From: John Cuccia 

On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 16:46:53 +0100, Adam  wrote:

>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.

So, leave us exposed.  If Blair hadn't helped legitimized the invasion Bush
would have been exposed years ago.

>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

True with respect to US armed forces also.

>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

That's where you lose me.  You are a sovereign state.  Quite simply if your
government wanted to redeploy its troops, it could.

> 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.

Bad politically for the US, not for the UK.  All your boy needs is balls. 
You cannot blame the US because he doesn't have any.

>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?

That's no calculus I ever studied, so I can't answer.

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5