Posts made by Ozone27

@Ozone27:

The Spain strategy costs you 1 IPC LESS,and you get to attack in the same time frame with 4 additional INF–a total cost savings of 13 IPCs.

Ozone27

I’m sorry if I was somehow unclear. My point was that you are correct.

Ozone27

@AgentSmith:

Again Ozone the problem with attacking WEuro directly is that you open yourself up to an Germany counterattack. As the Germans I would trade WEuro with Germany the first few turns in order to consolidate my hold over Africa. With you sending all Americans into England into to take WEuro you will have to concede Africa to Germany. Since I almost always make a first or second turn tank heavy purhcase for Germany I should have 12-13 inf 9-10arm 4-5ftrs bmb to hit 18 American inf with. Even if you land with the Brits I will still get a very good strafe. So if I can trade 9inf for 18inf I will everytime. Especially, because doing so prevents the Americans from stacking and amassing force to use against Germany.

By the way what do you base this knowledge on? Have you ever played against anybody that used Spain? Have you ever played against somebody that used Afghanistan other than as a gimmick? It’s easy to judge moves as weak when only implemented by weak players.

HAHAHA! LOL!!! AgentSmith, with all due respect; have you read ANY of my above posts?

Dude! I’m AGREEING with you!

Ozone27

The only time I’ve ever seen Afghanistan violated was in a game we played in October 2001 at my house. I cut out a small Afghan flag from a big world map I had with all the flags and attached it to a FLAK gun, placing the gun on Afghanistan. The house rule was whoever violated Afghanistan’s neutrality first got a free turn. UK of course got it…

Getting back to the Spain issue; I know how the Spain strategy works, my argument was just that I thought a USA player who’s shuckin’-and-jivin’ like a pro could accomplish pretty much the same thing using UK as the staging point and without bothering with paying the IPC fine for violating Spain’s neutrality…

And I was wrong . I’m sold–the Spain strategy is more cost effective. Check it out;

AgentSmith used the example of deploying 10 USA INF onto Spain. OK, but let’s do it in the most cost-effective way, using everything that’s on the board T1. T1 you move the INF on West USA to East USA and now have a TR (assuming it survives T1), 4 INF and an ARM on East USA. You build 3 TR’s and 4 INF (for 36 IPC’s). Now you can invade Spain on T2 with 8 (not 10) INF. Lose 3 IPC’s. Assuming you’ve lost all of China, in East USA you can build a number of things, but we’re trying to attack Western Europe as early as possible, with as great a force as possible, as CHEAP as possible, by utilizing Spain as a base. So on T2 we build 8 INF and a TR (we can load that ARM on the extra TR). On T3 we move our 4 TR’s back to Eastern USA, and with our 32 IPC’s build 2 TRs and 4 INF. We now have a grand total of 8 INF in Spain, 12 INF 1 ARM in Eastern USA, and 7 TRs

So now we’re set up for a big USA4 attack. We can deploy in Western Europe a total of 20 INF 1 ARM and whatever aircraft we’ve flown in. We’ve purchased a total of 6 TRs and 16 INF. We’ve violated Spain’s neutrality for 3 IPC’s. Total time = 4 turns. Total cost = 99 IPCs

OR you could USA1 build 3 TRs and 4 INF. T2 you move everything on Eastern USA to England–that’s 4 TRs carrying 6 INF 1 ARM (or 8 INF) into the UK. T2 you build (assuming you lost all of China) 4 TRs. T3 you build 8 INF and a TR (another 32 IPCs). On USA4 you can now attack Western Europe directly with a total of 16 INF and an ARM (OR 18 INF), plus whatever aircraft you’ve put in place. Total time = 4 turns. Total cost = 100 IPCs.

The Spain strategy costs you 1 IPC LESS,and you get to attack in the same time frame with 4 additional INF–a total cost savings of 13 IPCs.

OK, I’m sold. I finally have an interesting USA strategy.

Ozone27

I have to disagree. If you use Spain as a landing zone with a sizable force. You can attack WE on two fronts (an amphibious assault and from Spain). This will double your attack with half the transports.

