British Deal with al-Sadr Betrayed Iraqi People
An Iraqi-eye view of an ally's shocking "accommodation" with the enemy.
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The news about a secret deal between the British and anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr did not come as a surprise to us. Britain’s war policy has been clear for the past several years: the country demonstrated no readiness to make sustained efforts in a prolonged war, nor did it act as a serious partner determined to win the conflict.
There are three aspects in this British betrayal. First, striking a deal with the enemy; second, selling an Iraqi city to the enemy of their Iraqi hosts and partners; and third, by not informing their American partners of their plans, enabling the U.S. military’s reliance on an untrustworthy partner — something the British military leadership turned out to be.
What’s worse — even assuming the “accommodation” was a thoughtful plan with good intentions — is that Britain upheld the deal even when the militias violated it. The militias did not renounce violence (attacks continued), and they did not switch to civil political activity. Still, the British didn’t take action.
To be fair, Britain deserves credit for being a good team member during the good days in the beginning of the war. They sent in some 40,000 troops and were enthusiastic about contributing to the quick collapse of Saddam’s defenses.
They sent the largest number of troops after the U.S. and celebrated the initial victory, showing themselves as allies of the U.S. But it looks like Britain wanted to share only the good days, nothing more. Things changed fast soon after. In fact, over the last two years, Britain has adopted a policy in Iraq that is opposite in direction to that of the U.S.
On the one hand, the Americans and Iraqis summoned all the power and resources they could get, and deployed them in an effort to enforce the law and combat the bad guys under a fresh strategy and counterinsurgency doctrine that emphasized having troops as close to the community as possible. Meanwhile, the British were doing exactly the opposite by shrinking away from the fight and from the community.
As residents of Basra for a year, we recall how the people perceived British troops. Basically people felt the British were both weak and largely indifferent to the situation. To the militias, that was seen as a golden chance to consolidate their power and take over the city; while among the ordinary people, it dealt a blow to morale and was a reason that people had little — if any — trust in the British.
What’s even more humiliating for Britain is that British leaders couldn’t exploit the advantages they had over their American counterparts in terms of past history of military operations and involvement in Iraq. It’s not an overstatement to say that the British had been fighting on their own turf in Basra. When they returned to that city in 2003, they returned to the very bases they had built only half a century before. Moreover, they had accumulated comprehensive knowledge of the people and tribes of the region that even many Iraqis don’t have.
Yet, their performance has been disappointing. British troops are not to blame for this poor performance; it’s the political leadership in London. The Americans handled places such as Baghdad and Anbar that used to be the most volatile parts of Iraq in 2004, and now, four years later, they largely succeeded in bring peace and order, making huge progress toward that goal. The British, by contrast, had been assigned what used to be the calmest parts of Iraq in 2004, but by spring 2008, under their watch, Basra became the most lawless city in the country. The British leaders managed to do this either with exceptional stupidity or exceptional and deliberate carelessness.
In our opinion, although the deal was made last year, Britain made the decision to offer basically the same deal unilaterally years before that by watching the monster grow under their noses without doing anything serious to stop it.
If the British truly don’t see themselves as part of the war, it would’ve been better for everyone to have the British admit it and tell the Americans and Iraqis that they wanted out. Then we would’ve thanked them for what they did, gave them a nice send-off, and struck them off the list of reliable allies, just like Spain.
To fight alone, knowing that you’re on your own, is much better than to have an ally on your side that strikes deals behind your back and exposes your flank to the enemy.
Omar and Mohammed Fadhil are PJM's Baghdad editors, and they blog at Iraq The Model.
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81 Comments
Douglas Bogle:Simple, we should turn our backs on the British when the Muslims take over England. I never thought as the Brits as cowards.
How soon they forget.
Aug 8, 2008 - 12:07 pm ST333:Let me try to focus my statement by saying I’ve heard good things about the British troops and so my words aren’t directed at them. That said, the ‘nancy boys’ in charge of the British Govn’t need to get their heads out of their arses and stop this sissy footing. You’re all in or you’re out. The same can be said about a lot of British citizens. Like most ignorant liberals, Britain’s moon bats think “it’s not their problem” and that political correctness and/or ignore conflict will solve the problem. Wake up and support your troops and allies.
Aug 8, 2008 - 12:45 pm John Samford:The people who prevented Lockheed from selling the Brits Stealth technology at a fraction of a penny obn the dollar knew what they were talking about.
Now maybe the Brits will shut up about the F-22.
Aug 8, 2008 - 1:05 pm Tom W.:Remember how the Brits sneered at the stupid, brutal Americans and their ham-fisted approach to fighting terrorism in Iraq?
The British were far superior, they told us, with their soft caps and smiles.
You know what it comes down to? Racism.
The Brits treated the Iraqis with condescension. They didn’t take the Iraqi and foreign terrorists seriously; they didn’t take the plight of the Iraqi civilians seriously; and they didn’t take the Iraqi government and security forces seriously.
For all the moral superiority they expressed, the Brits treated the Iraqis like children playacting at running a country. To the Brits, it was a pretend war, with a pretend enemy and a pretend government.
We Americans respected the Iraqis and treated them as serious human beings, with goals and desires equal to our own. We even treated the enemy with respect, taking him at his word and fighting him to win. We didn’t hold off because we felt sorry for him. We didn’t see him as a pitiful victim of western imperialism.
Instead, we killed him with 30mm cannons and Hellfire missiles, the way we would kill any white enemy. We took him out the way we would take out any other warrior, even if he was a despicable terrorist who targeted the innocent.
The Brits may never get over their colonial past. Today, they’re weak-kneed socialists who kowtow to Islamist savages back home, but deep down they still see Arabs and Muslims as “wogs” who are not to be taken seriously.
And the people of Basra had to pay for this schizophrenic, utterly dysfunctional mind set.
Thank God for the United States.
Aug 8, 2008 - 1:16 pm Mary Jackson:Well, perhaps our troops should have pulled out a while ago, instead of getting killed by “friendly fire” from the trigger-happy Americans.
Americans may wish to consider who their allies are, and who has lost lives in Afghanistan, Iraq etc fighting alongside them. Find some other allies - the French? The Spanish? The Germans?
Aug 8, 2008 - 1:20 pm rocketeer:Mary Jackson - “Trigger-happy Americans”? WTF are you talking about?
Yes, the British military has been our best ally over the past couple of decades in terms of numbers of soldiers and logistical support.
