Picture of the Day - "Progress" in Iraq / Update

[Chandernagore]

Oh we can't follow with the news !

Now I hear that operation 'Iron Resolve" has turned into "Operation Let's Talk a Little" in Falluja.

Probably because it was felt that it was too hard or too risky to clean the mess house by house :roll:

[Florin]

QUOTE

.... Now I hear that operation 'Iron Resolve\" has turned into \"Operation Let's Talk a Little\"  in Falluja....

Yes, but while Paul Bremer told reporters on Friday: "As of noon today coalition forces have initiated a unilateral suspension of offensive operations in Falluja", the US-led occupation's deputy director of operations, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, denied the reports of a ceasefire.
"There is no brokered agreement for a ceasefire in Falluja," Kimmitt told AFP. "There is no agreement between the rebels and the coalition forces." Minutes after Bremer's announcement, US forces carried out a fresh offensive on Falluja bombing the town from the air. Scores of residents were injured in the attack.

During negotiations to end the military offensive, US forces imposed many conditions including getting the Aljazeera TV reporting crew out of the town.
Why the Marines feel embarrassed by TV reporting crews? The news do not reach too much the American public, anyway. 8)
Maybe to show to the ignorant Iraqis how a democracy should work:
1. Not allowing TV reporters when they are most needed
2. Forbidding inconvenient newspapers, like that of Al-Sadr, which generated the recent Shia rebellion
3. Banning inconvenient Iraqi TV stations, as happened 2 months ago
4. Classifying information for the Iraqi people and the world, like the number of daily Iraqi civil casualties made by the American troops.
The following are Internet news as they were issued in that moment:

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Today: December 10, 2003 at 11:35:12 PST

AP: Iraq to Stop Counting Civilian Dead
By NIKO PRICE
ASSOCIATED PRESS

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -

Iraqi Health Ministry officials ordered a halt to a count of civilian casualties from the war and told workers not to release figures already compiled, the head of the ministry's statistics department told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The health minister, Dr. Khodeir Abbas, denied that he or the U.S.-led occupation authority had anything to do with the order, and said he didn't even know about the survey of deaths, which number in the thousands .

Dr. Nagham Mohsen, the head of the ministry's statistics department, said the order came from the ministry's director of planning, Dr. Nazar Shabandar, who told her it was on behalf of Abbas (health minister) She said the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which oversees the ministry, didn't like the idea of the count either .

[Chandernagore]

What is stunning me is the handling of Japanese hostages. Now that's exactly the kind of thing the Irakis insurgents need to turn the world opinion upside down. And naturally the Japanese PM is no J Carter. What a blunder.

You never know with Japanese. They could have said : "liberate the 3 hostages or we shuttle 3 divisions with flamethrowers into Falluja" :mrgreen:

[Florin]

QUOTE

What is stunning me is the handling of Japanese hostages. Now that's exactly the kind of thing the Irakis insurgents need to turn the world opinion upside down. And naturally the Japanese PM is no J Carter. What a blunder.....

Yes, you are right.
As Fouche, the Internal Affairs Minister of Napoleon the Ist said in a certain situation: "It is more than a crime. It is a mistake."

[Indrid]

operation LETS TALK A LITTlE :loool: :loool: :loool: that is a good one.

i stilll believe that the iraq situation is not so desperate as it is shown... People, we are talking about a war that in one year has taken the lives of fewer people that a half an hour in Berlin 1945....it is not dramatic, but dramatized...our heroes are dying there scream the american people!! what heroes? when you are shot in the back or kidnapped, you are not a hero, you are a victim of murder. the fact that you wore a uniform and a weapon and posess a family back home does not make you a hero!!!!!!!! a hero survives or gives his life for the lives of others! Getting killed, i am sorry, but it does not qualify!

if there are so many insurgents and "terrorists in Irak , well there is a problem. the japanesegovernment is playing it strong, but this strenght does not hold to serious scrutiny. what if there were 100 hostages and just for the sake of showing they meant business, the kidnappers decapitated 20 of them. MEET OUR DEMANDS OR THEY WILL ALL BE KILLED!!!!!!!!! another days passes, another 20 executed!!!!! what, you still tough? we got 60 more? and when they will all be killed we will just disappear and nobody will know us! maybe we will even join the new iraki militia, if the situation becomes of such a nature. and what will Japan gain? the respect ( take this with a drop of salt) of their allies and the discontempt of the population who, frankly, does not give a sjit about the situation in irak and cares more about the fact that its own government is ready for unwanted sacrifice.

if this war will last another year, it will be lost. because war these days are not faught by armies. they are faught by the media, by the economic interests of some.....if it will be no longer profitable to wage this war, then thge situation will be ruly dramatic. imagine a US and UN retreat from Irak!!!!!!! imagine the devastation.....so for the american soldiers thgat are there i have only one thought: DO YOUR FUCKING JOBS!!!!!!!!!

pity the countries that need heroes.......

[Chandernagore]

Sure, the loss level is nowhere near Berlin 45. But it doesn't take that to win or loose the war today. The situation is spinning out of control with Iraki support for the coalition diving to the bottom of the pit. The result of the killings of these days is a heart & minds rift that probably cannot be made good. Bugging out is hardly a good option as it would be a crushing victory (or interpreted as such) by Muslim fundamentalism. Imagine the ensuing ripple waves...

So the US is stuck there, fighting an unwinable war until eroding support at home will force a withdrawal. The only questions remaining seem to be how much time and how many casualties will this require ?

Unless Bush is more clever than De Gaulle in Algeria. Somehow I doubt it.

[Florin]

QUOTE

.... Unless Bush is more clever than De Gaulle in Algeria. Somehow I doubt it.