Here’s a quick example:

Lets say you have 3 transports, 6 inf, and 3 tanks. First turn, land the six inf in Spain. Next turn, attack WE from Spain and land the 3 tanks from England for an amphibious assault.

That was demonstrated in the simplest way. Throw in some airpower and you probably could be successful. Of course you may have to gauge the attacking forces by what Germany has in there but the point is to keep your transport buying to a minimum for they can get costly buying so many.

Oh, yes stuka, you are absolutely right on–IF you’re talking about a situation where Germany chooses to dig in and defend WE. I was talking about a situation where Germany chooses to abandon WE in favor of a “trade” scenario. In that case it becomes a struggle of raw numbers–and since you have to land troops on either Spain or UK as the Allies, it makes much more sense for the Allies to land in UK, 'cuz it’s more accessible. Otherwise it makes no difference whether the Allies land in Spain or deploy all their forces directly from the sea–the REAL battle will take place on Germany’s turn when the counterattack begins, and so whether the Allies came from UK, or Spain AND UK, makes no difference.

Ozone27

@cystic:

I’m goin’ w/ Spain on this one. It’s a fantastic place to land and forces the Germans to be more versatile and “aggressive”. They can not afford to leave a token defending force in WEU with a landing on Spain by a determined Allied force.

True, but is defending Western Europe even worth it? I mean, regardless of whether the Allies land in Spain or attack directly from the North Sea/Eastern Atlantic, if Germany has NO units in Western Europe and instead builds all INF/ARM every turn in Germany/Southern Europe and has the majority of their ARM and all their FTRs in Eastern Europe, then the Allies are gonna hafta take a good long time to build a force large enough to take Western Europe and HOLD it no matter what. In this case, it’d be better for the Allies to land 1 dude on WE, and just trade it with Germany, than land any force in Spain where it’s doing nothing. If Germany plans to trade Western Europe, then landing on Spain makes no sense at all.

After reading a book about Napoleon’s plot to sieze Ireland, I tried to develop a plan for Germany to take over Ireland and use IT as a base for attacks against England. What I eventually figured out was that ALL of the neutrals basically are dead-ends–you can’t do anything from a neutral that you couldn’t do faster, easier or cheaper from a normal territory.

Therefore, my vote for best neutral is Switzerland. Sure it’s pointless, but it’s fun to land a Japanese INF there, take it over, then build a complex and start pumping out ARM and FTRs into Europe to help the Germans. Of course, you could drive/fly them in a lot faster and cheaper, but seeing the look on the Allies faces when you do this is just priceless!

Neutrals–they’re worthless. I’m glad they did away with them in the new game.

Ozone27

@Meijing:

I wasn’t following the war during Spring Break. I saw some news on TV, but you hardly get any information. War looks much more positive on TV.

Why doesn’t Bush or the generals want to make predictions? Why wasn’t the time schedule, which is fullfilled so precisely, presented before war started? Because in that case it would be easy to see if the assumptions on which this war was based were wrong.

They don’t want to make predictions because they want to appear as infallible as possible & should circumstances change, they don’t want to be the ones who predicted “easy victory”. There is a fear among the elite that Americans are basically quails who will spook at the slightest setback–that is why there will be no predictions.

On my part I didn’t want to make predictions (even though I wrote a heck of a long post before I deleted it) because I realized I was characterizing a situation I really knew only about 40% of (my numbers…). That can’t do anything but make me look foolish.:)

Ozone27

LOL @ cystic crypt…

Probably a good thing for folks to have a vacation spot without Americans (well except for the neo-Communist ones). But to me its kind of a complicated issue. Since we can’t invade (politically speaking), US-only sanctions are basically a vindictive half-measure that only serves to strengthen Fidel Castro’s regime (my God I can’t believe I’m talking about Castro–how freaking old is this this guy !?!). At the same time I find it kind of odious to trade with such a regime. But oh well, if sanctions only hurt the people, why not open up Cuba to US trade? The sanctions are doing no good & are detrimental to the US & Cuba. Let’s lift them & hope that the exposure to American culture shows Cubans that hey–maybe we are not so bad after all!

