Bush addresses the world- Pending War

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Lizra
Why is Turkey upset over the Kurds moving into Kirkuk? What's up with Turkey?

It's basically because of racism in the region really. The different factions don't get along very well. It's very similar to the problems of when Yugoslavia broke off from the Soviet Union and all the racial tensions came to the surface.

The Turks are afriad that the Kurds will break off from the rest of Iraq and set up their own country and that then there will be uprisings in Turkey. When Britain divided up the region into the countries of the Middle East as we know it today - they didn't break up between the way the "tribes" were - but gave land based on who supported them. Now you have different "ethnic groups" who never got along, were promised conflicting things by England, and they might rise up to right the wrongs of the past.

Turkey isn't the only one concerned about the Kurds. Kurdish territory also extends into Syria and Iran too. Those countries are also concerned about Kurdish uprisings and Kurdish state or country.

It's very important that the US makes sure that the Kurds work within the framework of Iraq and do NOT try to establish an independent country or state.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Draken
Yeah but we train them to try and shoot more of the enemy than each other. Makes 'em last that much longer.

I've heard this comment by British on this board as well as others. It's really unclaled for. Friendly fire is a fact of war. Technology is not perfect. It would make sense in this war that America would be causing most of the friendly fire accidents we have 85% of the troops and 90+% of the air campaign.

Computers aren't perfect - so I don't know how people can expect a computer guided missile to work perfectly every time. Or have everything work perfectly in the heat of battle. It just doesn't and it never will. It has nothing to do with how you train your troops. The US has tried very hard to prevent civilian casualties as well as trying not to "attack" our own troops.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Sween
i would like to point out that britian has a very very small standing army we dont go in for vast batallions of men i think the armys infantarty is only 100,000 so 40,000 troops represents a very large force from us

Which I'm surprised at. I thought that Britain had a much larger armed forces.

As for Iraq - people should really look at how hated Hussein is by his people. The atrocities they must have gone through must be far worse than we can imagine. The people are actually burning and destroying money because it has his picture on it. For people who have nothing to be looting banks and then burning and destroying money - shows you how hated that man is by his own people.

[Coney]

Originally posted by jerseydevil

Which I'm surprised at. I thought that Britain had a much larger armed forces.

Nope Britain has been cutting back on it's armed forces for years, I guess we found better things to spend the money on

As for Iraq - people should really look at how hated Hussein is by his people. The atrocities they must have gone through must be far worse than we can imagine. The people are actually burning and destroying money because it has his picture on it. For people who have nothing to be looting banks and then burning and destroying money - shows you how hated that man is by his own people. [/B]

They should be selling them on E-Bay..........Any Saddam memoribilia is going for a fortune (bank notes especially).

Is it me, or is there a contradiction here? You criticise the French and Germans for not joining in the war, and you criticise us for joining you! Sorry if you don't think our sacrifice great enough for you. Maybe instead of America stopping trying to please the world, like people here are suggesting, the world should stop trying to please America. Because you're just never satisifed, are you?

That is pretty much the impression I get as well :/ ........

Yeah but we train them to try and shoot more of the enemy than each other. Makes 'em last that much longer.

Yup, friendly fire is a sad but true thing. The one that sticks in my mind was the poor guys on the British tanks. Flying the Union flag, huge bright orange arrows painted on and even let off the red "friendly" signal with a flare! The American Tankbuster pilot passed overhead, came back and on the second pass opened fire on them That pilot should be charged with murder .

Computers aren't perfect - so I don't know how people can expect a computer guided missile to work perfectly every time.

That's true, military technology leaves a lot to be desired :/

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Quick question, JD: How many troops does the US have, and how many did they send?

[Aralyn]

Just ask Saddam, I'm sure HE knows . . .

grumble grumble

[Earniel]

Originally posted by jerseydevil
For people who have nothing to be looting banks and then burning and destroying money - shows you how hated that man is by his own people.

Does it? Sure they are looting but they are looting everything, not just Saddam's palaces or banks. The largest hospital in Bagdad is closed because they have nothing left to help the patients with. Everything is stolen. I hope the aid gets there quick or we'll have another humanitarian disaster on our hands.

