Politics > Politics-USA > "My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended." 11.17.2003
| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Tom Jefferson" |
| Date: |
17 Nov 2003 08:16:27 PM |
| Object: |
"My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended." 11.17.2003 |
President Bush proclaimed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on
May 1, 2003:
Admiral Kelly, Captain Card (ph), officers and sailors of the USS Abraham
Lincoln, my fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In
the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.
http://www.milparts.net/bush-on-uss-lincoln.html
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From the article:
Three Iraqis were killed and at least four wounded Monday when US troops
fired on shoppers at a Baghdad market, after a customer at an illegal
weapons stall test-fired a single round in the air, witnesses and relatives
of the casualties said.
----------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday November 18, 7:11 AM
Two US soldiers, six Saddam loyalists killed in Iraq violence
AFP Photo
Another two American soldiers were killed in Iraq as the US military said
they had killed six suspected Saddam Hussein loyalists in battle against
escalating violence in the war-torn country.
Amid the growing insurgency, US President George W. Bush vowed Monday that
the United States has no imminent plan to leave Iraq, despite its moves to
speed up the transfer of sovereignty.
Meanwhile, the US military announced that 99 "anti-coalition suspects" have
been arrested during offensive operations against insurgents across the
country in the past 24 hours.
One soldier from the 4th Infantry Division was killed and two others wounded
near the town of Balad, north of Baghdad, after coming under attack with
small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, a military spokesman said.
Another 4th ID soldier was killed by an improvised explosive device south of
Balad, he added.
But, speaking after meeting with a group of Iraqi women leaders, Bush said
the United States is in for the long haul.
"I assured these women that America wasn't leaving," he said. "When they
hear me say that we're staying, that means we're staying."
Bush is due in Britain on Tuesday where he is expected to have intense talks
with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Iraq.
In northern Iraq, US forces put on a massive display of strength, firing
tank cannons, mortar bombs and helicopter guns near Saddam's hometown of
Tikrit, before rolling their heavy artillery through the flashpoint city.
On Sunday, US troops fired two satellite-guided missiles at facilities used
by anti-coalition forces, marking the first time such weapons were used
since Washington declared an end to major hostilities on May 1.
The overnight display of firepower and the mid-morning military parade were
part of an operation dubbed Ivy Cyclone II, launched Sunday.
"They've seen our tanks fire and they know what they can do," said
Lieutenant Colonel Steven Russell, who commands the 4th Infantry Division's
1-22 battalion.
"They need to understand it's more than Humvees that will be used against
the resistance, and we will absolutely crush the resistance," Russell said.
US troops killed six "former regime loyalists" and captured 21 others in
three separate incidents in north-central Iraq, Lieutenant Colonel Bill
MacDonald, spokesman for the 4th ID said Monday.
Later, US Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said he had "expected the cycle of
violence to increase" during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and that "in
response we increased our operations."
Kimmitt told a Baghdad press conference that weapons had been confiscated
and 15 safe houses and three training camps destroyed in the course of 1,729
patrols and 25 raids.
A former general of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard was among those netted
in Baghdad as part as the coalition's ongoing "Operation Iron Hammer".
US overseer Paul Bremer, meanwhile told NBC news from Baghdad that US and
Iraqi officials plan to finish drafting a US-style interim constitution for
Iraq by the end of February.
Under an agreement with the US-backed Governing Council unveiled at the
weekend, a provisional Iraqi government is to be formed by June and
elections held by the end of 2005.
Following Russian criticisms that it failed to involve the United Nations,
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington did want the world body
to play a role in the accelarated power return.
"We want the UN to play a role and it is a part of our plan in moving
forward," Powell told reporters.
For his part, Annan said he was considering how the United Nations could
help Iraq set up a new government, which he said was requested by the
current chair of the US-appointed Iraqi interim Governing Council, Jalal
Talabani.
Washington stepped up the transfer to Iraqi self-rule amid rising US troop
deaths.
Just days after doing so, Iran, for the first time Monday expressly
recognized the Governing Council saying it was "capable" of running the
country and leading it toward independence.
In Washington, the Central Intelligence Agency said Monday that it is
"inconclusive" whether an audiotape broadcast over the weekend purporting to
be Saddam is authentic because its quality was so bad.
In it, the former president said occupation forces in Iraq were at a "dead
end" and called for war against the occupiers and US-installed Iraqi
authorities.
Back on the ground, US forces said Monday they had killed one suspected
"foreign fighter" and captured five others near the Iraqi-Syrian border, as
they attempted to flee the war-torn country into Syria.