Ozone27

@F_alk:

The thing that more or less all of the world’s nations disagreed was the quick automatism to war. None of the US/UK planned ultimatum to “totally disarm and prove it in a week or so, and we are to decide on our own then” was in any way realistic. It all was just a slightly hidden “we will go to war”. That is what the world didn’t want. Had the ultimatum had a longer timescale, and kept the decision of fullfillment to the inspectors or the security council, it would have looked different. Germanys position (not being a veto-member) was rather simple and the most extreme: No agreement to a war. The French, Russians and Chinese all left themselves small backdoors to the war and kept their veto against the UN-uncontrolled automatism of war. So, they very porbably would have agreed to a war after failure of the cooperation iraq-inspectors, or the inspectors finding the “smoking gun”. But, as you said as well, the Iraq increased its level of cooperation, from sec. council meeting to sec. council meeting. I firmly believe the Iraq would even have accepted a “robust madate” for the inspectors, well, we would have had to to avoid armed conflict. And yes, all that cooperation was only due to the threat of force. But, if someone bows to your commands because you threat to beat him up, do you then have to beat him up? Because he bowed? Because he wouldn’t have bowed without the threat? That just doesn’t make sense, next time, you can threat and the other one won’t care, because you are going to beat him up anyway. See what i mean?
So: reasons for France, Russia and China would have been: Iraq not complying, or the inspectors finding proof for either non-cooperation or other new breaches against the resolutions.

But the inspectors DID find evidence–if not of the vaunted “smoking gun” (that is, a chemical weapons factory), then certainly of Iraqi bad faith. I wasn’t at all stating “threaten to beat him up, then when he complies, beat him up anyway…” I’m saying when you threaten to beat him up if he doesn’t comply, then when he doesn’t comply you just threaten him again, the whole process just makes you look ridiculous. According to the reports of the UN inspectors (which I watched religiously) there was ample evidence of Iraqi BAD FAITH–that is, saying you want to comply but acting otherwise.

As far as France, Russia etc. being willing to act if the inspectors said go–that is just a smokescreen. It’s preposterous that the decision for war or peace lies in the hands of a small group of academics. The job of the weapons inspectors was to observe & report, & make recommendations. The decision for war or not was always in the hands of nations & governments. They just chose to interpret Iraqi bad faith in the most favorable possible light for internal & external political reasons.

I would call the whole affair a huge diplomatic blunder, and mainly from the US side. The German stance wasn’t that smart either, but not agreeing is not necessarily active opposition. But, it lead the US into total stubborness, calling each and everyone not agreeing “irrelevant”. How can the US believe the UN would decide in their way because they would be “irrelevant” otherwise? That again is blackmailing, and giving in to that would have made them irrelevant. The US very soon brought the UN into a position were giving in would have resulted in a massive loss of trust/face/national pride etc. for the UN itself and the member countries. If you are in a lose-lose situation (and that is what the US created), then there is no reason not to fight! There is none to fight, but hey, you don’t have anything to lose! Maybe the one who made you lose can suffer a bit for that. …. That’s the way humans think, and that was not taken into account by the US gov’t at all! So, the US took a stance even less flexible than Germany. I think it is their fault for the failure of diplomacy for the most of it. And it seems the “even distibution of fault” is something that not many except the US see.

Your argument has everything to do with US diplomacy & little-to-nothing to do with Iraq: just like the arguments of the antiwar powers (& the antiwar faction in the US). As I have agreed, US diplomacy in the GW Bush era is clumsy and counterproductive. But what the US was saying may sound insulting but it was TRUE! If the UN says–disarm in 15 days & 12 years later is still giving Iraq more breaks, the UN begins to look irrelevant. If the UN starts an oil-for-food program with a spending cap, then progressively loosens the cap until 1999, whereupon they remove the cap totally–it begins to lok like the UN is simply a vehicle for the member nations to get rich off others misfortunes without having to feel bad that their cash is going to the purchase of more weapons. The US delegation to the UN ought to have been more willing to compromise on the timing & the circumstances for war, but the antiwar powers ought to have been more willing to compromise on the possibility of war in the 1st place. So you see, its not all about the US being uncompromising–its about everyone losing sight of the purpose of the UN presence in Iraq in favor of narrow political vendettas & infighting.