[Sister Golden Hair]

One of the reasons for the overall looting is a human reaction to being oppressed for years, and suddenly released.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Gwaimir Windgem
Quick question, JD: How many troops does the US have, and how many did they send?

I know we have about 250,000 - 300,000 troops in Kuwait and Iraq. At least that was how much we were sending - including those who would be going through Turkey (but had to be diverted). A lot of this is support troops and logistics officers, etc - but it's still all armed forces.

Here is the breakdown of the US military strength from Navy PostGraduate School - Military Strengths of U.S., Allied, and Selected Other Armed Forces .

Active Troops - 1,547,000
Reserve Troops - 2,045,000
Heavy Tanks - 10,900
Armored Infantry Vehicles - 32,545
Airplanes - 11,189
Helicopters - 7,925
Major Warships - 239
Amphipious Mine and Support Ships - 164
Military Budget (Billions) - $265

This is 1996 data. I'll try to see if I can get more up to date figures.

For latest information you can look at...
Department of Defense Almanac
Annual Report to the President and the Congress
Department of Defense: DefenseLINK

And as SGH said - they've been repressed for years and in most countries that have gone through a drastic change like this - there has been looting and similar activity. We currently have more troops heading into Baghdad to control the situation. No one thought Baghdad was going to fall so quickly based on what had happened the night before it had fallen. It takes time to set up and put into place the things that are required. Britain has been in Umm Qasr for 3 weeks now and there are still problems there. It's not going to be fixed over night. Now that the regime has fallen - the hard part begins.

[Coney]

Originally posted by Sister Golden Hair
One of the reasons for the overall looting is a human reaction to being oppressed for years, and suddenly released.

Yup, we often see looting as a demonstration by the people if they feel they have been cheated of what should rightly be theirs :/ Whenever a city feels it has been cheated then we see looting, wether it is through war, rioting or something as innocent as a power blackout ach well, such is some people's perception of human nature *shrugs*

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Coney
Nope Britain has been cutting back on it's armed forces for years, I guess we found better things to spend the money on

Most of Europe has because they get to rely on our military as if it was their own.

They should be selling them on E-Bay..........Any Saddam memoribilia is going for a fortune (bank notes especially).

One Iraqi woman said that she hoped Hussein was alive - then they can lock him up in a cage in the zoo and charge money for people "see" him. She said then they can use the money to rebuild Iraq.

That is pretty much the impression I get as well :/ ........

If that's what you think.

Yup, friendly fire is a sad but true thing. The one that sticks in my mind was the poor guys on the British tanks. Flying the Union flag, huge bright orange arrows painted on and even let off the red "friendly" signal with a flare! The American Tankbuster pilot passed overhead, came back and on the second pass opened fire on them That pilot should be charged with murder .

Murder huh? Imagine if all combat accidents involved charges of murder - only the bad guys would win. Accidents happen - and you don't know what the situation was there. I hadn't heard about the red signal flare. I heard about the Union Jack being painted on the tank and that the British tried to get the jets attention - but I believe it was at night - so unless British troops have a habit of lighting their tanks with spot lights - I don't think the pilot would be able to see. Also - if you've ever been in a plane - depending on how high the military plane was - he wouldn't have been able to see the tank very well on the ground EXCEPT by computer. I'm not sure how good their monitors are in the jets if they'd be able to see a flag painted on the top of a tank or not. As for the anti-friendly fire devices. I'm not sure how they really work - so the computer may not have registered that it was a friendly troop. Believe me - you see many times entmoot has problems. Well Entmoot runs on a MUCH simpler computer program than military hardware runs off of.

In college we discussed legal issues of computer programming. Such as - what happens if it is found that a computer programmer made an error in a autopilot program for a commercial jet and the jet crashes and kills everyone on board. It's a big issue - all it takes is for a simple mistype of coding a 1 instead of a 2. Or not checking for division by zero and the computer program can crash or just start running garbage. Most people don't know either that numbers in computer have set size constraints. For instance a signed integer may be in the range of -128 to 127. If a person tries to assign 129 to that varible - it's not going to store 129, it's going to store negative 127, because the number has wrapped around. Simple problems like these make it too easy to criticise the pilots and troops for friendly fire.