That being said, your society is falling down around your ears. Like most countries in Europe, you have stupidly allowed the camel’s nose in your tent, and the rest of the camel is on it’s way in. Europe will be completely dominated within 50 years by the Islamic tide, and your government has done nothing to stop this. America isn’t any better with it’s handling of our southern border, but at least our immigrant wave is mostly christian.
Good luck in the coming years, because I’m not sending my son over there to fight for your country when you refuse to fight for it yourself.
Aug 8, 2008 - 1:54 pm Mary Jackson:I’m not sending my son over there to fight for your country
Just as well. He’d probably shoot one of us.
Aug 8, 2008 - 1:59 pm Jay:This was pretty despicable but I will not throw the Brits under the bus. We know they have balls it’s the leadership and the pansy left over there that needs to answer for this crap. I’ll bet the average British soldier was pissed he was missing the action. I love the U.S.A. but I know we made some huge mistakes too, let down allot of people in the past, cost some lives so I say “forgetabout it” and GOD save the Queen.
Aug 8, 2008 - 2:03 pm Dawnsblood:To quote a senior British defense source:
Aug 8, 2008 - 2:34 pm Mary Jackson:“You can accuse the Americans of many things, such as hamfistedness, but you can’t accuse them of not addressing a situation when it arises. While we had a strategy of evasion, the Americans just went in and addressed the problem.”
It is sad how far the mighty British have fallen.
Actually, our troops are lions led by donkeys, as they say.
The troops are brave, but the politicians, who give the orders and pay for their inadequate equipment, are stupid and useless.
The same could be said of the British people. We have crap leaders - if the US votes in Obama, you’ll be in the same boat - but you can’t write-off a staunch ally and 60 million people.
Aug 8, 2008 - 2:50 pm John Swaine:It was obvious from the start of the newly implemented Counter Insurgency tactics that Her Majesty’s Armed Forces weren’t up to the task at hand in Iraq.
Great Britain has the finest trained, most dedicated and hardworking Armed Forces in the world. That’s not Jingoism, it’s fact. They are simply better trained and better soldiers man for man than their US counterparts - GIs aren’t incompetent, they are every bit as fierce and brave and extremely technically proficient, they simply aren’t trained as thoroughly as Her Majesty’s men and women are.
However for the past 25 years, Her Majesty’s forces have endured nothing but disrespect and downright endangerment of their lives from politicians in the United Kingdom.
I am absolute in my respect for the soldiers of the United States, I do not impugn their honour nor their valour. They are exceptional and have stepped up time and time again to defend the liberty of their fellow man. However I will not hear an ill word spoken about the British armed forces.
Do you want to know why the Her Majesty’s forces stepped out of Basra? It’s because the Department of Defense rightly recognized that they couldn’t fight.
HM Armed Forces are phenomenal peacekeepers and excellent in a skirmish or a limited operation but for the sort of endless, protracted engagement which Gen. Petraeus’ COIN requires they simply are not equipped to cope.
The Department of Defense recognized and I hope felt ASHAMED of this fact. The Royal Army, Navy and Air Force have had nothing but cuts to their budget for decades and now find that they simply don’t have the logistical support necessary to fight the war on terror.
The bulldog has been neutered to pay for our bloated government (which has actually used the Armed Forces MORE at a time when it has cut its funding to pay for more extensive social programmes).
It finally came to this - the public disgrace and humiliation of the finest fighting men and women in the world.
I am disgusted with my country’s leaders. My great grandfather escaped from 3 Axis P.O.W. camps and made it within half a mile of the advancing Allied line before being recaptured and sent to the concentration camp at Belsan (which he survived). He was not an atypical soldier, just an example of the outstandingly brave people that make up Her Majesty’s Armed Forces.
Men and women of the same calibre are being asked to make the same sacrifices for us today and the most our Politicians can do is trade and swindle behind their backs even as they rob them of the means to actually carry out their duty safely and effectively.
I love Great Britain and I love America, please do not let the pathetic duplicity and irresponsibility of our political leaders tarnish the honour of either the British people or Her Majesty’s Armed Forces.
Aug 8, 2008 - 3:07 pm Watcher01:“Well, perhaps our troops should have pulled out a while ago, instead of getting killed by “friendly fire” from the trigger-happy Americans.”
I personally think you should send your troops home, you will need them shortly on your own streets-quite less than the 50 years some optimists predict.
Aug 8, 2008 - 3:15 pm Ursus:The US has had our share of inept military leaders as well–just look at Gen. Casey, who supervised the descent of Iraq with foolish policies of this sort.
I also believe that the UK retreat from Basra was worthwhile as a test of what would happen if a province was left to its own devices. We saw similar results when we pulled back from Fallujah the first time, too.
I don’t begrudge the Brits anything. If it had turned out differently they would be considered as heroes.
Aug 8, 2008 - 3:35 pm Ursus:The bad guys here are Moqtada and his mafia, not the Brits.
Aug 8, 2008 - 3:37 pm Sam:America really is alone. NATO is hollow and while the small efforts of the Brits has been appreciated, let’s be honest here, their political and diplomatic support is worth more than anything physical they can contribute.
It’s disheartening to read of this but not reaqlly swurprising. The UK is committing suicide on the home front and that general attitude is bound to be reflected in military committments. They simply aren’t the same nation they were.
The Western world has disarmed itself and we are all that’s left.
Aug 8, 2008 - 3:50 pm Mary Jackson:I personally think you should send your troops home, you will need them shortly on your own streets-quite less than the 50 years some optimists predict.
Couldn’t you at least try to disguise the gloating? When our troops are dying in your war?
Aug 8, 2008 - 3:50 pm Kirk Parker:Mary,
“The same could be said of the British people. We have crap leaders</i.”
So stop electing them already.
Aug 8, 2008 - 4:05 pm Ric Locke:Mary, I won’t speak for Watcher, but I might well have thought the same thing, even if I didn’t post it — and for me, it isn’t gloating or snark; more like a cry of despair.
Regards,
Aug 8, 2008 - 4:12 pm Len Frankel:Ric
Say this much about the Brits, they’re not Mideast tourists like GWB and Condi. They know how the Arabs operate and they don’t throw good money after bad in the bazaar.
Aug 8, 2008 - 4:13 pm Mary Jackson:So stop electing them already.
Come back to me when “Muslim-friendly” “peace-on-earth” Obama is comfortably in the White House.
Aug 8, 2008 - 4:13 pm cjm:don’t take it personally guys, the british government has betrayed the english people even more than they have betrayed you.
as for the british forces being better trained — guffaw! i am surprised they were even given shoes, much less proper equipment or training. the sun has definitely set on poor britain, suicide by socialism.