As I stated, war was basically inevitable unless Hussein began to really act in good faith vis-a-vis the UN resolutions. Inevitable that is unless you are tacitly willing to accept his right to rule over Iraq in order to prevent war & prolong a favorable situation for the major powers at the expense of the people of Iraq. Sorry life isn’t always sunrise & moonbeams but thats the way it is.

Ozone27

@F_alk:

That is not exactly what i say:
The difference is between fighting terrorism, and fighting others where terrorists see themselves affirmed in the “rightfulness” of their deeds and therefore have the possibility to gain support from “their” people.
Fighting terrorism as a whole needs fighting the actual terrorists and fighitng the circumstances that let others become terrorists, if you forget the second, you will fight forever.

I agree, although fighting nations that sponsor terrorism–that is nations like Iraq–is an integral part of eliminating terrorists backing in the world. The way I see it (and this is speaking purely from my own experience in the world), most people are not capable of offensive killing or especially suicide attacks unless they are whipped into religious or quasi-religious fervor or are heavily trained. However, a few such individuals can accomplish much when supported by a great mass of people who while not “bloodthirsty” in a personal way, sympathize with the supposed “cause” of the bloodthirsty. I think that is what you are seeing in the Middle East today–a (relatively) few hate-mongers who are only able to do what they do because of the degree of popular support for their actions. These masses could hopefully be swayed by increased care and education about the good things about the West–combine that with hunting out the relatively few “killers” and you might be onto something.

But the one cannot work without the other.

Hmm, i have heard that even US companies sold weapons during the embargo.
One thing that you didn’t mention in the above reasoning was inspections (wether combined with threat of force or not). And still, we are lacking any proof for the WMDs that Saddam Hussein should have. (btw, if there was proof that he has them, why is it then so difficult to locate them, once the existance is “proven”? Why were the UN-inspectors so utterly disappointed by the material given from the US agencies (leading to two or three “minor” hits on Iraqs weaponry in general)?)
So, taking this into account, i do not see more than two reasons why the invasion had to be done: humanitarian action and oil.
For cooperations selling weapons during the embargo: You know that i am no friend of capitalism, and this is just purest capitalism: The embargo promised huge profits, well illegal, but huge…. Can you blame people just for “overdoing” something good like capitalism ;)? With the “trickle-down”-effect, some of that money should have reached the lower levels, and everyone should be happy :)?

Actually I DID mention the inspections. As I have stated before the only intermittent progress that had been made through the inspections was at the point of a gun–either through the immediate implementation of military strikes, or the threat thereof. Thus: force is the only stimulus Hussein responds to. Without force, or the threat of force, the UN inspectors were playthings for Hussein–he could force them out, prevaricate, lie, delay, blow smoke or what have you and the UN could do nothing realistic about it. By making it abundantly clear that they would not sanction the use of force to back up the inspectors’ authority, the “anti-war” faction in the UN was playing a losing game. Now I ask you a serious question: if the antiwar bloc in the UN would not sanction war at this stage (as they say,“to allow the inspections to work…”) then tell me–under what circumstances exactly were these powers willing to sanction war? If you can only tell me Germany’s position I would be satisfied. I have seen no clear cut statement by any of the anti-war faction in the UN NOR the anti-war faction in the USA describing the conditions of their support for an attack. I hear:“Give the inspections time to work.” Forget about the 12 years they were already given to work–what exactly would constitute proof the inspections were “working” or “not working”? A few demolished missiles proves its working? The discovery of missiles supposedly nonexistent proves the inspections are not working? What…

Therefore; again I argue that the antiwar faction in the UN (and the USA)would not have favored war under ANY circumstances barring an Iraqi attack on another nation. If they would never sanction war, then the UN presence, the UN sanctions, the UN inspections are for nothing because Hussein will respond only to force or the REALISTIC threat of force.

Even with the whole industrialized world the ground would be as fertile i fear. And as you might have noticed, i disagree strongly with the automatism towards war. It is a poor sign though, that the one side who was about to “lose” in the UN didn’t try harder (beforehand) to convince (not with sugar and whip) members of the other side, but once the “defeat” was inevitable took action, stubbornly claiming they were “right”….

