America Loses Another War - Iraq: a shameful ass-whupping

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http://www.answers.com/topic/iraq

Information on Iraq

In December 2006 the New York Times reported that it is not just ordinary Americans who find it difficult to remember the difference between Sunnis and Shiites:

SURPRISE quiz: Is Al Qaeda Sunni or Shiite? Which sect dominates Hezbollah?

Silvestre Reyes, the Democratic nominee to head the House Intelligence Committee, failed to answer both questions correctly last week when put to the test by Congressional Quarterly. He mislabeled Al Qaeda as predominantly Shiite, and on Hezbollah, which is mostly Shiite, he drew a blank.

“Speaking only for myself,” he told reporters, “it’s hard to keep things in perspective and in the categories.”

Not that he’s alone. Other members of Congress from both parties have also flunked on-the-spot inquiries. Indeed, some of the smartest Western statesmen of the last century have found themselves flummoxed by Islam. Winston Churchill — in 1921, while busy drawing razor-straight borders across a mercurial Middle East — asked an aide for a three-line note explaining the “religious character” of the Hashemite leader he planned to install in Baghdad.

Religions: Muslim 97% (Shi'a 60%-65%, Sunni 32%-37%), Christian or other 3%

Some are better than others.


Anyway, tell me about the glorious military history of the USA.

Well, they had a very successful invasion of Grenada, population 103,000

One man broke his leg and one's static line became entangled as he exited the aircraft, dragging him against the tail of the C-130. He was eventually pulled back on board. The United States invaded the island of Grenada this morning. The initial assault consisted of some 1,200 troops from the Ranger Battalion and the 82d Airbone Division, Air Force Navy and Marines. Aircraft included AC-130 Spectra gunship, C-130 gunships, MC-130s, Cobra attack helicopters, CH-46s, CH-53s, Sea Stallions, Ships - USS Caron, USS Guam, jeeps, motorcycles, Hughes 500 Defender helicopters, and Navy A-7s.

They were met by stiff resistance from the Grenadian army and Cuban military units on the island. Heavy fighting continued for several days, but as the invasion force grew to more than 7,000. The defenders either surrendered or fled into the mountains. Scattered fighting continued as U.S. troops hunted down stragglers, but for the most part, the island quickly fell under American control. By mid-December, U.S. combat forces went home and a pro-American government took power.

A Navy SEAL team was unable to get ashore. They were to have provided intelligence on the airfield at Salines. H-hour, was originally scheduled during the hours darkness. This time was moved several times until morning twilight (0534).

One helicopter shut down and was abandoned in the surf. A second helicopter was damaged by a tree. The Black Hawks came in rapidly, over the waves, one behind the other. The first helicopter put down safely, near the southern boundary of the camp, and was followed by the second. The third Black Hawk suffered some damage, and spun forward, smashing into the second. The fourth Black Hawk saw what was happening and veered to a hard right. The aircraft landed in a ditch, damaging its tail rotor. Apparently not realizing that the helicopter's rotor was damaged, the pilot at this time attempted to move the Black Hawk, which rose sharply, seemed to spin forward, and crashed. In twenty seconds three helicopters were down. Debris and rotor blades flew through the air, badly wounding four assault troops and killing three. One helicopter shut down and was abandoned in the surf. Later a second helicopter was damaged by a tree.

On 26 October 1983, I received a call from the Graves Registration Branch to form a group of selected Graves Registration (GRREG) personnel to serve as an Identification (ID) Team. On 27 October 1983, formal notification was received that the operation was a 'GO'. We staged at Dover Air Force Base mortuary in Dover, Delaware.

It was apparent that the American people did not know about the invasion of Grenada when I had to call Fort George Meade, Maryland requesting personnel from the Explosive Ordnance Detachment. It was only broadcast in the news media that particular morning.

19 Americans were killed in action. 49 Grenadians - were killed dead and several hundred wounded. 29 Cubans were killed and over a hundred wounded.

* Additional information (Critical Tasks, Personnel, and SOPs) will follow at a later date, time permitting.

Today, all I can do is gaze back and reminisce on the olden times.' It seems as though the thoughts are behind, but they should never have happened in the first. Time and History are Never Ending.

Logitechdog & Celtic

You seem proud of the UK armed forces, but "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones", you know.

For starters, Winston Churchill may have been a popular politicitian, but IMO he was a f**kwit. Much of the middle east problems today are Churchill's fault. Gallipoli was his fault and then he tried to blame the men on the ground for "stuffing it up"

In the last 100 years, what has the English army done that is so great?

How about the Black & Tans and the Paras in Northern Ireland? That's a proud history

How about the English preferring to have Aussies, Kiwis, Canadians & Scots killed than using their own English troops ? (WWI & WWII)
The USA doesn't do that. They take on the hardest roles and give you pommies the softest jobs.

In both WWI & WWII England would have been f****d if not for the "colonials" rallying to the call of empire.

Face it. You can't put together a decent cricket team without ring-ins. Your team is loaded with South Africans (in recent times 2 of your captains have even been South African). Your Rugby team is only competitive with ring-ins. Your military victories in the last 100 years have been due to ring-ins too. Even the "battle of britain". What do you think would have happened if you had 10-15% less pilots? You relied on Canadians, Aussies, Kiwis, South African, Polish, etc.

Pull your head in.

Oh we into sports now are we, how about you’re AMERICAN FOOTBALL - that only America call's football, where as you wear pansy armour you would not last 5 secs in our rugby so don't get us started in sports of America...