As a personal point of view, I think president Bush is trapped in the problem he created himself. It is an electoral year here in the US, and I think president Bush would lose more votes if he withdraw the troops, than if he keep them there to take some casualties.
Remember, Bush is supported by the "Nuke the Muslims" kind of Americans, and the Democrats are supported by guys like me. We, the pro-Democrats, will not vote Bush anyway, but Bush's guys will not accept to see him soft.

PS: Many French guys did not understand, to say the least, the policy of De Gaulle. Some French even tried terrorist acts in Paris, but De Gaulle was lucky. And it is a good chance to remind that Algeria was like Iraq today: the Arab guerilla was crushed from a military point of view, but the French were so harsh with the civil population, that they awakened the international resentment against them.

[mabadesc]

Indrid wrote:

QUOTE

i stilll believe that the iraq situation is not so desperate as it is shown... People, we are talking about a war that in one year has taken the lives of fewer people that a half an hour in Berlin 1945....it is not dramatic, but dramatized...

Absolutely...It's dramatized not only by the "politically correct" media but mainly by anti-war American democrats who use every casualty as a political tool. The sad thing is, most of them couldn't care less about the dead soldiers, they care about bringing their own political party back to power.

Speaking of casualties, our resident American democrat in the forum, Florin, may remember that before the Iraki war started, democrats were screaming that there were going to be tens of thousands of dead American soldiers. When Rumsfeld estimated 2 to 3000 American casualties, they said he was being way too optimistic.
What are we up to now? Between 6 and 700 hundred dead soldiers.
But the democrats don't seem to remember their pre-war apocalyptic screams anymore...just goes to show you how concerned they really are with American lives :wink:
Come on, they're concerned with the upcoming election and getting votes...

Florin wrote:

QUOTE

Remember, Bush is supported by the \"Nuke the Muslims\" kind of Americans, and the Democrats are supported by guys like me.

For having such good and compassionate hearts, you guys (democrats) sure have a funny way of showing it. So far you've organized hundreds of protests and demonstrations for the 700 American soldiers who died in a war, in combat, but you barely organized any protests against the terrorists who killed 3000 people who were just going to work on 9/11. What is this, a new sort of "selective" compassion"? Or could it be just a political agenda to get votes?

[Chandernagore]

QUOTE

What are we up to now?  Between 6 and 700 hundred dead soldiers.

You forget Iraki police and civilian casulaties. Well, maybe that doesn't count on Bush political agenda...

[mabadesc]

Chander - don't misread my post. I was clearly speaking of American casualties. Trust me, if democrats don't care about US soldiers, they sure as hell don't care about Iraki casualties, be they military or civilians.

Nice try for misdirection, and deviating from the point, though. You're really good at that... :roll:

[Chandernagore]

QUOTE

Nice try for misdirection, and deviating from the point, though.  You're really good at that...

Non US casualties not on the political agenda at all. That's what I thought.

[Chandernagore]

Quick ! A world press sample...


Schroeder did his country a service by not sending Germany to the front line in Iraq in the alleged war against terror.. So that there is no misunderstanding: it is important for Germany to be friends with the Americans. But for this very reason, it could also be important not to be friends with George W Bush.

Commentary in Bild am Sonntag - Germany

With the insurgencies becoming more frequent and violent, the 'coalition of the willing' is proving to be a 'coalition of the wavering'... A year after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the coalition no longer controls much in Iraq, which is starting to look like Afghanistan at the time of the Soviet occupation.

Liberation - France

The resemblance between our invasion of Lebanon and America's invasion of Iraq is amazing. We wanted to create a new order in Lebanon; they wanted to create a new order in Iraq. Within a short time, in both cases, the Shia had woken up and the invading armies became targets of attack. We pulled out without achieving a thing and Bush is still there, mired in a sea of blood from which no good will come. If I were him, I'd send Saddam Hussein back to Iraq - he would know how to sort this mess out in no time.

Commentator in Haaretz - Israel

America's self-invented 'liberator' image has collapsed just as the statue of Saddam did a year ago.

People's Daily - China

For power to be handed to the Iraqis in June, it must now first be taken from them. The resistance is growing because the Iraqis don't want to live under occupation. And no amount of military force will make them feel otherwise.

Krasnaya Zvezda - Russia

[Alexandru H.]

I have a few people to thank:

My parents, for bringing me in this world
God, for taking me as quickly as He can from it
Bush, who managed to create the circumstances for a new Iran
Our government, which, with the help of terrorists, will kill romanians directly, rather than the once-praised indirect economic death

[cnflyboy2000]

[quote="mabadesc"]
Absolutely...It's dramatized not only by the "politically correct" media but mainly by anti-war American democrats who use every casualty as a political tool. The sad thing is, most of them couldn't care less about the dead soldiers, they care about bringing their own political party back to power.
_______________________________________________________________________



Au contraire, mon frere. I disagree with that. We care very much. I doubt there are few here, in either party, who genuinely do not care.

Of course, there is a general blind, if not blood, eye toward Iraqi casualties, by adherents of both parties.

The irony is that Bush II now looks to be reverting to the "realpolitik" of Bush I, While the neocons get in the back seat for awhile. Probably a case of too little, too late.

Whoever wins in the election is going to have some work to do.
That's why, so far, they are being pretty careful with each other, considering the ammo stockpiles they each (Dems and GOP) have for each other. :|

[Chandernagore]

QUOTE

I think president Bush is trapped in the problem he created himself.

He is, and badly. Not so badly however as the soldiers who have to pay the price of his clueless, narrow minded international policies and doctrine. I thank God that my Marine friend is currently based in Okinawa and far away from this meat grinder and I feel sad for all the good guys who must give their lives for what has become a hopeless cause. Even if the democrats manage to kick Bush out of office I don't see how anything positive can be salvaged from this politically botched situation.