To convince “not with sugar & whip”? Then with what? Our good looks? That’s diplomacy, bro’. Do not insult my intelligence & suggest to me that France, Germany, Russia etc. are motivated by pure humanitarianism any more than we are. I didn’t hear any of you crying over the estimated 3,000,000 people who have been executed in Iraq since 1968, any more than we were. Now a few hundred killed in a productive action & everyone’s up in arms. Not trying to belittle human life here–1 life lost is a tragedy–just pointing out the hypocrisy.

Granted: the “Al’Quaeda-Iraq” connection was a huge diplomatic blunder since it was not backed by credible information. I agree that the present action in Iraq is “illegal” in the terms of the UN. That is unfortunate. I think it could & should have been otherwise. But BOTH SIDES are guilty of this FAILURE OF DIPLOMACY–that is, WAR. The inevitablility of armed conflict w/ Iraq should’ve been foreseen as far back as 1991 when–again–the UN would not mandate an invasion of Iraq proper. Please explain to me under what circumstances (besides Iraq invading another power) Europe would have been willing to fight–that is before the Coalition attack.

Ozone27

@F_alk:

I don’t hold that with the invasion it will create much more terrorisim. 9/11 occured without invading a country, since Afganistan was invaded they have had no more successfull attacks inside the US.

Something happening without a catalyst will happen faster with a catalyst.

Just like to point out I’ve heard this argument many times before in the last few months and it is completely bogus. Essentially it runs,“We better not do anything to pi$$ the terrorists off, 'cuz that might lead to more terrorism.” If we do nothing to anger the terrorists for fear of their terrorism, we are doing exactly what they want & justifying terrorism.

Now, that doesn’t mean the answer to terrorism is to invade every terrorist-sponsoring nation. Israel attacks every time they are hit by a terrorist act & its done nothing to improve the situation. So I am against that. But if we can mend a few fences, while cracking down on the terror networks–that is the way to go: IF it can be done…

Iraq sponsors terrorism, but I do not buy the direct “Al’Quaeda-Iraq” connection. However there were plenty of reasons to attack Iraq other than terrorism. I argue that of the three available options–return Iraq fully to “normalized” relations to the outside world; continue w/ inspections & sanctions; and war, that war was the best out of 3 pretty lousy options. If the world normalized relations w/ Iraq, we’d be back to square 1, with Hussein spending the oil resources of Iraq buying new weapons to expand his influence in the region–which would have eventually led to war. The UN sanctions were a joke, serving only to strengthen Hussein’s regime at the expense of his people (like the US sanctions against Cuba). Except the UN sanctions were weakening due to steady whittling away at their effectiveness–starting in 1999, the UN voted to lift all limits on the amount of oil Iraq sells (for food & reparations only of course ). Since the whole world wants to get its hands on Iraq’s “black gold”–not just the USA–it was only a matter of time before the world started selling the guy weapons & again we would return to square 1–hell, there is evidence other countries were already selling Hussein weapons DURING the so-called embargo.

Therefore I argue that eventually, unless the world decided to put up with Hussein’s shenanigans ad infinitum, all roads led to war as the “least poor” of the three poor options. The big regret is that the two sides in the big UN tussle could not come to some kind of agreement so as to present a united front. With the whole industrialized world behind us, there would be few outside the Islamic world for Hussein to spread his foolish propaganda to. As it is it falls on fertile ground…

JMO

Ozone27

@BigBlocky:

China is brutal too, but not much anybody can do about that. So why not do what you can when you can rather than do nothing because you can’t do everything?

Totally agree. That argument is stupid. People also bring up,“Well there’s a lot of countries that are brutal & the US supports them. So why attack Iraq?” To these people I say:“I agree. Let’s take on those countries after we deal with Iraq.” Usually shuts people up. Because for most of these people, no matter how bad a regime is, the prospect of the US fighting a war against them is even worse. So the situation festers. Which I guess is OK as long as its not on TV & you can blame it on good ol’ Uncle Sam…

Ozone27

@BigBlocky:

Regardless of T-55 and T-72, the allies have depleated uranium ammo, I think only those 2 countries use it.