Aug 8, 2008 - 4:27 pm John Samford:“They are simply better trained and better soldiers man for man than their US counterparts - GIs aren’t incompetent, they are every bit as fierce and brave and extremely technically proficient, they simply aren’t trained as thoroughly as Her Majesty’s men and women are.”
Evidence please! Or is this something that everybody in your neighborhood knows?
I ask because the objective facts say other wise.
US training is the modern example the rest of the world tries to match. Including the British.
If you examine military training on any basis, the USA is better. US performance in the field tends to support the objective facts.
Do it by per capita spending, hours, Miles driven, rounds shot, mechanical aids, whatever, the US is far ahead of the world. If looked at by results, that lead increases.
So I wonder if there are any facts to back up your opinion.
Yes, the US Military has stopped beating the snot out of recruits. Where is the evidence that beating the snot out of a recruit makes them a better soldier?
The US Army no longer use pikes or muzzle loaders either.
“The strength of an Army lies in strict discipline and undeviating obedience to its officers.”
- Thucydides, “History of The Peloponnesian War”, book 2, 404 BC
Discipline and obedience come from within. They cannot be installed by beatings. The facade can be, but that shatters under the first hard blow.
Aug 8, 2008 - 4:37 pm holdfast:BTW, has the UK gotten it’s sailors back yet?
Should I post URL’s to thinks like the RAF having to hire German pilots? I bet Bader hit 12,000 RPM’s on his bench when that news got to Valhalla.
Or about the Brits in ‘gani having to borrow boots from the US Army to go on patrol? I just sent my nephew who is stationed in ‘gani a Nano so he has a spare. How many UK soldiers have Nano’s? Do you even know why they are important. I assume you do know what an I-pod Nano is. Are UK troops trained in using them?
John Swain - I think you are at least somewhat correct in a comparison of the UK military to the US Army, but I think if you look at the Marines, it is a different story. As a Canadian, I don’t have a dog in the fight, but I have had the pleasure of working with the British Army, the US Army and the US Marines. The US Army has (or maybe had) a “technocratic” outlook (a result of their emphasis on high-tech gear) whereas the Brits and the Marines both emphasize pure soldiering at the small unit level. I think the US Army has begun to rememdy this as a result of experience in Iraq. The Brits have a kind of relaxed stoicism that the US Army just doesn’t have - probably a result of years of “doing more with less”. All that said, the quality of the soldier is basically irrelevant if they aren’t allowed to fight - and I have no doubt that the squaddies would have fought if allowed to.
Basra and the surronding area should have been amenable to a more velvet glove approach than the Sunni Triangle, but somewhere along the way Brit policy forgot to show Sadr the mailed fist inside the glove. Fallujah was always a snake pit - it had to be cleaned out the hard way (and the US screwed up big time by backing off the fist time). Basra should never have gotten to the state where it needed to be “cleared” - but the militias weren’t crushed when they were still weak, so they got strong and the fight was consequently much bigger. It took the Americans years to realize that you have to get out from behid the wire and get among the people, let them see you and know that you are there to protect them. The Brits knew this at first but just as the Americans were figuring it out, the Brits were retreating behind their wire. It doesn’t matter if you wear a brainbucket or a beret, it matters where you are, where you sleep and whether the locals know you. There’s nothing wrong with wearing shades on patrol - if fact, now that the Americans are perceived as winners, the Iraqis want oakleys and WileyXs to (or at least replicas thereof).
Aug 8, 2008 - 4:49 pm Mary Jackson:Then you’ll manage very well without us. Bugger off.
Aug 8, 2008 - 4:54 pm John Samford:“Come back to me when “Muslim-friendly” “peace-on-earth” Obama is comfortably in the White House.”
Ain’t gonna happen Mary.
Aug 8, 2008 - 4:54 pm ricg:BTW, it isn’t just ‘our’ war, it yours also. Remember the bus bombings in London? The America Left and their trained lap dog, the Media is trying to portray the War against Islam as a series of isolated wars. It isn’t. The Muslims don’t see it that way and neither does any rational westerner.
PRESIDENT Bush has really screwed the pooch on this one, trying to pass the war against Islam off as war against a bunch of extremists. Those extremists are the edge of the blade of Islam. It is the Muslims as a whole that are swinging that blade.
On a positive note, the day after the west falls, China and India will start exterminating Muslims.
So the Mullahs won’t outlive us by much.
I agree with almost all the comments. The United States, the UK, Australia, Iraq and others are in this together, and each has made its share of mistakes. The US was also ill prepared for the occupation, and it disbanded the Iraqi Army, a decision that probabaly contributed mightily to later problems, though it’s not easy to know for sure how much would have been different if another course had been taken.
I think British forces have fought long and honorably. The decision of which the Fadhils complain was political, and do not forget that Americans have been very close to taking a similar political course — and may still do so. Say what you want about GW Bush, he has provided the resolve to stay the course and keep trying until something worked long after many politicians would have become wobbly.
And to the extent UK politicians have decided to show weakness when strength was called for, this is a matter of degree. They didn’t pull a “Spain,” and are lightyears ahead of other allies like France, Germany and Belgium.
As the war is being won, it is best to see this as a tactical-political error rather than as a complete dissertion. If Iraq emerges as a free, productive member of the community of nations, the UK certainly deserves credit for its considerable contributions. Thank you, UK.
Aug 8, 2008 - 4:56 pm Mark L:“When our troops are dying in your war?”
Mary Jackson:
The absurdity of that statement is that it is not “our” war, in the sense of being the United States’s war. It is also the United Kingdom’s war. As you will probably find out before too much longer. Because too many Brits — like you — consider it “our” war instead of their war as well, before too much longer you will have two choices:
1. Wear a burka when the Islamofascists take over the Sceptered Isle.
2. Flee to the United States.
When that happens, please take the former option. We really do not need your kind here.
Aug 8, 2008 - 4:56 pm Xennady:Mary Jackson,
Your troops are dying in our war? Hey, you sent them- if you didn’t think it was your war too, then something is seriously wrong with your governance. And since you folks have plainly stabbed us in the back with this deal with Al-Sadr I’m amazed that you still think Britain is a staunch ally of the United States. God save us from any more allies like this.
Aug 8, 2008 - 5:00 pm wretchard:The Guardian writes “Armed Cossacks pour in to fight Georgians”
Aug 8, 2008 - 5:10 pm DaveP.:Enjoy your hijab, Mary.
Aug 8, 2008 - 5:11 pm Tom W.:“Well, perhaps our troops should have pulled out a while ago, instead of getting killed by ‘friendly fire’ from the trigger-happy Americans.”
