From: Adam 

John Cuccia wrote:
> On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 12:16:02 +0100, Adam 
> wrote:
>
>> I object to people talking about "taking out" entire
cities. Maybe it's
>> just me & visions of Grozny.
>
> I gave up on the not-fully-human GaryB shortly after Katrina.  While
> he is best ignored, I do occasionally hurl insults at him.
>
> Phil, on the other hand, who I always considered to be quite
> reasonable (though annoyingly pedantic), seems recently to have become
> as frantic as GaryB, as evidenced by the recent epiphany re Saddam
> being a really "nice guy" and his incessant bashing of all Americans
> as murderers and animals because of the actions of our politicians.
>
> If he were rational, he'd realize that if all Americans fit that
> description, then so do all Englishmen, because your government has
> played an integral role in the overthrow of Saddam and the resulting
> cockup in Iraq.  Hell, without your PM's support, Bush would have had
> to go it alone.  You people provided the political cover needed to
> launch the invasion in the first place and have been willing
> participants since the beginning.  What's the matter with you
> war-mongering animals?  First you leave a house of cards in place when
> deserting the remains of your erstwhile empire and then you support
> the overthrow of one of the few reasonably stable secular states left
> in the region?
>
> And you, Adam, seem recently to be blaming the US for putting British
> boys in harm's way in Iraq.  That is quite irrational.  The US doesn't
> deploy British troops, your own government does.   The US didn't put
> those troops in harm's way, your own government did so voluntarily.
>

Hummmmm. Technically yes but the UK gov have been lent on repeatedly as a
UK withdrawal would leave the US completely exposed.

What s worse, they've been lent on to take on even more missions e.g. in Afghanistan

The result is the PBI are completely overstretched & something has got to give

A good example right now is we don't have enough troops in Afghanistan
& already the rotation schedules are causing real friction in the army
(even soldiers have families).

So where are the troops going to come from? People suggested
"declaring sucess" in Iraq & moving the PBI over to
Baluchistan but.....your gov nixed that coz then what with the Italians,
Poles, Spanish, Japanese etc all having faired le bugger off that would
leave the US alone (chances are if we pulled out so would the ozzies) &
that's bad politically.

Now wrt actually putting UK troops at risk, the current US total support
for Israel in their attack on a fellow (though Arab) democracy is actively
putting UK forces at risk esp as we are holding the area of Iraq most
closely allied to Hezbollah.


> FWIW (and that's very little at this stage)  I agree that the US
> invasion was a mistake of incalculable proportions and has made things
> infinitely more dangerous in Iraq than during Saddam's day.
>

Ditto Israel wrt Lebanon but that ain't my problem. My problem is if this
spills over into Southern iraq etc & UK troops are killed as a direct
result.

How much do captured Israeli soldiers cost in UK soldier's lives?

Adam

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