The news came after Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam pledged that
Damascus had "no intention" of providing military help to guerrillas
battling the US-led forces.
An underground Islamic fundamentalist group claimed responsibility Monday
for attacking a US helicopter and an American military convoy in Iraq in
November, in a tape broadcast on a private Lebanese television station.
Three Iraqis were killed and at least four wounded Monday when US troops
fired on shoppers at a Baghdad market, after a customer at an illegal
weapons stall test-fired a single round in the air, witnesses and relatives
of the casualties said.
Elsewhere, a blast on a pipeline forced Iraq's largest oil refinery in the
northern city of Baiji to shut down electricity for two days, as a fire
struck a natural gas pipeline in the same area, official US and Iraqi
sources said.
A member of Iraq's Islamic Movement of Kurdistan was seriously wounded when
a bomb went off near his organization's Kirkuk headquarters, police said.
And in Baghdad, employees of Iraq's central bank and other financial
institutions in the same compound, were evacuated after a rocket was found
in a nearby church, the bank's head of security said.
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/031117/1/3fys2.html
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| User: "Matt Nichols" |
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| Title: Re: "My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended." 11.17.2003 |
18 Nov 2003 07:35:49 PM |
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On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 19:16:27 -0700, "Tom Jefferson"
<tomj@democracy.org> wrote:
President Bush proclaimed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on
May 1, 2003:
Admiral Kelly, Captain Card (ph), officers and sailors of the USS Abraham
Lincoln, my fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In
the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.
http://www.milparts.net/bush-on-uss-lincoln.html
--------------------------------------------------------
From the article:
Three Iraqis were killed and at least four wounded Monday when US troops
fired on shoppers at a Baghdad market, after a customer at an illegal
weapons stall test-fired a single round in the air, witnesses and relatives
of the casualties said.
----------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday November 18, 7:11 AM
Two US soldiers, six Saddam loyalists killed in Iraq violence
Oh, the old "Look, he said the war was over and it's still going on"
ploy. I love this one; typical pure partisan propaganda (I love
alliteration!) which deliberately blurs or outright lies about the
facts of the matter.
"Major combat operations" are indeed over, and were at that time.
Major combat operations are clashes between armies, involving combined
arms (armor, air, sea units as well as grunts on the ground). Outside
of the '91 war with Iraq (which this war is technically just a
continuation of, since the state of war was never formally ended -
just as we are officially still at war with North Korea), the US has
not engaged in major combat operations since Vietnam.
What's happening now is not in the least "major combat operations";
it's pin-***** sniping. The actions going on now are two-fold:
standard subversion by Saddam loyalists, as well as continued
fighting by terrorist groups.
Neither group has any hope of winning in any conventional sense - they
could snipe away for the next 200 years and not erode US combat
capability one whit. Their only hope of winning is by having people
like you change the political atmosphere in the US so that Joe Sixpack
demands we withdraw - by doing precisely the sort of propaganda you
did here.
If you succeed, if the US pulls out of Iraq and Afghanistan w/out
having fully and completely formed Pro-American states capable of
defending themselves from other mid-east nations and actively
committed to hunting down terror groups on their own, the results will
be disastrous.
Firstly, the US will cease to have any credibility in the mid-east.
The overwhelming reason why we are having a harder time gaining active
civilian support (intelligence tips mainly) is because we abandoned
Afghanistan after providing semi-covert support against the Soviets,
and we abandoned anti-Saddam Iraqis after encouraging them to rebel
post-'91. The Iraqis themselves fear we'll cut and run, once again
leaving them to whatever tyrant rises out of the chaos, maybe even
Saddam himself if we don't run him down before leaving.
Secondly, with the US military withdrawn from the region, the terror
groups will *have* to come to the US to strike at us. The attacks on
September 11th will look like minor skirmishes compared to what we'd
experience if we left the mid-east entirely w/out establishing a
permanent base of continued operations there (in the form of Iraq and
Afghanistan). I'd rather the firefights with terrorists happen in
downtown Balad than downtown Buffalo.
-Matt
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| User: "Cameron L. Spitzer" |
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| Title: Re: "My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended." 11.17.2003 |
18 Nov 2003 09:10:19 PM |
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In article <3fbbc7c2.11094733@news.west.earthlink.net>, Matt Nichols wrote:
If you succeed, if the US pulls out of Iraq and Afghanistan w/out
having fully and completely formed Pro-American states capable of
defending themselves from other mid-east nations and actively
committed to hunting down terror groups on their own, the results will
be disastrous.
When has the US *ever* "fully and completely formed" a
"Pro-American state?"