This might not be related but I love the saying “The idea isn’t to die for your country, the idea is to make the enemy die for your country”.

DU rounds are highly effective against heavy armor in a lot of ways, but foreign countries’ sabot rounds are pretty effective as well. Any commonly used a/p penetrator round is enough to knock out a T-72 (or an M1A2 for that matter, provided you don’t hit the frontal turret armor). The real advantage of the M1 over the T-72 is speed, accuracy & especially range. An M1 can simply hit a T-72 sooner than the T-72 can return fire. T-72s also have an autoloader, which takes a certain amount of time to reload the main gun–another opportunity for the M1 to score a hit. Do not interpret this to mean the T-72 is no threat however. They can kill M1s & they have to be taken seriously. The T-55 is just as much of a threat to lighter vehicles.

The quote is Patton’s. It actually reads “…make the other guy die for HIS country…” which changes your meaning somewhat.

Hope all this was interesting enough for you …

Ozone27

I deleted that last post, because on 2nd thought I decided I didn’t want to speculate.

Ozone27

@Yanny:

Saddam has old Migs and t-55s (not sure on the T-55s). Saddam doesn’t even have power over his own generals.

Not all of those MiGs are old. A few are quite advanced. Also, Saddam has many T-72s as well as the older (though upgraded) T-55s. While a “medium tank” at best by Western standards, the T-72 is capable of destroying an M1A2. “Even” a T-55 is a big threat to PCs & armored cars–which make up the vast majority of Coalitian armored vehicles. But point taken–with the exception of some of the planes, and (if rumor is true) a few infantry anti-tank weaps, all of Saddam’s technology is 70’s-era at best, they are few indeed in number to the Coalition’s arsenal, and Hussein has no way to build or purchase any more before the war ends. Plus he’s not in Europe.

Saddam seems so far to have pretty good control of his key generals. When the war starts to go badly, that might change…

Ozone27

@BigBlocky:

F_alk, you state: “Wether the attack in1938 would have been better is unprovable. I could just state that it would have been worse, and there is no way to prove me wrong, because we don’T have any idea what then would have happened.”

You know, I just have to shake my head and ask myself why I bother. I’m not going to bother reading you posts anymore, I’m sure I will miss some good stuff but when I read that kind of ‘stuff’ it just removes my desire to read the rest of what you write.

BB

F_alk is not just trying to be obtuse here, BigBlocky, he’s making a legitimate point. What I think he’s saying is it is useless to argue about possibilities like this because no one can really know–it doesn’t prove anything. You or I may believe it would’ve been better to slap down Hitler in '38 using hindsight, but what if that had meant the Soviets would’ve dominated all of Europe? What if it had led to WWII–except USSR vs. UK & USA instead of the way it actually went down. A lot of Europeans would have escaped the death camps, certainly, but all of Europe & most of Asia might yet be living under Soviet domination–the whole world possibly! And an ultra-right Japan would still be tooling around Asia.

There’s just no way to know, so F_alk is just pointing out this is not a useful line of argument to pursue. Keep reading his posts.

Ozone27

@cystic:

of course despite the VERY likely fact that Iraq was unconnected to Al Queda in these attacks, 9/11 is used as an excuse to invade Iraq. No real connection, however the “oh no! now we are vulnerable” excuse is being used to invade a sovereign nation. How nice is that? Gee, some people from Quebec committed terrorist acts, maybe we should invade Quebec in order to quell our feelings of insecurities (or New Brunswick - as many of those people speak French). You get the disconnect? This is why so many of us object to the repeated bastardization and abuse of the tragic events of 9/11 to further Bush’s apparent political agenda - not because we don’t feel horrified that it happened, or saddened by the loss of life.

As all of you have no doubt noticed, I support this war. However, the Bush administration’s repeated misguided attempts to convince the public that there is a direct connection between 9/11 & Iraq (besides Saddam Hussein’s remarks celebrating the attacks) will go down in history as one of the biggest PR blunders of the early 21st century. People didn’t need 9/11 as a reason to go to war in Iraq, but the administration figured it could pull the wool over people’s eyes–people saw through it, & now can use it as an example of the President’s lies & half-truths. Of course, that obscures the facts, but if the President hadn’t brought it up (trying to obscure the truth himself), there would’ve been no opportunity for people to have done so.

i would consider that it’s possible at the end you’d believe that you would have crushed F_alk, however given debate criteria at the end, and an independent 3rd party panel reviewing the debate, you might find that others might feel otherwise. . . .