Spoken like a genuine, 100 percent-pure imbecile.
This pitifully defensive snark doesn’t address the issue of the British betrayal of the Iraqis.
And then you whine about American “gloating”?
This is the British problem in a nutshell. Too many Brits sneer and titter at those they consider their inferiors, and then they screw up over and over again, but because they’re so superior, they never learn from their mistakes.
The simple fact is, my superior British friends, our “trigger-happy” American troops adapted to the situation and won.
You, on the other hand, patted yourselves on the back for years, as the situation got worse and worse, until the army of democratic Iraq, which has only existed for about four years, had to do your job for you.
And your response is to heap venom and contempt on the U.S.
That won’t hide the fact that you screwed up.
“Your war.” Brilliant comment.
Let’s see what happens if you opt out and go home. Think our mutual enemy will leave you alone?
Dream on. Instead of bitching and screwing up, try pulling your own weight for a while.
Aug 8, 2008 - 5:15 pm dougf:By the time this deal was supposedly made, the die was already cast in Basrah. Maybe in 2003 all the way up to 2008 the Brits really were without viable choices in their area of control.
I don’t think that the ‘Surge’ would have worked out nearly so well in 2003-2006. In fact I think it might not have worked at all before it was called off due to very large US casualties. What surprised ALL the people involved in the Surge was the minimal casualties suffered by US troops when they began to take back the neighborhoods in Iraq. By the time the Surge occurred the Iraqis were just about fed-up with the monsters(of all stripes) and just needed someone to say that they were there for the duration and would in fact act to crush the villains.
This in no way minimizes the Surge effects but it was pushing against an open door in many cases. Had it not been the casualties suffered would have been far greater and more in line with the expectations at the time.
Just saying that I’m not convinced that Brits would have been able to root out the Militia in Basrah before the people were ready to be rid of them.
I just don’t know and therefore as venal as this particular deal evidently was, the overall strategy may not have been very different anyway. The Brits until just recently didn’t have the troops or the local support required to kill off the Mehdis and that is what it always going to take. By the time things had changed on the ground the Iraqis themselves had built up the forces required to get the job done.
As they did.
Aug 8, 2008 - 5:21 pm Xennady:Mary Jackson,
We’ve already managed pretty well without you- in fact even when you’ve been on the other side, like in Basra.
So you and your continent bugger off.
Aug 8, 2008 - 5:33 pm Paddy:To all of the British readers: You seem to believe that Obama will be the savior of western civilization. Not so. He is a hollow, arrogant, narcissistic, liar. He is a real a–hole, albeit a bright one. He is as leftist as your most radical Labour Party members. He will not be elected unless the McCain campaign screws up royally. Even the majority of the American main-stream media, that have been running interference for him are beginning to realize how shallow Obama is.
Aug 8, 2008 - 5:35 pm ajacksonian:America can ill afford to dishonor those allies that have stuck with us through these years: British political incompetence is not the fault of the soldiers in the field. What has happened is that our allies no longer present a well-rounded, full-spectrum capable military capability nor industrial power to back it, and there are some fights that take time, endurance, and wide spectrum capability that can only be accomplished by such forces. This is no disrespect to any ally, but the US does need to recognize this and that future conflicts may rely upon niche capabilities presented by allied forces and should recognize those limitations. That has been the political decision of those allies for decades, and the cost of them in the inability to field forces in depth nor utilize them in conflicts of changing nature and have them adapt is crucial.
Last winter’s campaign run by the Canadians in Afghanistan was crucial in finding, identifying and allowing for constant pressure to be applied to the Talibe and their enemies during a period they expected no conflict. The problems of individual ROE by other forces instead of an agreed-upon integrated one demonstrates that each set of forces playing by their own political playbook is folly.
The current sets of enemies faced by the west go beyond jihadis and include a spectrum of capability depending on such things as organized crime, weak border enforcement, ethnic divisions within nations and the ability to co-opt political groups to weaken laws and military organizations. Some of this is a hang-over of the Cold War and the steady decline of defense spending by US allies and a concentration on law enforcement. When systems of law break down, that concentration become irresolute and co-opted politicians work to further weaken those national structures protecting civilian populations. You do not get to the point where one of the military organizations that has been teaching its lessons learned for centuries gets to the point where it can no longer properly understand or implement them over night. To get to where the UK was in 2003 one does not start in 2003, but looking back 30 and often 40 years to decisions made on infrastructure, manpower, logistics, training and deployment.
Once lost, rebuilding that capability takes time and Iraq will probably be a decade since it started with a New Iraqi Army until it can cover the majority of those things for self-defense - call that 2015. Getting a full, indigenous and reliable logistics and command structure in place may take a bit longer than that. The United States, after removing the draft in the 1970’s took nearly two decades to re-organize, re-orient and re-organize its internal structure for the all-volunteer force. And we learned this again in the 1990’s by having two entire US Army Divisions fall to their lowest readiness status due to command problems from the Executive and logistics problems from the Legislative branches of government, to the point where one of them could not easily deploy in 2001 when it was needed.
Iraqis do have a right to be a bit ticked off at this, and more than a bit, really. And they should closely examine the mistakes made by those forces that have come to their aid and learn from those experiences of what to do and what not to do. So should the United States and its other allies. Politics cannot win wars, but it sure as hell can lose them, be they decisions made immediately or the effects of those made decades ago: they must be recognized, understood and factored into how we approach the world. Desert Storm should never have been stopped at 100 hours due to politics, and I hope we can learn this lesson that when you start fighting a war you do not stop until it is fully won. That cost would have been far less than the 300,000 Shia killed by Saddam when they believed we would step into help them when they revolted against that dicatator. Our own dead I expect would have been far fewer and the pain inflicted on Iraqi society far less if that had been done. It was not. And we must live with those ill-thought out decisions and recognize the problems that resulted from them.
Honor your allies for what they can do and mourn with them for their losses.
And do not ask of them things they cannot do, so you can keep those losses to a minimum.
Aug 8, 2008 - 6:02 pm Joe E:We all have our ups and downs. We all make mistakes. Britain will forge ahead as she has always done. The American Congressional Medal of Honor hangs over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Westminister Abbey for good reason.
Aug 8, 2008 - 6:23 pm Neshobanakni:Mary Jackson: Yes, we’ve had some friendly fire deaths. We, the descendants of both sides of your northern border, are an aggressive people when defending ourselves. The motivation for those attacks was never to kill our own (U.S, Canadian or Brit).
