Posted on 08/19/2007 5:35:20 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
I’m sorry if you disagree, but I was reading the blogs before we won the Iraq war...DAY ONE the Brits lost it for us...oh, the Iranians are coming over for religious pilgrimages, how WONDERFUL, come on over. Basra was lost day one due to the British superiority complex, believe me. They are sooooo cool that the Iranians now control the only oil port Iraq has and no one can walk the streets there without a burqa.
The Brits have failed in Basra. My contact just left there and was reporting on the daily rocket attacks and the Phalanx used as an early warning. The Brits won’t go out of their camp and patrol.
No one has left the US Embassy site for months..except by helo.
It will take a major US operation to extract the Brits.
I guess we will have to surge south.
Blair and Brown have abandon the field and left their troops behind.
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you display a lack of class with your comment.
“It is the population in general”
Sounds like you got a problem with Brits, for one thing or another. Are you in a position to be able to make a sweeping statement about a nation of people? No, probably not. So please dont.
“The Brits won’t go out of their camp and patrol.”
This is another attempt at anti-UK propaganda. The perception that our troops aren’t conducting offensive patrolling outside of bases in and around Basra. This is completely wrong, and only uttered when an ulterior motive is at hand.
How do we suffer the majority of our KIA then, if not during offensive patrols trying to take out the JAM? Read Michael Yon’s website, and his dispatches from Basra ‘British Forces at War: As Witnessed by an American’(http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/british-forces-at-war-as-witnessed-by-an-american.html). So read it mate, and get back to me on what you think and how you’re apologetic for your inaccurate and scurrilous comments.
Just reading the title make one think they’d better step it up or be thought of as ‘useless’ for generations.
Pulp Fiction?
So you boys are all coked up waving massive hand cannons around shooting anyone?
“During the training a lot was mentioned about the British problems in Basra, and some wag asked what movie the Brits used in COIN training, and the instructor said: “I don’t know, probably Harry Potter”.”
What can I say? You guys are already building your wall and ditching your ally, an ally who has fought long and hard for 4 years in the South. And what do we get, yet another round of anti-UK headlines from the media, a media that is suddenly trusted by the US citizen when reading about British failure. Hypocrisy, pure and simple. If we aren’t wanted by the US, I suggest never again fighting alongside US forces until we are appreciated again. (which will be never).
You cannot fathom the anger and contempt I reserve for people who fail to respect UK troops and the sacrifices its population is making in its tacit support for the war in iraq.
I recall a news article last year about a platoon of Scot's Guards or Fusilliers that were fired upon from an entrenched bunker complex near Basra. They immediately fixed bayonets and charged, routed or killed over 20 enemy, suffered no killed or wounded.
The Scots were never attacked again.
Here's the problem, I think the British political leadership is too close to theater comanders and interfere with tactical decisions. Just like Johnson did in the Viet Nam war. So field commanders lost motivation to make decisions and lost the initiative.
I think the Brits would be much more effective is they had a stronger military command and military beauracracy like we have in the Pentagon and Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Having a strong executive branch as we do is a little bit more dictatorial in war time but a heck of a lot more effective and hard hitting.
Our best friends will always be the Brits and Canadians, period. We are family, period. This is healthy brother to brother squabbling, nothing more.
My compliments, carry on.
I feel that it is a great shame that so much anti-British sentiments hav been released in the US media (and seized upon in the UK press recently). Many US media outputs have barely recognised that UK troops have been in Iraq for the past 4 years and suffering significant casualties.
Just a couple of points:
1)The repeated notion that UK troops are now stuck in base doing nothing is a gross insult to UK forces. If this were the case then UK casualties would have fallen greatly recently, whereas they are set to reach their highest levels this year.
2) Much has been made of Shiite militia fighting and police corruption in the South. Well, the latter is a problem all over Iraq and the former was inevitable given Saddam’s suppression of the Shia during his reign. In the elections of 2005, the Southern Iraq’s voted for these sorts of groups also. British troops cannot force Western cultural values on the Iraqis.
3) Britain currently has 5500 troops in Iraq. This is a tiny number given the problems that they face (and the fact that only a proportion of these will be combat troops. They are still patrolling (and suffering many wounded and killed). Only the other week, the killing of a British soldier sparked a shoot-out that killed between 30 and 40 insurgents. Britain is leading military efforts in the South of Afghanistan and is very stretched militarily. Any forces pulled out of Iraq are likely to be used to bolster the Afghan mission. In this case, you have to ask why other US ‘allies’ haven’t been willing to send troops to help out. Counter-insurgencies rely on boots on the ground to reassure the population and thus gain valuable intelligence. British forces at present are too small to be able to accomplish this task (as would any US unit of similar size in the same situation)
4) Unlike in the rest of Iraq, apparently 90% of attacks in the South are against the British alone. This causes a conundrum: If UK forces pull back somewhat, will violence in the South peter out or get worse? If UK troops surge, will it achieve anything other than give insurgents more targets when they would die out when the British left anyway?
5) Some US critics of the British have admittedly never been to Basra themselves. UK force commanders have been quoted as saying that the crime rate in the city is 50% that of Washington DC.
6) Many people in the US claim that Vietnam was a political defeat only as US forces never lost a military engagement. Well, the British military in the South of Iraq has won every one of their (often pitched) battles with Islamic militants. Some on this website seem too quick to criticise British troops in this regard.
You are not fit to tie these ‘losers’ boot laces mate. You disrespect British troops who have been killed and maimed trying to help their US friends. Well, good luck with your other ‘allies’, who between them can’t muster any troops for serious combat.
The embarrasing Iranian incident was no worse for the British than when an entire unit of US troops refused to go on convoy duty in Iraq a couple of years ago. It’s funny how US posters seem to have forgotten that serious break-down in military values.
‘again’?.
I keep hearing this from Americans...where is this mythical time of again, where America fought alone?.
Of course, you COULD do the sensible thing and give a legitimate criticism of our tactics.Some of which the British here would probably agree with.But instead youd rather drag the old Limey bashing crap out for an airing...
F**k you.
The British soldier is as brave and accomplished a soldier as any on earth.
It is the British POLITICIANS that have been weak.
I responed to your first post with an obscenity I now rather wish I hadnt...
Apologies...
I just get defensive about my nation’s soldiers.
The hands off policy WAS the right one at the time...
It isnt now. However today doesnt negate the validity of the earlier policy.
A lot of you should be ashamed. The Brits have been a stand up ally since the beginning of the GWOT, and before. We should be thanking them, not attacking them.
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