Military as well as most life threatening programs go through EXTENSIVE testing - but even so there is still that .1% occurence that isn't or can't be tested or isn't even forseen and gets by. Microsoft of course just seems to like to use it's customers for it's quality control - that's why Windows always crahses and requires constant patches.

That's true, military technology leaves a lot to be desired :/

All technology leaves a lot to be desired - none of it is perfect. But I get the feeling that what you mean is the military in general is not a good thing.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Coney
Yup, we often see looting as a demonstration by the people if they feel they have been cheated of what should rightly be theirs :/ Whenever a city feels it has been cheated then we see looting, wether it is through war, rioting or something as innocent as a power blackout ach well, such is some people's perception of human nature *shrugs*

99% of the looting and destruction was agains the remnants of Hussein's regime. Yes - some people were looting the hospitals. Looting and destruction during blackouts or "peace marches" is because of ignorance and criminal behavior. Most of these people who are looting in Iraq are most likely not doing this in a criminal behavior but taking their revenge out on the regime anyway they can for the decades of torture.

[Cirdan]

Originally posted by Sister Golden Hair
One of the reasons for the overall looting is a human reaction to being oppressed for years, and suddenly released.

That, or winning some sports championchip.

[Coney]

Most of Europe has because they get to rely on our military as if it was their own.

When was the last time Europe called on America's aid post 1943?

One Iraqi woman said that she hoped Hussein was alive - then they can lock him up in a cage in the zoo and charge money for people "see" him. She said then they can use the money to rebuild Iraq.

And the relevance to auctioning Saddam memorabilea in E-Bay is?

If that's what you think.

No, that's is the impression that I get, as I said What my own personal thoughts are, I'll save for my friends, thank you

Murder huh? Imagine if all combat accidents involved charges of murder - only the bad guys would win.

Now, c'mon....even you have to admit the awful situation I posted was a direct act of imcompetance...........there was no excuse for that!

99% of the looting and destruction was agains the remnants of Hussein's regime. Yes - some people were looting the hospitals. Looting and destruction during blackouts or "peace marches" is because of ignorance and criminal behavior. Most of these people who are looting in Iraq are most likely not doing this in a criminal behavior but taking their revenge out on the regime anyway they can for the decades of torture

My point exactly.........people who feel disatisfaction with their county will usually resort to looting in times of crisis, this is apparent world wide.

In college we discussed legal issues of computer programming. Such as - what happens if it is found that a computer programmer made an error in a autopilot program for a commercial jet and the jet crashes and kills everyone on board. It's a big issue - all it takes is for a simple mistype of coding a 1 instead of a 2. Or not checking for division by zero and the computer program can crash or just start running garbage. Most people don't know either that numbers in computer have set size constraints. For instance a signed integer may be in the range of -128 to 127. If a person tries to assign 129 to that varible - it's not going to store 129, it's going to store negative 127, because the number has wrapped around. Simple problems like these make it too easy to criticise the pilots and troops for friendly fire.

*shrugs* human error or computer error.........people still end up dead

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Coney
When was the last time Europe called on America's aid post 1943?

Bosnia, Berlin Wall, Europe wanted our help all during the cold war by keeping the Soviet Union in check at the East German border. Vietnam was a French colony and they wanted out help in putting down the Vietcong (we also wanted to stop the spread of communism too)

And the relevance to auctioning Saddam memorabilea in E-Bay is?

If you can't see then you a dense. It's another way for Iraqis to make money for the rebuilding and get abck on their feet - which is what I assumed you meant by them auctioning off Hussein Memorabilia on e-bay.

No, that's is the impression that I get, as I said What my own personal thoughts are, I'll save for my friends, thank you

Not worth even commenting on.

Now, c'mon....even you have to admit the awful situation I posted was a direct act of imcompetance...........there was no excuse for that!

How do you know it was incompetence - were you in the cockpit of the Jet? Do you know what the situation was WITHOUT a doubt?

*shrugs* human error or computer error.........people still end up dead

I assume you still drive even though man has not built a car that doesn't crash yet. People still fly in planes even though they may crash and end up dead.

[Coney]

'nuff said

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story...935298,00.html

Bosnia, Berlin Wall, Europe wanted our help all during the cold war by keeping the Soviet Union in check at the East German border. Vietnam was a French colony and they wanted out help in putting down the Vietcong (we also wanted to stop the spread of communism too)

Bosnia was a UN decision, not Europe.