We may never know. But I’d get all my ducks in a row (& my facts straight) before taking on F_alk in a debate. Just a word to the wise …

Ozone27

@cystic:

@Deviant:Scripter:

I believe the situation could have easily gone on for a matter of years, and we’d still have to use military force eventually. If not with Saddam, it would’ve been against one of his psychotic kids.

I believe, in the wake of 9/11, most people would be MUCH MORE hesitant about giving a guy like that more time to disarm, especially given the 12 years he’s already had. The circumstances and potential consequences are just too great to sit by and watch…HOPING one day he’ll have a dramatic change of mind.

Does anybody deny that the only reason Saddam even “agreed” to inspections was because the US military was parked on his border?

i will agree with that. I’ll also agree that it was costing the US a fortune to park the machine there. Furthermore, i’ll agree that many other nations, particularly Canada and European nations (including Russia) helped speed this conflict along by being sideline wimps. I think that if more pressure had come from the international community much earlier, this war may have been avoided - if only because Bush would have lost his excuses to invade (although the regime change card would likely have still been played). Still, although i have little other than my gut to go on here, i believe that this is not a reason for a bunch of people carrying guns to march into someone else’s country in order to kill a bunch of other people . . . .

All true. I just don’t see how war could’ve been avoided in the end, without letting Saddam Hussein pretty much have his way for an indefinite amount of time.

JMO–a lot of great observations here from the other side as well.

Ozone27

“Multi-National Force” & “Commander-in-Chief” rules were both scrapped for the 2nd-Edition. Forces of multiple nations in the same land territory or seazone may still defend together, but may no longer attack together.

Ozone27

@TG:

Yeah, those “hard” deadlines for one. cough cough

OK, I was saying a “US-style” “hard” deadline, rather than the “UN-style” “you’ve got 15 days…ok 60 days…ok 1 year…ok 12 years” “hard” deadline. Ya got me :roll: …

Re: “survival of the fittest” I meant DasEwokSS’s suggestion that its ok for powerful nations to swallow weaker ones because that’s somehow the natural order of things. May work for Ewoks, not for humans. I assume he was being tongue-in-cheek…

Ozone27

@F_alk:

@Ozone27:

The way I see it if Saddam has the weapons (& I still think he does), he would have to use them if the circumstances arose to favor their use. The reason being that if he’s going to lose anyway, he can have nothing to lose by using the weapons & revealing their existence. Possibly up till now he’s been seeing where the wind is blowing (both literally & figuratively) to see whether the situation can be salvaged. If it can, keeping the weaps a secret would still be a priority–the man is nothing if not a survivor…

Very true.
That’s the reason why -now that the US have started this cr*p- they must bring it to an end, otherwise they would only have strengthened SH massively (and still have given rise to all those negative possible developments with starting the action). That, globally speaking, would be the worst case scenario.

Oh, btw, did you hear that one of the mothers of one of the “executed” british soldiers said that her son was killed in combat, as told to her directly from military officials?

Point one. Very true, the US did attack 1st & must now finish up w/ Hussein as quickly & judiciously as possible.

One thing I’ve gotta ask though is whether you think the standoff w/ Saddam Hussein could’ve been ended without a war. Not saying the way this war was started was the best scenario, of course, but could UN sanctions, oil-for-food, and weapons inspections have worked given enough time or would the UN have had eventually to attack anyway? How long do you think that would’ve taken? If neither of these scenarios is what you have in mind, what would your ideal scenario have been for the resolution of the Iraq situation prior to the war starting?

Re: the British military–they might’ve been trying to spare her feelings. Let’s not read too much into this or you’ll end up like me vis-a-vis the Basra misreports…

Ozone27

@F_alk:

Oh, btw, it seems like the uprising in Basra was not that big as TB first said.
And did anyone hear anything new about that so-called chemical weapons facility? It’s a few days ago now that it was taken by the US…. and i bet it would have been a major headline had it really been a factory for WMD.

