Fred Stone wrote:

"Mike Painter" <mddotpainter@sbcglobal.net> wrote in
news:7Nzwe.1179$0V3.1119@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com:

Fred Stone wrote:

"Mike Painter" <mddotpainter@sbcglobal.net> wrote in
news:f3nwe.34883$J12.1243@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com:

Fred Stone wrote:
<snip>

As I recall there were ranges of predictions, on the order of 'it
could be easy and it could be difficult'. The media like to
recall the ones that didn't work out, just like Yang, the
brilliant economist who used two points on the DOW to demonstrate
how stock market investments never pay off, likes to pull out the
times I have been wrong, while ignoring the ones I got right.

12 years is a little beyond "difficult"
Where was Germany and Japan 12 years after the war?

12 years is the outside estimate. Historically, an insurgency can
only last that long if they have popular support and outside
logistical help. Given that the terrorists have virtually no
popular support, no sanctuary, no bases, and no safe logistics
routes, it's not terribly likely that they'll last that long.

Why should things be any better 12 years after the invasion by a
hated power who refuses to leave?

You'd do better to ask how the terrorists can possibly win since
*they* are hated by the vast majority of Iraqis and their Sunni
supporters are increasingly nervous about the possibility of
backlash from their more numerous Shia and Kurdish neighbors.

Sure Fred, and when you said about the same thing a year ago we said
then it was going to go on.

Gee, a whole year. Gosh.

Yes, a whole year of escalation with moe death and the US Army
admitting they do not control large areas of the country.

A year of large sweeps with no success.

And a year of you saying it's winding down when even Republican
lawmakers are saying different.

But maybe they don't have the information you do.

But even more interesting is your admission that we could be there
that long.
So which is it. The Iraqi's are not capable of learning to defend
themselves from this violence or the US is not capable of training
then properly?

Neither.

Then thre would be no need for us to stay there.

How many American GI's spend free time in Bagdad these days?
That's the city where all those people support us remember?

Fred Stone wrote:

Dubh Ghall <puck@pooks.hill.fey> wrote in
news:dqf6c11rnhft1a7e0ne6s9kdn3rqtmikc3@4ax.com:

On 29 Jun 2005 00:15:02 -0500, bob young <alaspectrum@netvigator.com>
wrote:

How many years since England brought the protestants into Ireland?

!!!!!????? If Britain hadn't then the Spanish or the French would have
taken it over.

Unlikely.

The only thing Ireland had, was education, and culture.

Europe already had those things, but England did not, which is why
William, and his successors wanted Ireland.


William,(ten seventy something, I think) made the first attempt, and
various English kings tried it after him.
England developed it's own culture, but Ireland had become a pain in
her flesh, and a constant worry, incase, as you say, the Irish allied
with the French or Spanish, giving them a closer base of operations,
and on a poorly defended coast.

Even when Ireland was finally conquered, it was never fully subdued

Best part of a thousand years later, and the fight is still going on.

England's attitude towards Ireland, was much the same as Bushes
attitude towards Iraq.

Only in some paranoid Orwellian nightmare. England wanted to enslave
Ireland, treat them as a colony of serfs.

Bloody fool

On 30 Jun 2005 00:53:02 -0500, bob young <alaspectrum@netvigator.com> wrote:

...and even though Spain and France were grabbing anything that appealed to them at
the time, you will never know whether or not they would have grabbed Ireland for
themselves.

True enough, but Ireland had quite a time of it, getting French and Spanish
mercenaries, when they needed them.

They had to go to the pope, and agree to change from Irish catholic, to Roman
catholic, before that could get the help they needed.

Of course, having done that, they were, to a degree at least, protected from
invasion.

That, in it's self, however, may have had some bearing on England's continued
efforts to invade.

A tactician would tell you the chances were very strong, being on Britain's back
doorstep - just imagine!

As I said, a poorly protected coast, and with The Dee, The Ribble, The Mersey,
and of course, The Severn, all easily navigable by the ships of the time, to get
troops inland, quickly.

Was Britain wise to prevent it?

You bet,

Perhaps.

History is written, and re-written, by the winners; Official history that is.

Folk history often tells a different, and oft times, more accurate story.

There seems to be a peculiar absence of folk history, between the 11th and 16th
century, so it is difficult to find anything to make a comparison, and try to
separate the reality from the propaganda.

and then along came the religious divide without which none of the
problems would have existed. Two Catholic nations living in harmony side by side.

Religion and imaginary gods again!

Oh yes. Always a good way to start a new war, or to warm over an older,
cooling, one.

--
Puck Greenman
The spelling, Like any opinion stated here,
is purely my own
#162 BAAWA Knight.

Plonked by Rob Duncan

Na bister 500,000