What leads you to imagine the US might do that in a nation
where it just finished starving half a million children to
death in a decade-long siege? It's really not reasonable
to expect a "fully and completely formed Pro-American state"
to appear in Iraq for the next several decades.
We've done too much to make them hate our guts.
Everybody in Iraq knows a mother who watched her child die
slowly because of what the United States did.
I think the architects of that policy should be prosecuted for
treason for the damage they've done to the national security
of the United States. Then they should be prosecuted for
war crimes.
Firstly, the US will cease to have any credibility in the mid-east.
The overwhelming reason why we are having a harder time gaining active
civilian support (intelligence tips mainly) is because we abandoned
Afghanistan after providing semi-covert support against the Soviets,
The US has no "credibility in the mid-east" RIGHT NOW. We have no
further "credibility" to lose. Perhaps someone in Iraq is worried
about Afghanistan, but mostly they are MOURNING THEIR OWN CHILDREN.
Children who died when they had cholera because the US destroyed
the water plant and kept all medical supplies out of the country.
Cameron
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| User: "Matt Nichols" |
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| Title: Re: "My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended." 11.17.2003 |
20 Nov 2003 02:40:54 AM |
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On 19 Nov 2003 03:10:19 GMT, "Cameron L. Spitzer"
<spambait@merde.greens.org> wrote:
In article <3fbbc7c2.11094733@news.west.earthlink.net>, Matt Nichols wrote:
If you succeed, if the US pulls out of Iraq and Afghanistan w/out
having fully and completely formed Pro-American states capable of
defending themselves from other mid-east nations and actively
committed to hunting down terror groups on their own, the results will
be disastrous.
When has the US *ever* "fully and completely formed" a
"Pro-American state?"
Well, now is the time to start.
What leads you to imagine the US might do that in a nation
where it just finished starving half a million children to
death in a decade-long siege?
Because the US philosophical model is the greatest civilization
concept ever conceived by the mind of man, and eventually people who
are actually *exposed* to it will naturally gravitate toward it's
greatness.
It's really not reasonable
to expect a "fully and completely formed Pro-American state"
to appear in Iraq for the next several decades.
Then we stay for several decades. Duh. "Whatever it takes" MUST be our
motto, our whole reason for being. We MUST bring enlightenment to the
rest of the earth, so that there can BE an earth that we can live
on!!! After all, people such as the radical islamists can ONLY destroy
the planet, and destroy the earth. Destruction and hate are *their*
whole reasons for being.
We've done too much to make them hate our guts.
89% of Iraqis *love* the fact that we are there, and *pray* we *never*
leave. I'm perfectly willing to grant their prayers.
Everybody in Iraq knows a mother who watched her child die
slowly because of what the United States did.
No, they know that their children died because of what *SADDAM* did,
and, more importantly, because of what *THEY* did, because the Iraqi
people did not kill Saddam 35 years ago like they should have.
I think the architects of that policy should be prosecuted for
treason for the damage they've done to the national security
of the United States. Then they should be prosecuted for
war crimes.
Firstly, the US will cease to have any credibility in the mid-east.
The overwhelming reason why we are having a harder time gaining active
civilian support (intelligence tips mainly) is because we abandoned
Afghanistan after providing semi-covert support against the Soviets,
The US has no "credibility in the mid-east" RIGHT NOW.
We have no further "credibility" to lose.
You are an idiot. The people in the Mid-east understand one thing and
one thing only: Strength of arms. How the ***** do you think a
psychopath like Saddam acquired and maintained power in the first
place?!? How does a "leader" keep power when he's busy shoveling
truckloads of his own population into mass graves, and gassing cities
full of more citizens?
Simple; those citizens have been culturally inculcated to worship raw
power.
Well, WE have more "raw power" than any other political entity on the
planet. We don't *like* to flex it, but when left with no alternative
- like dealing with the twisted mass psychosis that is the entire Mid
East - we eventually, reluctantly, only after being spanked by having
3000+ of our citizens killed, express it.
We, the USA, ARE power. We are the ONLY power.
Nobody else has a remote claim to moral authority; only the US can be
a moral guide, the golden city on the hill, for the rest of the Earth.
Once we bring the light of individualism and personal freedom to the
rest of the world, and once we stamp out the twisted, Neanderthal "Man
With Biggest Club Rules All" politics that currently run all of
Europe, Asia, and Africa, then we'll finally, as a human species, be
ready to spread out to the stars.
Until then, however, the US, the only beacon of hope and life on
planet Earth, must continue to prevail and succeed. Militarily or
economically, it does not matter - just as long as we succeed. For we
are the ONLY light humanity has ever seen.
-Matt
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