Both good points. Saw an interview yesterday w/ a UK military spokesman who stated the British never said anything to his knowlege about an uprising in Basra–just that the situation within that city is very confused. Since the discovery of the “possible chemical weapons plant” in s/w Iraq, the situation there has been remarkably quiet. Could be for a lot of reasons, but IMO, F_alk is right–if it could be proven conclusively that it was a chemical weaps factory, I’d think it’d be all over the news in about 12.5 seconds.

The way I see it if Saddam has the weapons (& I still think he does), he would have to use them if the circumstances arose to favor their use. The reason being that if he’s going to lose anyway, he can have nothing to lose by using the weapons & revealing their existence. Possibly up till now he’s been seeing where the wind is blowing (both literally & figuratively) to see whether the situation can be salvaged. If it can, keeping the weaps a secret would still be a priority–the man is nothing if not a survivor…

The latter reminds me of how we in the US never see nor hear anything about the exTaliban & al’Quaeda prisoners being held in Guantanamo. They are a regular feature of debate on the news in Europe but Americans never hear a peep about them…

Ozone27

I for one am totally confused as to what good ol’ dan here is asking. Please clarify!

Ozone27

Hey, I totally agree that the ultra-right is guilty of the same things. But this war has really opened my eyes to the hypocrisy of the ultra-left as well. Coming as I do from a left-leaning political perspective, this has never been as obvious to me as it is now. If this kind of radicalism (left & right) is not tempered soon, this country will be torn apart. I am not kidding.

Regarding the media, what I am saying is that sensational media works both ways. As I stated, the big US news agencies are shall we say, “shaded” toward the Pentagon view of the war. Today, antiwar protesters hit CNN demonstrating against this biased coverage. Presumably in addition to the images & stories about Iraqi war-crimes, US military battles & “shock & awe” these people want to also see broadcast the reality of civilian hardship, civilian injuries & deaths & destroyed homes & apartments to show the “other side”. This is natural, but consider how these things can skew the public perspective as well. If the war were to end with, say (totally making this up here) 200 civilian deaths, that would be a huge vistory for precision arms over overwhelming force in terms of the protection of human life. But show one dead baby on national TV and you know people would go ballistic. In legal terms this is called “prejudicial” because the effect of the image is out of all proportion to its importance in the context of the issues at hand. Now I’m not saying even 1 human death is something that should be callously ignored–it IS tragic. But also tragic is the effect that 12 years of UN sanctions and government mistreatment have had on the citizens of Iraq, & thats a HUGE part of the story too. Seems at this point no one–left or right–wants this part of the story shown at all. The left don’t want their hypocrisy of opposing the sanctions & the regime but also simultaneously opposing the 1 action that could stop it. The right don’t want it shown for obvious reasons–their complicity in the continuation of the hostilities for so long. So the story is never told.

On Monday, US stocks took a nosedive. I attribute this directly to the coverage of the war by the big news agencies. I recall hearing many anchorpeople & correspondents refer to Sunday-Monday as “a bad day for the Coalition”. And yet it was obvious to anyone with any knowlege of military matters that this was simply the 1st time that the Coalition was encountering any significant opposition–something everyone knew would happen & yet the media had promoted the idea that victory was hours away, without even realizing it, with their coverage. As soon as it became obvious that the advance was continuing, stocks began to recover. That’s the danger of second-by-second & day-by-day coverage of a rapidly-changing series of events by news agencies that either don’t understand, or don’t explain, what it is they are reporting.

So see it works both ways.

Ozone27

Hmmm…not sure “survival of the fittest” is really a viable political idea. Hasn’t that been tried before?

Ozone27

Totally agree, DasEwokSS–starting this war in this fashion was a big mistake. Both the anti-war & pro-war factions in the UN should’ve realized what was happening & worked harder to develop some compromise (like a new Resolution with a “hard” deadline for a change). That way we could’ve presented a united front against rogue regimes. Now that the UN has been discredited in this fashion, there is a danger of such situations as you mentioned occurring…

Ozone27