British soldiers and marines never failed in Iraq, but their leaders did. Y’all should never have thrown in with us if you weren’t serious. NATO’s not forever, you should have had the guts to pull out if it is no longer in your national interest. Instead, you string us along ’cause you’re too reticent to say you’re no longer worried about Russia and that mutual defense idea doesn’t apply any more.
The deal your country made with our mutual enemies is despicable, and cost American and Iraqi lives. Come November, we’ll have a similarly cowardly government should Obama be elected.
Tom on the rez.
Aug 8, 2008 - 6:27 pm Michael Lonie:Doing a deal with the enemy, not telling your allies about it, and standing around sucking your thumb for years while the enemy grows stronger. That’s not British behavior, that’s positively French.
I’m an Anglophile, and I’m truly saddened to see the British sinking to the level of the EUnuchs. More and more it looks like Mark Steyn was right in the title of his book: “America Alone.”
Aug 8, 2008 - 6:32 pm Neshobanakni:Once again, ajacksonian sees the “big picture” much more clearly than I do. I see cowardice and betrayal, while he (she?) sees limited national capacities. He sees the forest; I just see the trees right in front of me.
I’m glad we have folks like him to understand the nuances; many of us just taste the blood from a blow to the face, see a traitor, and start throwing punches.
Aug 8, 2008 - 6:42 pm Smarty:Mary, the Lions/Donkeys thing doesn’t fly. We saw your sissy boys falling all over themselves when they were leaving Iran with gift-bags and out of uniform.
The UK is a nation of cowards, just like the French, and yes, we can get along just fine without you. We propped up Monty, just as we propped up DeGaul,and we paid for both acts of kindness.
Aug 8, 2008 - 6:51 pm cjm:the nhs kills far more english people than any kind of fire, friendly or not.
Aug 8, 2008 - 6:55 pm Steve in MT:Don’t confuse the soldier with the policy. That is what happened to all of the Viet Nam vets.
Aug 8, 2008 - 7:23 pm Glenn:I have served with Brits in years gone by, and find them to be great soldiers, although, I could never understand how they could drink all night and get into a brawl, and only have a few shiners to show for the effort. Americans, being the most deadly force in the world, would have wreaked far more in the way of injuries.
But this post reminds me of 1980’s Germany, when, because I spoke German, I was assigned to be the liaison to the French Army who were officially politically in NATO, but their forces were not. The reality was that they were politically outside of NATO, but their troops were willing to fight with us in Germany (at least to the last German).
Soldiers implement policy, we do not make it. It was the Tory government that betrayed us, not the Tommys in the trenches.
God Bless everyone in this war, and get them home safe when the job is done.
“I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me.” G.Patton. Anyone wanna swap French for British?
Aug 8, 2008 - 7:33 pm hester:It’s time for Drake’s Drum!
Aug 8, 2008 - 7:42 pm Daniel:I think we are being too hard on the British. Actually their behavior was strategically valuable, just as our power vacuum in Anbar turned out to be.
Aug 8, 2008 - 7:52 pm Steve in MT:Remember what happened in Anbar. The al Qaida crazies had full control for a considerable length of time. As a direct result the people of that region came to hate them and even grow willing to fight to get rid of them. When American forces were able to demonstrate the ability to help and to protect the people of Anbar from being overwhelmed, they took the initiative in in driving the bad guys out.
The sheiks of Anbar had to see al Qaida in action to develop the will to fight.
And in Basra? The British action gave the people of that city the opportunity to experience life under control of the Shiite crazies. This was tough on them to be sure, but it made them yearn to be rescued. As a result they helped the Iraki forces get rid of the bad guys. It took only a week or so to rid Basra of the Sadrites and Irani surrogates in a considerable part because of the loathsome consequences of the British deal.
Thus instead of the British having to root out the bad guys one by one, with the intimidated inhabitants of Basra silently looking on, at the right moment Irakis could do the job quickly with full cooperation of the energized civilians who had been driven akmost to despair by the misrule of the Sadr mobs.
Was the British agreement the best possible course of action? Who knows. But the exposure to Sadrite rule did serve as a vaccination to the people of Basra against opposition to Anericans and Britons as Christian invaders. They could see for themselves that the alternative was much worse.
Many wars have been won by letting the enemy think he has won, which convinces him to overextend himself and become vulnerable. Allowing the bad guys to indulge in murder and extortion and theft just as they pleased can be viewed as just this sort of tactic. It is ugly, but it seemed to have worked in Basra.
My bad, it was the Labor government, not the Tory.
Aug 8, 2008 - 8:15 pm memomachine:Sorry for the confusion.
Hmmmm.
@ Mary Jackson
“Americans may wish to consider who their allies are, and who has lost lives in Afghanistan, Iraq etc fighting alongside them. Find some other allies - the French? The Spanish? The Germans?”
Really? Allies that are all talk and no action. Let’s see now. America has, at last count, about 35,000 soldiers in Afganistan. The *rest* of NATO has 20,000. And the 3,000+ Germans are forbidden from engaging in any combat at all which means we have to station American soldiers to defend them.
So no I don’t count you or your Eurotrash friends as allies. I’d rather you were allied with someone else. And, sooner than you suppose, an American President will tell this to your faces.
Aug 8, 2008 - 8:37 pm memomachine:Hmmm.
@ John Swaine
“Great Britain has the finest trained, most dedicated and hardworking Armed Forces in the world. That’s not Jingoism, it’s fact. They are simply better trained and better soldiers man for man than their US counterparts - GIs aren’t incompetent, they are every bit as fierce and brave and extremely technically proficient, they simply aren’t trained as thoroughly as Her Majesty’s men and women are.”
Utterly imbecilic.
I’m not even going to dignify this trash with a response.
Aug 8, 2008 - 8:43 pm JohnG:Bottom line - At least when the French surrendered, everyone knew about it.
Aug 8, 2008 - 8:45 pm Louise:cjm: “suicide by socialism”
Aug 8, 2008 - 9:42 pm krontekag:==================
You nailed it, cjm. We almost died here in Canada from that disease. We’re still not fully recovered, either, but we’ve begun the journey. Godspeed to Britain. I hope you will come back, too.
This is so sad. I can’t believe that now, when things are very definitely looking up in Iraq, that this is happening.
UK Public opinion and Defense leadership opinion has definitely been condescending, even contemptuous toward the Americans. This when the US has invested the most, suffered the most in casualties, and adapted best to the changing strategic landscape - dispensing with the inneffective, and innovating brilliantly.
