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2004-04-11 Britain
US tactics condemned by British officers
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Posted by mrp 2004-04-11 10:22:08 AM|| || Front Page|| [11130 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 There's the ticket. Let's defer to the Brits who, if memory serves, in 1920 sided with the Sunni minority against the Shite majority and established the blossoming rose that became, as we all know, today's peaceful and tranquil Iraq. Such unsimplistic and nuanced foreign policy of which France would be proud. I agree with Mark Steyn: contrary to established Brit policy in Iraq, it's time to rattle the Iraqi's tea cups.
Posted by Mark  2004-04-11 12:49:22 PM||   2004-04-11 12:49:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 "The US troops view things in very simplistic terms."

Good.

Posted by Parabellum  2004-04-11 12:51:09 PM||   2004-04-11 12:51:09 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 God help us all if US military officers ever 'nuance' how they see things.
Posted by badanov  2004-04-11 12:57:48 PM|| [http://www.rkka.org]  2004-04-11 12:57:48 PM|| Front Page Top

#4  "The US troops view things in very simplistic terms." Good.

Black and white is even better.
Posted by Shipman 2004-04-11 1:04:57 PM||   2004-04-11 1:04:57 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 This is outrageous -- the idea that US troops view Iraqis as "untermenschen." It's pretty implausible, and offensive. I especially love the "charge" that US troops think "everybody is out to kill them." Gee, where would a soldier in Ramadi ever get that idea? Let's put our savvy Brit allies up in Fallujah and see how their "soft" approach works. This is scary -- the only capable allies of any dimension we have in Iraq seem to have at least a streak of arrogant, ignorant anti-US feeling. Even discounting envy, personal issues, etc., this is disturbing.
Posted by IceCold  2004-04-11 1:24:30 PM||   2004-04-11 1:24:30 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 There's a reason the Brits were given what was assumed to be the softer, more friendly area to manage.
Posted by rkb  2004-04-11 1:32:12 PM||   2004-04-11 1:32:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 rkb: There's a reason the Brits were given what was assumed to be the softer, more friendly area to manage.

The funny thing is that the Marines were accusing the Army of being too hard-assed - while the Marines were posted in cushy spots. Now that the leathernecks are actually out in Indian country, they're responding with far more force than the Army. I find that hilarious, but at the same time, appropriate - we are finding out that terrorists cannot be appeased - they have to be either captured or killed.
Posted by Zhang Fei  2004-04-11 1:39:38 PM||   2004-04-11 1:39:38 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 "This is scary -- the only capable allies of any dimension we have in Iraq seem to have at least a streak of arrogant, ignorant anti-US feeling."

Yep, that's about the long and short of it. Not too reassuring, is it? Sad to say, I think before this is over we're going to be on our own. Completely.
Posted by Dave D.  2004-04-11 1:53:41 PM||   2004-04-11 1:53:41 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Methinks the "Senior" British Officer quoted is a fuckin' wog. Lol! Imagine these sneering inventors of snobbery complaining that US soldiers speak disparagingly of the duplicitous back-stabbing insane mullah-brained Iraqis.

So, since you invented most of the perjoratives of racism in the language, developed from your heavy-handed world-wide exploits a couple of centuries ago, what is the proper term, hmmmm?

Oh, the irony! Lol!
Posted by .com 2004-04-11 2:21:13 PM||   2004-04-11 2:21:13 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 "The US troops view things in very simplistic terms. It seems hard for them to reconcile subtleties between who supports what and who doesn’t in Iraq. It’s easier for their soldiers to group all Iraqis as the bad guys. As far as they are concerned Iraq is bandit country and everybody is out to kill them."
Nothing simplistic in this inflammatory generalization is there? If this is real, the officer in question should be dismissed from the service for this arrogant, hypocritical, demonizing, and bigoted characterization of an entire allied force. The use of nazi terminology is especially inflammatory and unwarranted and a direct incitement to violence against an ally. His financial and personal records should also be checked for improper relationships, such as Muslim business contacts or an interest in Fifth Column media stocks.
Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2004-04-11 2:54:22 PM||   2004-04-11 2:54:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 America’s aggressive methods...

No shit, Spock, it's freakin' warfare. Give me a break, brave anonymous Brit officer...
Posted by Raj 2004-04-11 2:56:07 PM|| [http://angrycyclist.blogspot.com]  2004-04-11 2:56:07 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Field Marshall Montgomery was impossible to work with too.
Posted by Eric Jablow  2004-04-11 3:15:33 PM||   2004-04-11 3:15:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 The US troops view things in very simplistic terms

At least they aren't as stupid as this guy, who creates an international incident by saying something sooo stupid while thinking he was just soo smart. Yeah...you're a real freaking brain surgeon. Get a mirror - dumbass...whose the real simpleton here?
Posted by B 2004-04-11 4:04:42 PM||   2004-04-11 4:04:42 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Now, now, fellas, let's not get carried away. There is always some fraction of the British military for whom it is an article of faith that the bloody Yanks are utterly hopeless.

These guys are a lot of fun. As an example, I offer Dan Plesch of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies. Though he's not (now, at least) in the military himself, he's got the same mindset. At the beginning of the Afghan war he was on BBC World just about every day. Every day he would say what the US was going to do, and how it would be a disaster. And every day he'd be wrong. And the next day he'd be back on to tell what we were going to do and why it would be a disaster. Strangely, his hard-hitting interviewers never asked him why he'd been completely wrong the last time he'd been on the show. Hmmm.