And don't even get me started on ww1 or ww2....

http://www.bl.uk/collections/warfare1.html

and you think that america is made up of americans only......., it's the brit force's training they gone in, if a brit soldier goes over to your country the american army want's them badly....

And im sure it say's made in usa or russia on they weapons so how's it our fault, & it's you who throw yourself around starting war's we just back u up coz that's what allies do...

It's proven fact your country could not stand a german attack if they took england... & you still could be hit by an attack from another country, you fight away from it.... so don't even bother me with that, as I could go on about the cold war... And think this if you didn't get German scientists where you think your technology would be... since the stealth plane is a german design..

Last edited by logitechdog on 20 Dec 2006, 5:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm Australian

WW1 from a population of less than 5m, 300,000 soldiers of whom 216,000 were casulties.

You pommie bastards suffered less.

www.awm.gov.au

then why the hell we having this argument geez...

The AIF Project is a research activity at The University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra.

The project has developed a database that records information on the more than 330,000 men and women who embarked from Australia for service overseas in the (First) Australian Imperial Force, 1914-1918.

http://web.archive.org/web/200402281332 ... index.html

http://home.hccnet.nl/22.sas/

As the two nations "Down Under" work sometimes together with the British SAS it is impossible not to have a page with some info from these two fine units.

http://www.britains-smallwars.com/ni/ Terrorists... Next door to us

I do not find war glorious. My point was people were saying the US soliders were substandard or using bad tactics in Iraq but the reality is their a small force fighting
a counter insugency. To trash the US soldiers doing their job serves no usefull purpose
but to promote hate. The war is Bush's not the pawns in the feild. If you want to start
a thread about US military history do it in the political forum.

machine we don't need to promote it...

/* My point was people were saying the US soliders were substandard or using bad tactics in Iraq but the reality is their a small force fighting a counter insugency. "" Not just Iraq anywhere look at the Grenada chopper crashs. ** 3 choppers destroyed in 20 seconds, 4 Assault soldiers injured, 3 killed, One helicopter shut down and was abandoned in the surf. Later a second helicopter was damaged by a tree and that's just landing.. "" **

//
To trash the US soldiers doing their job serves no usefull purpose but to promote hate. The war is Bush's not the pawns in the feild.
*/

I love this promote hate I hear a terrorist speech coming out of that... Bush push's, the Army deploys - the soldier is in the battle - and the "" reality is their a small force fighting a counter insugency "" made the same mastake in Grenada... You ever seen your own country on the ground sweap the area or you just looking at the news.... on tv clips...

Over & Out

What can we do to improve the situation? Maybe could get Israel to come train our troops better.

Hey Bazza

Don't be so rough on the limeys. Look what they've contributed to civilized warfare.

They invented the concentration camp.

Mostly it was for women and children, they burned down their homes. Something like a quarter of the prisoners died.

They deserved it though, thinking the brits had no business ruling their country.

nice how you bring that up too forgot you aus call's brits that...

As it turns out, the term "limey" originally applied to British sailors. In the 17th and 18th centuries, sailors suffered terribly from scurvy, a condition caused by a lack of vitamin C. Vitamin C comes mainly from fresh fruits and vegetables, but these foods aren't exactly easy to come by when you're at sea for months at a time.

So the Royal Navy prescribed lime juice for all sailors to help ward off scurvy -- hence the appellation "limeys." As often happens, the term eventually lost its original context and was applied to all British, whether sailors or landlubbers.

/*
// Machine

Probably sack the hole war cabinet, machine, as for the training don't know what's going wrong they maybe they just have more people with no brains in the army... or like it seems allot of pilots these day's are testing positive for drug's - special since the air show crash's also test positive when they crash them...

*/

Hey, something I've wondered about:

The way I understand it, vitamin C is water soluable, so what the body doesn't use gets passed out with the urine. The body can't store it, and you have to keep taking it.

So how did the british navy store lime juice on a ship long enough to last out an old time sea voyage? It doesn't keep all that long in the refrigerator. Limes don't last all that long either.

The real facts on Vitamin C may surprise you. First of all what is Vitamin C? Vitamin C is a water soluble vitamin. Unlike the oil soluble vitamins such as A and E, Vitamin C cannot be stored by your body. Since Vitamin C is not stored by your body, we need to get it from our diet or from supplements.

IN 1794, a Royal Navy squadron set sail with enough raw lemon juice to last a 23-week voyage. The Admiralty had finally got round to testing the ideas of the Scottish surgeon James Lind, who had discovered in 1747 that citrus fruits can stave off scurvy. The experiment proved so successful that the Admiralty made its ships carry supplies of citrus fruit, and British sailors quickly became known as "limeys" because of their lime juice ration. Scientists realised for the first time that the body needed essential trace nutrients that later came to be called vitamins.

Two hundred years later, just about the only thing scientists know for sure about vitamin C is that 60 milligrams a day will prevent scurvy. Nevertheless, many people pop pills containing thousands of milligrams, hoping to prevent cancers or ward off the common cold

Yeah I bought limes for many years for my ice tea and can tell you they do have a short lifespan(i say less than a month but maybe there is a special way to process to extend that). Also i allways use seedless persian limes I'm not sure if the British used those or lemons and keylimes(smaller tarter and with seeds , persian limes came form them). I read in the North Africa they salt citrus (mainly the peel) to make a
food ingredient (that can last foreveer I guess). Who knows maybe the British likely
planted citrus at every place they landed that they would grow. And ate a few moldy old ones when they had to. Oh the seedless persian limes orginated in the middle east I think (still from keylimes) and the British had control of the region so I'm sure they
had a hand in it.