The British in Basra were a little ahead of their time in employing a “softly softly” approach. They were reliving Northern Ireland, while JAM and the Badr Brigades couldn’t believe their luck. Their excesses went unchecked and escalated. But instead of learning and adapting, the UK leadership ordered their forces to retreat and avoid risk. First from the city centre, and in stages all the way out to a base near the airport, under fire all the way. The Iraqis, good and bad, drew their conclusions accordingly.
Morale amongst the British armed forces must have been atrocious by this point. To make matter worse, having sailors taken prisoner without resistance, and paraded in front of cameras in Tehran - then given gifts as they were released - must have been incredibly humiliating for the British.
When I was there in January, there was not much recognition that what was happening, how their forces were deployed and the orders being issued were to blame for the reversals in Basra. Everything was, is and always will be the fault of the Americans.
On the way to London from Singapore, we flew over Afghanistan. I looked out the window of an exit door with a couple of English ladies, and naturally talk turned to the conflict unfolding below. One of the women had what I thought was a fairly sensible outlook, however the other could see no benefit to persisting with the fight. “How do we know who the bad guys are” she said. I thought she was making some sort of moral equivalency argument, so I said (with the other woman’s agreement) that the bad guys were those who were cutting peoples’ heads off, and posting their acts on the internet.
But in fact, this woman was actually asking how we could tell the bad guys apart from the good guys. “They all look the same.”
I tried to tell her that this was by design of the bad guys, and that intelligence and provision of security were the way to separate and identify the enemy. But she couldn’t see how this could possibly work.
I hope she is taking note of developments in Iraq now, but I wouldn’t count on it. Or rather, I don’t think she would draw the correct conclusions.
Aug 8, 2008 - 9:54 pm Brian H:“Mary Jackson:
I personally think you should send your troops home, you will need them shortly on your own streets-quite less than the 50 years some optimists predict.
Couldn’t you at least try to disguise the gloating? When our troops are dying in your war?
Aug 8, 2008 - 3:50 pm”
=====
‘dying’? ‘your war’? Oookkaayy. How many British soldiers have died in Iraq in the last 6 months? 1, isn’t it? Sorry for your loss.
And the idea was that it was the West’s war against Islamofascist terror. Have you resigned from the West? Or just decided to kowtow to terror?
Aug 8, 2008 - 10:12 pm Alex:Please elucidate.
If you took the leashes off of the SAS and the Royal Marines Commandos, a different story would have been told. C’est la guerre.
Fortunately, Sarkozy in France seems to be more interested now in being a productive member of the world community instead of just trying to discredit the US.
Aug 8, 2008 - 11:23 pm Michael:I will say nothing bad about the British because of our past history.
But, alas, I will never truly trust them again.
One thing Mary Jackson is right about. We in the US are being pushed by our own “betters” on to the same despicable road the British are traveling.
The way I see it we will be darn lucky to avoid it.
Aug 9, 2008 - 12:14 am CR:I’m not surprised in the least, everyone negotiates with terrorists at some point. I’m reserving judgment until more data becomes available. There are times when speaking to an enemy through a proxy or ally can be used to gather intel and setup that enemy for future annihilation. Perhaps this is one of those case and perhaps it isn’t, but I refuse to believe the British military would leave us high and dry. I’ve never viewed the British as fair-weather friends, nor are they the warm cuddly sort of friends, but they are our friends.
Aug 9, 2008 - 12:47 am Lee Moore:As a Brit, I thought I ought to mention in passing that while providing fewer troops than us, your Australian allies have been at least as steadfast as us, and probably more so. I do find the sort of petty transatlantic bitching we’ve seen in this set of comments unutterably depressing, as generally speaking both American and British people, and American and British governments get on pretty well. What y’all are mostly ignoring is that you have had a Bush government since 2003, and we have had an Obama government. (Obama and Blair are pretty much indistinguishable - both all mouth and no trousers merchants. As the leader of a small power, Blair had no real option but to support Bush on the invasion. Obama in his position would have done the same thing. Incidentally I am not saying that a Bush government is necessarily a good thing in all areas, far from it - simply that on Iraq he has shown some genuine fortitude and moral character.) The British strategy in Basra has simply been a refusal to face reality - a preference for hope and fantasy over hard decisions and the risk of higher casualties. Together with a certain political naivete about equating the prospects of a negotiated accomodation with the IRA in the 1990s - essentially a defeated and exhausted band of a few hundred people - with the prospects of a negotiated accommodation with Iran and its proxies. That policy was entirely a political decision, nothing to do with the squaddies. The British Basra strategy was no different to the current Obama Iraq strategy - humiliating defeat and withdrawal is preferred to serious engagement. There are loads of Americans who approve of the Obama strategy - the fact that he’ll be a wimpy President doesn’t mean that all Americans are wimpy, or that America will forever have lost its honour, it just means that this time round America has elected a wimpy president. Surely y’all know that a government is not a reflection of the people, but merely an embarrassment to be put up with ? Don’t blame us all for our government - you can blame us a bit, because we’re a democracy. But not all of us voted for it, and we’ve thought better of it since. How would you like it if we kept on associating you guys with Jimmy Carter ?
Aug 9, 2008 - 2:11 am David Gillies:I hope you know that as a Briton I am deeply ashamed of the filth that have been running my country for the last eleven years. I knew when that glad-handing shyster Blair and the evil, slinking Iago Gordon Brown came to power that awful things would transpire. I exiled myself (that sounds melodramatic, but in all honesty I can’t see how one could call it untrue.) It was the best decision I have ever made. Every 25 years or so the UK seems to take leave of its collective senses and elect socialists. We spend ten years ruing the fact and another 15 before the nasty taste goes away. Then we do it again. Fortunately that means I will be an old man before we see the likes of Blair and Brown again (Labour is heading for an immemorial drubbing at the next election) but that is scant comfort for the way we have betrayed Iraq and ourselves. Justice would have them all hanged.
Aug 9, 2008 - 2:52 am HardHeadedWoman:David Gillies, my ancestors, Scottish, English, Irish and Welsh, began “exiling” themselves from the British Isles about 200 years ago–give or take–for a lot of reasons and I thank God for it.
