.

It's really sad that some are unable to grasp that concept. And that is your fault.

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foxfire wrote :

Quote:

But if you think there was not residual resistance in Korea, Germany, Japan et al after the initial occupation, your history teachers really let you down.

perhaps you want to enlighten the readers where that "residual resistance" in germany took place .
i lived through the war and occupation years as a teenager and have posted about my personal experiences during that time several times on a2k .

to the best of my knowledge , no allied soldiers or germans died from any war-like actions after the war ended .

so i wonder where the "residual resistance" was ?

the germans were certainly too exhausted and hungry to offer any resisitance - and they didn't have any weapons either .

however i do remember seeing the pictures of iraqi soldiers being sent back to their villages when the "main action" ended in iraq and each of them being handed a rifle by american soldiers as they were leaving - that was slightly different from what happened in germany were all weapons were collected from the germans and destroyed by the allied forces ( not that the germans had any objection to that - they were mighty glad the war war over ) .
hbg

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Foxfyre wrote:

The only ones I call "antiAmerican" are those who presume moral superiority, presume to preach to us how we are supposed to conduct our affairs, and then accuse us of absurd motives and intended activities.

(1) I don't ascribe to that catalogue of anti-[fill in country]-ness.

I'll even go so far as to say that if you really did, you'd be obliged to tell several posters here on A2K that they are really anti-[Iraqi/Palestinian/Venezuelan/fill in foe du jour] due to their presumed moral superiority, to preaching how the respective countries should conduct their affairs and due to accusing them of absurd motives and intended activities.

(2) Even in your catalogue of what qualifies somebody as "antiAmerican," I see nothing that is pertinent to my on-topic posts above.

Foxfyre wrote:

Yeah, I see those who see America that way, both homegrown and abroad, as generally antiAmerican.

Well, I guess you do. It's always an easy way out. Easier than actually questioning dealing with their arguments.

Foxfyre wrote:

You can pretty well count on that.

I will.

Foxfyre wrote:

And it has absolutely NOTHING to do with disagreements re Iraq.

Then why did you call me "anti-American"? Your accusation. Go ahead and point out why it was warranted.

Foxfyre wrote:

It's really sad that some are unable to grasp that concept. And that is your fault.

See above.

And, funny enough, by focusing on the point of how "unAmerican" I am, you have completely avoided of dealing with the actual topic.

Absent evidence to the contrary, I'm going to assume that that was the actual reason for calling me "anti-American".

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And as we should not be taken off topic by those silly accusations, this here warrants repeating:

hamburger wrote:

foxfire wrote :

Quote:
But if you think there was not residual resistance in Korea, Germany, Japan et al after the initial occupation, your history teachers really let you down.

perhaps you want to enlighten the readers where that "residual resistance" in germany took place .
i lived through the war and occupation years as a teenager and have posted about my personal experiences during that time several times on a2k .

to the best of my knowledge , no allied soldiers or germans died from any war-like actions after the war ended .

so i wonder where the "residual resistance" was ?

I'd really like to see an answer to that question.

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OE, you responded to the Krauthammer's statement I posted--the one in which he explained, as McCain has also explained, that the "100 year presence" would be the peaceful benign sort as Americans demonstrate all over the world--with this:

Quote:

I like it. Look at the current situation in Iraq: we've been told, 5 years ago, that the war is over. By definition, the current military occupation is the 'postwar phase'. With tens of thousands of people killed in tribal fighting, militia warfare, terrorist attacks. With thousands of American soldiers dead, and many more wounded.

But fersure, as long as the deaths could be limited to non-Americans, we could it even call a benign and strategically advantageous "presence

Now if you did not intend to imply that Krauthammer and McCain have your vision of Iraq in mind with a 100-year presence that looks like Iraq of the last five years, then say so and admit that you distorted what Krauthammer said.

Otherwise I will assume that I was correct in my observation that you think they want a prolonged occupation involving 10s of thousands of deaths so long as it isn't Americans who are being killed. And it is this kind of distortion of American goals and intentions that gives me a very strong impression of antiAmericanism that is insulting.

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THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

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