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Hmm been reading about world opinion on this war. And which countries wanted husseins forces to win

this graph (based on a huge survey) speaks volumes i think

Who saw "Virgin Soldiers" the other night? It was about the spear head attack on Baghdad by US Marines. A camera man travelled with a fleet of APC. They seemed like nice people, no real diffence from the UK forces. But they seemed incredibly young and inexperienced, all of them about 20-23. They treated the locals with respect and seemed very capable.

viewtopic.php?t=3070

I watched it and these were my thoughts on it.....

Thankyou for that Jules

Isn't it true that most of the 'assasins' (we shall call them that for now) that are notorious in American history e.g. Lee Harvey Oswald, the killer of JFK and more recently the ex-marine sniper who terrorised America, were trained in the US military how to kill, and more selectively the US Marines? Whether this reflects and is related to US military training, ideals and custom I cannot say, but seems a bit more than coincidence for so many ex-military to turn into wild killers??

Hmm, ok 'borntoKILL' you've named TWO very famous murderers. How many murders occur in America each year? Too many. But how many of those are comitted by current or former military members? It's a small percentage of the total.
And the 'Beltway Sniper', if that's who you were referring to, was ex-Army, not Marines.

The individual who did the shooting, John Lee Malvo, is a juvenile from the Bahamas I beileve, a British common wealth.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/11/08/snipe ... index.html

I find some aspects of Military History quite interesting. It appears there always have been 'cock ups'. It could be a general makes a bad tactial decision, or a sergeant gives a stupid order. It may be an aircraft giving low level support, that makes an error, or maybe the same error twice. What ever, it is the ordinary serviceman who pays the price.

I have just read 11 pages of this thread, but did not find what I was looking for. The only things I know about Iraq are what I read or see on TV. I was curious as to why 42, seemed to loitre on the outskirts of Basra, instead of getting stuck into the street fighting and house clearing. I am not being critical, just interested.

why go risking casualties when you have artillery and air support to kill and opposing forces from a safe distance?

Because you can't use too heavy a hand in an urban area with loads of civilians. You eventually have to send in the men on foot to take control of the area. I do know that once this has been achieved, the number of men required to maintain order afterwards must be more than the original assault force.

First off it was the American commander and his staff’s decision, secondly if pressure had been applied to Basra early the escaping bad guys would’ve retreated into the advancing US forces and their supply lines causing havoc. If I remember correctly it was always the intention of isolating Saddam’s forces and pushing onto Baghdad, like WW2 island hopping in the Pacific only on land you have to contain and not bypass the enemy, that’s just my opinion.

As for the inevitable cock-ups someone once said ‘No plan survives intact past first contact with the enemy’. Nuff said.

Spitz,

Thanks for your response. I did suspect that it might have been an American directive. It would not be like 42 to hang about, when there was a job to be done.

Tactics would have been a combined American/British decision by a joint command, but it would’ve been Gen. Tommy Franks head if it had all gone to custard.

Americans Abandoned My Men, American's Abandoned My Men! Infinity!
I couldn't imagine a commander from a US unit doing that intentionally, hell I've been left behind twice on accident along with a troop or two. Everything worked out, we don't go to war everyday, just once every trn year's so we are rusty. Hell Americans shoot their own men sometimes, but we get the job done in the end. What do you want a cookie, a back rubb?

Another thing,every time I've done joint operations with other troops wrenches flew in the gears, given. I never seen an American purposely leave anyone to hang out to dry, we value human life, well maybe not our Air Force, but we can't expect much from them.

Another thing is we run full speed in battle, and if you ain't running at the same speed then guess what? We leave each other sometimes, is it smart no, is it anyone in the field'sfault, not really. So why try and make it look like American's left your boys hanging just to be dick's? We aren't like that in real life, we do go into robot mode during war and rush forward, if you stop to play grab ass you get left, if you are late you get left, if you don't stick to the plan then you are Su Sponte. But no one is going, "Ha, ha we left those poor bastards, ha, ha, ha." We know in the world you are the only friends we got, and as I have said before, our troops are taught respect for your military, our Navy and Marines are modeled after your's. We have similar traditions, like the one where you leave no man behind on purpose, yeah we got that from you, obviously that didn't come from the French.

Take care, and don't think we "Yank's' would ever maliciously, or purposely pop smoke on our friends, especially the people we come from.