"Jim Letchworth" wrote:
Let me get this straight. I think you said........
1) "Collateral damage" is necessary and no
self-respecting senior British
officer would dare openly criticize it. I bet
you don't think pictures of
"collateral damage" should be shown to the "naive"
American public either.
2) Terrorists should wear uniforms so we can
pick them out in a crowd.
3) Terrorists should take their swords, AK-47s,
and RPGs, and meet our
tanks, helicopters, F-16s, and artillery outside
the city... in the open?
4) Un-armed shopkeepers should step outside
and tell these bloodthirsty,
un-caring terrorist "pussies" to "move on, or
else...."
H-m-m-m.......
Terrorists, by the nature of their tactics, are cowards. They know that if
they get in a stand-up fight with a superior enemy, they lose. Period. The
only way to deal with terrorists wherever they are found is to kill them
without mercy or quarter. Even those motivated by religion start losing faith
when they see their "colleagues" stacked up like cordwood, blown to pieces
by CBUs or JDAMs, and run over by tanks and APCs. The Baathists are trying
to bring back a dictatorship (when hell freezes over), Sadr is trying to
get political points (hard to do when you hack a rival to death, and outside
a mosque at that), and the jihadists, well, their motivation needs no explanation.
Dispose of them without too much collateral damage, pick up the pieces and
rebuild, and impress on the remaining insurgents that such misbehavior as
in Fallujah and Sadr's actions will not be tolerated.
Jim
"BadBender" wrote in message
news:qZeec.1377$0h6.1368@lakeread02...
Let me get this strait. Some mysterious "senior
british officer" is saying
American tactics are too strong and not equal
to the threat , right? First
off this is probably made up, a genuine work
of fiction. Second, assuming
any truth to it, of course US troops would
think every Iraqi is the enemy.
The terrorists that are killing US troops
every day aren't wearing nice
uniforms that identify them as the enemy.
They look like the adverage
Iraqi.
About the US using artillery to take out a
mortar target, what about the
mortar launching idiot to begin with. If your
gonna be a pussy and fight
from a heavily occupied neighborhood then
you deserve to die. I'm hoping
that when the adverage Iraqi sees these idiots
setting up to attack from
outside their house they will show some testicular
fortitude and tell to
bozos to move some where else lest their house
gets hit. Make no mistake,
if
you fire on US troops your going to get fired
back at, and probably with
more then you got.
--
One of the penalties for refusing to participate
in politics is that you
end
up being governed by your inferiors.
- Plato
"~ LITTLE HITLER ~"
wrote in message
...
US Tactics Condemned by British Officers
By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent
11/04/2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
"Part of the problem was that American troops
viewed Iraqis as
untermenschen - the Nazi expression for
"sub-humans".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Senior British commanders have condemned
American military tactics in
Iraq as heavy-handed and disproportionate.
One senior Army officer told The Telegraph
that America's aggressive
methods were causing friction among allied
commanders and that there was
a growing sense of "unease and frustration"
among the British high
command.
The officer, who agreed to the interview
on the condition of anonymity,
said that part of the problem was that American
troops viewed Iraqis as
untermenschen - the Nazi expression for
"sub-humans".
Speaking from his base in southern Iraq,
the officer said: "My view and
the view of the British chain of command
is that the Americans' use of
violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive
to the threat they
are facing. They don't see the Iraqi people
the way we see them. They
view them as untermenschen. They are not
concerned about the Iraqi loss
of life in the way the British are. Their
attitude towards the Iraqis is
tragic, it's awful.
"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."
The phrase untermenschen - literally "under-people"
- was brought to
prominence by Adolf Hitler in his book Mein
Kampf, published in 1925. He
used the term to describe those he regarded
as racially inferior: Jews,
Slaves and gipsies.
Although no formal complaints have as yet
been made to their American
counterparts, the officer said the British
Government was aware of its
commanders' "concerns and fears".
The officer explained that, under British
military rules of war, British
troops would never be given clearance to
carry out attacks similar to
those being conducted by the US military,
in which helicopter gunships
have been used to fire on targets in urban
areas.
British rules of engagement only allow troops
to open fire when
attacked, using the minimum force necessary
and only at identified
targets.
The American approach was markedly different:
"When US troops are
attacked with mortars in Baghdad, they use
mortar-locating radar to find
the firing point and then attack the general
area with artillery, even
though the area they are attacking may be
in the middle of a densely
populated residential area.
"They may well kill the terrorists in the
barrage but they will also
kill and maim innocent civilians. That has
been their response on a
number of occasions. It is trite, but American
troops do shoot first and
ask questions later. They are very concerned
about taking casualties and
have even trained their guns on British
troops, which has led to some
confrontations between soldiers.
"The British response in Iraq has been much
softer. During and after the
war the British set about trying to win
the confidence of the local
population. There have been problems, it
hasn't been easy but on the
whole it was succeeding."
The officer believed that America had now
lost the military initiative
in Iraq, and it could only be regained with
carefully planned, precision
attacks against the "terrorists".
"The US will have to abandon the sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut
approach -
it has failed," he said. "They need to stop
viewing every Iraqi, every
Arab as the enemy and attempt to win the
hearts and minds of the people.
"Our objective is to create a stable, democratic
and safe Iraq. That's
achievable but not in the short term. It
is going to take up to 10
years."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...ws/2004/04/11/
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