(If you do a google on "Dan Plesch", the first item up is a Guardian article---he writes for them a lot---from December, 2002, about how Bush would wait until much closer to the 2004 elections before any move on Iraq. The brutal Iraqi summer is alluded to, and a scenario for how the invasion of Iraq would begin is suggested. Naturally, he was dead wrong.)
Posted by Angie Schultz 2004-04-11 4:59:19 PM|| [http://darkblogules.blogspot.com]  2004-04-11 4:59:19 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 Angie - This guy's name rings a bell... He may have been a member of the parade of "defence experts" that were featured each day on BBC and SkyNews, marching in lockstep, who did precisely as you described throughout the run-up for both Afghanistan and Iraq. We used to laugh our asses off at their dire warnings and the constant refrain of looming military disasters - always just over the next horizon - yet never every quite cresting it...

Plesch is, indeed, a classic standard-bearer of the genre. Lessee, what do we call these guys who are professional expert testifiers in our legal system? I'm sure there's an appropriate appellation for this breed of cretin!
Posted by .com 2004-04-11 5:12:39 PM||   2004-04-11 5:12:39 PM|| Front Page Top

#16  Field Marshall Montgomery was impossible to work with too.
Yes. He is a well known shiter. Once he get's out of slow boy's school I look to slap his thin ass around.
Posted by Georgie P 2004-04-11 5:22:59 PM||   2004-04-11 5:22:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 There is always some fraction of the British military for whom it is an article of faith that the bloody Yanks are utterly hopeless.

There is also a tendency to express this prejudice with what seems for all the world to be calculated stupidity, perhaps to highlight the alleged American ignorance of facts for rebuttal.

A good example would be a recent statement I heard from a British veteran. He disparaged American troops for using armored vehicles to combat the IED threat in Iraq and asserted that Royal Marines were so superior that they could defeat this threat without such equipment.
His proof? A photo of RM booties driving around in a soft-skinned Land Rover in Bosnia.

I might as well claim that I am a superior person because my Chevrolet seems to be all I need to protect myself from IEDs in Lubbock, Texas.

There are good reasons that people like the great 9-11 and Vietnam hero Rick Rescorla (and my less than heroic self, btw) left Her Majesty's forces and cast our lot with the Americans, the insufferable and often fatal arrogance of the UK military culture being one.
Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2004-04-11 5:30:16 PM||   2004-04-11 5:30:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 Georgie P - LOL! WTF!?!?? I'm not sure of your meaning / intent, but it's funnier than hell, regardless!
Posted by .com 2004-04-11 5:31:06 PM||   2004-04-11 5:31:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 AC - And when they're right - they're right, too, We need to pay attention and merely sift the wheat from the chaff. Anything that helps mission effectiveness and protects the people at the point of the spear works for me.

I think this story reflects a hard fact: There are definitely people everywhere, in every walk of life, who should never meet a microphone, Lol!

BTW, I wish you would run for public office again - we always need good people, preferably in positions of responsibility wielding authority with wisdom and temperance!
Posted by .com 2004-04-11 6:15:38 PM||   2004-04-11 6:15:38 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 AC? Seriously, a Chevy? My 2004 Ford F150 4x4 supercrew is much superior....

(starting new thread/flame war heh heh)
Posted by Frank G  2004-04-11 6:48:06 PM||   2004-04-11 6:48:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 "I wish you would run for public office again - we always need good people, preferably in positions of responsibility wielding authority with wisdom and temperance!"

(Blushing) Many thanks, .com. I was thinking about running this year, but my health problems put a stop to that.
I've been a little miffed with our local Congress-critter, one Randy Neugebauer, for being so much less responsive to constituents than his predecessor, Larry Combest.
Larry always responded personally to constituent inquiries if they were halfway reasonable (or even if they came from me), while Neugebauer seems to rely on turgid form letters, if he responds at all.
I would run against him next time, but I don't have the requisite millions lying around, so I had my eye on some sort of municipal office (though not mayor, the most thankless job in these parts and that's saying a lot).
Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2004-04-11 7:01:26 PM||   2004-04-11 7:01:26 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 My 2004 Ford F150 4x4 supercrew is much superior....

Of course it is, but only in its traditional role as the box a Chevy comes in....
Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2004-04-11 7:03:10 PM||   2004-04-11 7:03:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 .com:

"Georgie P." => George Patton, I presume.

Damn funny, though.
Posted by Carl in N.H.  2004-04-11 7:03:35 PM||   2004-04-11 7:03:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 ok LOL
Posted by Frank G  2004-04-11 7:05:59 PM||   2004-04-11 7:05:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 Carl - *slaps forehead* Of course, you're right. This f**kin duh moment brought to you by .com, Lol!
Posted by .com 2004-04-11 7:10:10 PM||   2004-04-11 7:10:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 AC - LOL! Gotcha - Mayor sucks unless it's a major city. As for the millions, I get your point - and the Lubbock / Midland vicinity has seen the awl barons come and go over the years. Right now some may be re-emerging given the record prices. Even a few stripper wells can make a pile 'o cash at $30+/bbl! So you just might find some loose cash. After Googling Neugebauer you'd better be a "thumper", heh, cuz he's a Baptist in good standing! His fund raising might be a liability... his VoteMatch record is what you might call "safe"! Lol! Yeah, until he actually VOTES on something, he's a tough nut!
Posted by .com 2004-04-11 7:26:12 PM||   2004-04-11 7:26:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 Ok, Mr. high ranking British officer, why don't you take charge of retaking and pacifying Najaf and Kufa? These are a couple of good places to show the US how it's done. However, my bet is you are not even in Iraq, but sitting on your big fat ass in an officer's club in downtown London.
Posted by GK 2004-04-11 10:00:50 PM||   2004-04-11 10:00:50 PM|| Front Page Top

08:48 Gentle
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23:59 .com
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