Aug 9, 2008 - 4:13 am Lorenz Gude:There is a pattern here that I am surprised no one has brought up - the UK did a similar undisclosed negotiation with the Taliban in Afghanistan that didn’t work. The enemy just took advantage of it as they did in Basra. And they did the same with the US in Falujah. I think the Brits have had long experience doing deals in Arabia and what are now Afghanistan and the tribal territories of Pakistan. I read the British actions as coming from experience of what had worked in the past and as a way to reduce casualties and keep an unpopular war from becoming more unpopular at home. I perceived the Bush administration and the US military doing a slightly different version of the same thing - staying in their bases, not taking Falujah until after the elections. (I felt strongly in 2004 Bush would have done better in the election if he had gone straight back into Fallujah once it was clear that the Fallujah brigade had failed - now I think I did not appreciate how important it was to let the extremists wear out their welcome. Same goes for Basra and the Brits.) I don’t know where we go from here, but I think it is clear that it has been possible to separate the fanatics from the people in Iraq and that making deals with the fanatics doesn’t work. I notice it is not working for the Pakistanis either. Somehow we have to find the right combination of hanging tough and at the same time giving the enemy room to discredit himself. Blaming each other is counterproductive. It’s a tricky situation either way in domestic politics - Chirac and Schroder have fared no better than Howard or Blair. As to the Sqaddies read Michael Yon for an American appreciation of what they are made of. I know Aussies soldiers who think they are better than the Yanks. And Brits who think they are better than the Yanks. And Yanks w=ho think they are better than either. I think they are all correct and that is exactly the way it should be.
Aug 9, 2008 - 7:07 am ReCon USMC:This completely “explains ” why al-Sadr literally got away with Murder .
When My fellow Marines had al-Sadr pined down in that Mosque .
Marines were amazed Washington said leave him along and even allowed his Army to keep their weapons and al-Sadr not to be even Jailed . Washington Knowing his Army had accounted for 237 dead MARINES LIVES and over 600 wounded .
Taken from the Art of War .
Aug 9, 2008 - 7:46 am ReCon USMC:It is the enemy within that stabs us as a Nation in our Backs .
You called friend not Foe .We keep our known enemies before us always knowing not our backs .
Since England chose to deal with a ruthless Thug in Iraq secretly .
Aug 9, 2008 - 8:10 am citizen of kentucky:It is not out of the question at all to suspect that England has secret deals with Iran as well .
France and Germany do as did GE here in America we well know .
Seimans of Germany has several Billion dollar plus conracts as does Russia and China .
UNITED WE STAND…DIVIDED WE FALL.
while what has and is being said here has various stages of merit, we must remember that this war on terror really is a war against all of us. no matter who is or isnt elected, this will not go away and we must be resolute in defending our freedoms from those radicals intent on replacing those freedoms of our democracy with their theocracy. this is not all that different from WWII other than there is no set country that is outwardly formenting or backing this war. the situation is the same, only the players have changed. the front lines now are in iraq and afghanistan, but can easily arise in each and every one of the hometowns of all who have posted here, if they havent already happened (london. nyc, madrid). some will fall to the enemy in this war quickly, some will fall after a long fight, while others will fight with every drop of sweat and blood they have till ALL are free. attacking each other even in this little blog comment section does nothing but aide in our own demise. where we go from here is up to each of us as individuals, which will inevitably, represent us all as a whole. i have made my decision. i will not serve on my knees to any man.
Aug 9, 2008 - 9:26 am NahnCee:What does it say when a Brit like Mary Jackson would rather make snarky remarks about friendly fire than to acknowledge that yes, there is a problem, and set about fixing it. I see absolutely nothing in Mary Jackson’s remarks about impeaching government officials, enacting new laws to deal with their Muslims, or firing their military leaders. So to me, this says that things are fine and dandy the way they are for Ms. Mary, and that she’s comfortable just pointing a knobby finger at America, and hissing, “it’s all your fault!”
I think Brown should be impeached or fired or whatever Brits do to failed politicians. I think Tony Blair should be brought back, dusted off, apologized to, and promised fealty. I think Prince Andrew should be put in charge of the Royal Navy with a commission to lop commanding heads, and Prince Henry should be put in charge of the Army with the same task. And I think England needs to radically scale back its promises on what it is capable of doing, and become the best little water-bearer the world has ever seen. Can you say “Gunga Din”?
Aug 9, 2008 - 9:57 am PJF (UK):Readers should bear in mind that the Times (along with the Daily Mail) has an anti-war and anti-American agenda*. The paper’s journalists are just as likely to lie and manipulate as are British politicians. The notion that a “secret deal” was responsible for keeping British troops out of the clearance of Basra has been denied by the politicians, as well as by senior civil servants and serving military personnel.
The story is in dispute and not resolved - Omar and Mohammed Fadhil should note this. Their rush to emotion does not reflect well on Pajamas Media. There definitely is the smell of some internal Iraqi politics behind this and the authors would better spend their time investigating that than knee-jerkingly insulting an ally that has spent blood and treasure liberating them from crushing dictatorship.
Further, the idea that an accommodation with Moqtada al-Sadr “betrayed the Iraqi people” denies the fact that Moqtada al-Sadr and his large following are Iraqis. Many Iraqis are (or were) sympathetic to him and his militia. The Iraqi government itself has made deals with Moqtada al-Sadr, precisely because he is an Iraqi with a large Iraqi power base.
The Americans have also done deals with Iraqi militia groups (Sunni) that had previously fought and killed American soldiers. This is nothing new and is in fact a central pillar of the “Surge” strategy. The Mahdi militia are Iraqis and a political accommodation with them (government enforced as well as negotiated) is not a betrayal of Iraqis but rather a necessity if the influence of Iran is to be minimised.
*I am appalled and ashamed at the ill-informed anti-Americanism that is rife in my country on both the left and the right. That from the left is predictable enough (and that wing’s disproportionate influence in education and media is a disaster) but that from the right is perverse and inexcusable. I can only conclude that because Tony Blair was a socialist that opposition on the right to his war policy was simply de facto. My only consolation is that unhinged America hatred seems to actually be worse on the left in the USA itself. Bizarre times.
Mary Jackson, British troops have killed their own in blue on blue incidents; indeed kicking things off on the ground in Iraq:
http://www.defense-update.com/features/du-2-04/fratricide-2.htm
The only reason our US allies are involved in most of these tragic events is because they are the ones doing the most fighting…
All the best to all allied military personnel.
Aug 9, 2008 - 1:47 pm Altitude 5430:Thank you, Omar and Mohammed, for what seems like many years of insightful commentary. We are so grateful for your work. May you continue for many more, Inshallah.
Regarding the petty bickering here between the Yanks and the Brits: we cannot know what is coming — but we have bled together for nearly a century, in fighting against oppression and for freedom and democracy.
Call me crazy, but I think when blood is demanded — and I expect it will be — we shall bleed together again. Drake’s drum, indeed.
