chicot

The irony is that by removing Saddam, Iraq is likely to become a very close ally of Iran rather than the US. Not only is a Shia-dominated Iraq a natural ally for Shia Iran but also many of the members of the current Iraqi government, including the prime-minister, spent years in exile in Iran.

I'm not blaming the guys on the ground. They were being asked to do a job (peacekeeping) that they weren't really properly trained nor prepared for.

You really hit the nail on the head there. The truly tragic thing about Iraq is that much of the insurgency could actually have been avoided and Iraq could now be relatively stable. There was actually quite a lot of goodwill towards the US, even in the so-called "Sunni triangle". Unfortunately the appalling decisions made in the first few months following the fall of Saddam created ideal conditions for the insurgency to take hold. The decision to disband the Iraqi army gave the insurgency hundreds of thousands of military trained men with no stake in the new Iraq and a major grudge against the occupation. The failure to secure military bases meant that many of them were looted and almost certainly much of that weaponry is now in the hands of the insurgents. I know that in the town where my relatives were living, there was a military base nearby and the townsfolk were begging the US soldiers to do something about it due to the dubious characters walking off with all sorts of military hardware. They were told that since they had no orders on this subject, they could do nothing. The decision to sack baathists from jobs even when there was no evidence that they had committed any crimes also alienated the Sunni community and helped recruitment to the insurgency. Many teachers, doctors etc ... were sacked simply because they were members of the Baath party and the fact of the matter is that many people joined the party because it was the only way to get a better job. As you referred to, heavy-handed tactics in central Iraq also caused a lot of bad feeling, as was admitted by US commanders. Things did improve but by then the damage was done. As far as Iraq splitting into three entities go, the Kurds certainly want their own state (but Turkey would never allow this) but I don't really think the differences between Sunni and Shiite Arabs in Iraq are so great. Certainly Zarqawis lot have been doing their best to stir up trouble, but for years the communities were very close with intermarriage being common.

It would certainly be a war crime if it was used on civilians but, so far, the pentagon has only admitted to using it against insurgents (after denying this for months and claiming that it was only used as a smokescreen or for illumination purposes) though it would not be beyond the bounds of possibility that civilians were affected by it, as the Italian documentary claims. I'm not sure if it's really that credible that those who were denying this for so long really did not know what their soldiers were doing. More on WP

You're late for your KKK meeting.

Sounds good It's a drink as well, but I don't quite think AD was referring to questioning a drink.

What's a "tango"?

Stating that Alaska is not the entire USA is "anti-US"? Wierd.

Strange, I don't actually recall saying that I had any "insight" nor did I claim to "know so much about the subject". It seems that under the new rules of the PPP board, you are forbidden from making any comment whatsoever unless you have expert knowledge of the subject.

At the risk of sounding like the monkey, Alaska is not a country. Alaska may or may not have very strict rules regarding oil companies (I don't know) but that still doesn't mean that the US as a whole has "the most stringent environmental rules".

You could smell him from the US ?

The entire continent?

Care to clarify that? Who exactly smells like a goat?

Palestinian response However, a senior Palestinian official rejected the Iranian position. "Palestinians recognise the right of the state of Israel to exist and I reject his comments," chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told the BBC News website. "What we need to be talking about is adding the state of Palestine to the map and not wiping Israel from the map," he said.

Going on memory, I seem to remember Saddam threatening to "burn Israel with fire". You're right, these sort of statements are not unprecendented and amount to little more than a lot of hot air. It's not as if Israel is without the ability to defend itself.

"rooster-up" = mistake, blunder, error etc.... (get your minds out of the gutter )

What about the concept of personal responsibility? If Joe Bloggs makes a rooster-up at work, can he now escape all criticism by saying "Oh well, it's done now. Whining about it won't solve anything"? This war and, more especially, the shambolic post-war "planning" have resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands and billions of dollars wasted. Should those responsible for that be immune from criticism, lest people be accused of "whining"?

? I must have missed something since I can't actually find a post in this thread in which TPS actually referred to the number of US servicemen killed in Iraq.

Very different. Are the troops in Germany being attacked some 50 or so times a day? Do most of the Germans want the troops to leave? Did the party that won most of the seats in the German election have as one of it's main policies the establishment of a definite timetable for the withdrawal of US forces?

And what did Saddam have to do with 9-11?

Curious results in Ninevah

You're right - they need three provinces. It's almost certain that 2 have voted no, leaving Nineveh and Diyala as the critical ones. The results from Nineveh in particular seem somewhat wierd. As for the 99% votes in favour, that certainly seems freakishly large, though why they'd bother vote-rigging in provinces that were certain to vote yes anyway is anyones guess.

My comment was just to play devil's advocate. I suspect that some on the far right would see his actions as more or less traitorous and I was curious as to what others made of this.

From the marines to Al-Jazeera Is he a traitor?

Wierd