The Berlin wall was also a UN decision, not Europe again.

The French colony was a French colony, again not Europe... do try and read the question

If you can't see then you a dense. It's another way for Iraqis to make money for the rebuilding and get abck on their feet - which is what I assumed you meant by them auctioning off Hussein Memorabilia on e-bay.

You assumed wrong (pay attention to the smilies, as you asked me to do some weeks ago )

Not worth even commenting on.

If you confuse opinion with impression I pity you.

How do you know it was incompetence - were you in the cockpit of the Jet? Do you know what the situation was WITHOUT a doubt?

Because I viewed an interview with a tank driver on the news...*shrugs* if he was speaking lies, I cannot see the reason why he would, we are, after all, allies in this invasion........

I assume you still drive even though man has not built a car that doesn't crash yet. People still fly in planes even though they may crash and end up dead.

Of course, if I crash it may be my fault, if there were a fault I would turn off the engine, and I doubt that someone is gonna ram me off the road deliberatly. and I'm pretty sure that when I fly my pilot isn't gonna attack the nearest traffic convoy

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally posted by jerseydevil
I know we have about 250,000 - 300,000 troops in Kuwait and Iraq. At least that was how much we were sending - including those who would be going through Turkey (but had to be diverted). A lot of this is support troops and logistics officers, etc - but it's still all armed forces.

Here is the breakdown of the US military strength from Navy PostGraduate School - Military Strengths of U.S., Allied, and Selected Other Armed Forces .

Active Troops - 1,547,000
Reserve Troops - 2,045,000
Heavy Tanks - 10,900
Armored Infantry Vehicles - 32,545
Airplanes - 11,189
Helicopters - 7,925
Major Warships - 239
Amphipious Mine and Support Ships - 164
Military Budget (Billions) - $265

This is 1996 data. I'll try to see if I can get more up to date figures.

For latest information you can look at...
Department of Defense Almanac
Annual Report to the President and the Congress
Department of Defense: DefenseLINK

And as SGH said - they've been repressed for years and in most countries that have gone through a drastic change like this - there has been looting and similar activity. We currently have more troops heading into Baghdad to control the situation. No one thought Baghdad was going to fall so quickly based on what had happened the night before it had fallen. It takes time to set up and put into place the things that are required. Britain has been in Umm Qasr for 3 weeks now and there are still problems there. It's not going to be fixed over night. Now that the regime has fallen - the hard part begins.

The armed forces strength figure as of October 31, 2002 was 1,453,889

From defenseLINK.

I'm not a skilled mathematician, but if the UK sent 40,000 of 100,000, and we sent c. 300,000 of 1,450,000, then the UK gave more of what they had. Of course, the 300,000 will still do more good, but I definitely think they deserve appreciation and acknowledgement for this case of Widow's Mite.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Gwaimir Windgem

I'm not a skilled mathematician, but if the UK sent 40,000 of 100,000, and we sent c. 300,000 of 1,450,000, then the UK gave more of what they had. Of course, the 300,000 will still do more good, but I definitely think they deserve appreciation and acknowledgement for this case of Widow's Mite.

I do appreciate Englands help. I think we can use their help in a lot of areas of Iraq. I heard the British head back to England in a month - not sure if they're being replaced or if anyone is staying behind though,

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I was pretty sure you did. Just sometimes you can tend to be the opposite of BoP and Coney: while you are certainly not "anti-non-American", it sometimes seems that you only say good things about America.

[Coney]

Originally posted by Gwaimir Windgem
I was pretty sure you did. Just sometimes you can tend to be the opposite of BoP and Coney: while you are certainly not "anti-non-American", it sometimes seems that you only say good things about America.

And please don't forget JD's constant criticism of everything that the world has done since 1914 ..... except the USA that is

I do appreciate Englands help. I think we can use their help in a lot of areas of Iraq. I heard the British head back to England in a month - not sure if they're being replaced or if anyone is staying behind though,

*thud*

Luckily enough our leaders have said the "UK troops won't be in Iraq a minute longer than in nessecary" invasion is easy, getting the people to accept that their country is under the force of an invading army.......that is the real battle