Aug 9, 2008 - 2:08 pm Trouble:The US and UK have fought shoulder-to-shoulder, in defense of human freedom, for almost 100 years now. Bad things will happen; misunderstandings will occur. I think we can file this one under “It Seemed Like A Good Idea At the Time”, and move forward.
We should not allow our mutual enemies to sow discord at a time when both of us can least afford it.
Aug 9, 2008 - 6:11 pm cjm:pjf: either you are joking or ignorant. the left in the uk is indeed just parroting the party line. but the right has historically been anti-american as well; except when they have bungled a war and need their arses hauled to safety.
Aug 9, 2008 - 7:05 pm PJF (UK):Charming, cjm. Actually I’m merely focussing on the relevant contemporary context; more Margaret Thatcher era right than George III era right.
Back in the real world, even the Aussies elected socialists and they’ve already pulled the combat troops out of Iraq. The Iraqis are in big trouble if the Democrats win full control of government in the US. They’ll get the Vietnam treatment (betrayal and abandonment) and the country will be pulled apart.
Aug 10, 2008 - 6:06 am colagirl:There have been some fairly informative comments here–ajacksonian, krontekag, PJF, Lee, Daniel, dougf and others, thank you for your postings–and some less so, unfortunately. I’m with those who comment that blaming and accusing and sneering at others’ failures is not productive. We’re all in this together, and I’m not about to lose all faith in the British over one incident. Michael Yon has never spoken of the British troops in anything other than terms of highest respect (can’t seem to find the link at the moment, but he spent some time with them in Iraq and wrote about what he saw) and if that’s what he thinks, it’s good enough for me.
Mary Jackson, I hear you on Obama. I’m afraid he actually will be elected in November, and if he is, I’m not optimistic about his performance in office. I seriously hope I’m wrong on both counts.
Aug 10, 2008 - 2:26 pm p2:from detroit:
“they smile in your face, all the time they wanna take your place..
the back stabbers, back stabbers.”
‘the brits’, has two meanings here. it doesnt mean the troops.it means the scum pols. but alas, who wants to REALLY get involved in a campaign, run for office. canvas for a worthy candidate and get all embarassing with PEOPLE.
we can just flame and blame here on the interlink and get all thinky!!
we all deserve this crap and thank God the war has brought it to the surface where we can at least start to work on it. how can two great nations be so lame as to only put forth mccain, obambi or brown etc?
the upper crusty brit officers shouldve stepped up in this but theyre so much better than our officers what do i know. i trained with 2 para right after the falklands and our 19 year olds were bigger and stronger than the limeys any day.
they had cool uniforms and smoked dunhills but everybody knew that popeye would get his head kicked in by all us jocks from the sticks.
we will always be just next to allies as we started off by fighting each other, but thats why they are called grunts.
we arent supposed to have to care about all that diplocrap.
Up England!!! and f k all the iraqi dips s anyway. if they had their s t together to begin with none of this would matter anyway.
perfect world never gonna happen. but it helps to try.
we must stand together against tyranny and look at the big picture, this issue is tailor made to divide and compromise our mission.
Aug 10, 2008 - 9:36 pm Watcher01:n
next time we’ll just have to come over for tea and check first to see if youre in some type of arrangement with the enemy. cheerio.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/onthefrontline/2541026/Marine-killed-by-colleague-inquiry-says.html
OOPsy, friendly fire by —what’s that??? NOT an American . but by their own British???
Aug 11, 2008 - 4:04 pm Cat Glass:I give it 5 years tops, & yes I am gloating. The troops will be patrolling the British streets. Or maybe not, Sharia law will be in full force by then. I think we should sit this one out when Europe errupts into a full scale civil war.
Today (11 August 2008) US General Petraeus had this to say about British special forces in Iraq -
“They have helped immensely in the Baghdad area, in particular, to take down the al-Qaeda car bomb networks and other al-Qaeda operations in Iraq’s capital city, so they have done a phenomenal job in that regard.”
. . .Very little is known about the success of their missions but Gen Petraeus indicated yesterday that working alongside their American colleagues in Delta Force the British had had a significant impact in defeating Al Qa’eda in Iraq.
. . .Quoting the Special Air Service motto “Who Dares Wins” the general said there had been numerous successes on many “very important operations”.
“They have exceptional initiative, exceptional skill, exceptional courage and, I think, exceptional savvy. I can’t say enough about how impressive they are in thinking on their feet,” said Gen Petraeus, the main architect of “surge” strategy that has seen a substantial decrease in violence with the influx of extra American troops.
Aug 11, 2008 - 8:59 pm John Van Krimpen:I found this blog post offensive.
The brothers are Sunni and have been to the white house and so on.
Iraq has to stand on three feet not two.
Per capita of force involved mil dead and wounded the Brits copped it.
Basra was the one place Yanks could not go after George Bush the elder betrayed them, the shia to the south and the port.
Time for Iraq to grow up was the order, thru out the alliance.
Grubby shit piece.
Aug 12, 2008 - 5:31 am robert keeler:I’m shocked by this blog, In the uk we dont “roll over ” to the muslim faith, most people in the street have strong feelings about our mixed class system, however we try to work with these people instead of against them, I am and always have been a firm defender of the U.S I agree with the reasons you have for getting “into the fight” but please dont fool yourself into thinking we are just going to let another faith overtake our country……
Aug 13, 2008 - 7:18 am Smarty:Robert, it is too late, and your denial is pitiful.
Britanistan is real.
Aug 13, 2008 - 6:43 pm Dayooper:The biggest problem with NATO and the UN is that the US is taking the entire load of Military Response “peacekeeping or direct interaction” compared to everyone else. This was stated about 6 months ago about why the Euro is doing so much better then the American Dollar.
The reason for the decline in the American Economy and value of the Dollar is due in large part because France, Germany, Great Britian, and the other NATO/European nations are scaling back their military to just a Defensive posture. Meaning they are only keeping whats needed for homeland defense, while the US is maintaining the forces needed to keep NATO and the UN as a viable means to defend and keep a peaceful world. The costs that the US encures due to the other Nations decline in military support of NATO and the UN is directly affecting the economy and vice versa for the other Nations economy booming due to the cut in support.
As far as a previous comment about why Britain is fighting the US’s wars … they didn’t have to send troops when the US invaded back in 2003… they had the right to send or not send troops to help out, so they are just as guilty as the leadership in the US is.
Aug 13, 2008 - 10:02 pm Delta 42:That was a pretty cowardly act by the Brits. But I think its time the Americans withdraw from Iraq
Aug 15, 2008 - 6:23 am