Last Update: Saturday, June 19, 2004. 10:46am (AEST) US soldier killed, contractor wounded in Iraq mortar attack
A US soldier has been killed and a contractor for a US firm wounded in a mortar attack on a US-led coalition base on Friday, the US military said.
"One Task Force Baghdad Soldier died and a Kellogg Brown and Root contractor was wounded when six mortars hit a coalition base at about 2:30pm," a statement said.
KBR is a subsidiary of US construction giant Halliburton.
The statement did not reveal the nationality of the contractor, who only received minor injuries.
The death raises to 614 the number of US soldiers killed in action since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, according to numbers from the Pentagon.
Well, Jefferson didn't think so. He issued the famous statement about "letting Shay go - for if you imprison men for riot and sedition, what check is there on government?" (not an exact quote, but close enough).
As I said, for the most part you are probably correct. However, it's not easy to draw the line where criticizing a product crosses over into criticizing a company. Granted, Linux being open source gives a much easier way to draw that line. Windows is a different story.
But the bottom line is this: if you say Linux as a piece of property is a cancer, you are indirectly saying that the proponents of that property are conducting business in a negative manner. It's very close to saying that Microsoft is selling a "drug-like" product (Windows) by claiming they are selling it in a "drug-dealer-like" manner.
Sure, it's all nitpicking - but that's what lawyers make their money on.
The bottom line issue is: what does Microsoft hope to gain by suing this guy for the obviously (to anyone with a brain) analogical comment about Microsoft acting like drug dealers? The obvious conclusion is they want to stifle criticism of their business practices - and by extension, criticism of their product line.
I clobbered your bullshit estimate with the Pentagon's own facts, and you can't handle it.
Tough shit, fool.
The shit has yet to really hit the fan in Iraq. That will come when Sistani finally realizes the so-called "government" is nothing but a bunch of Quislings and his call for all traces of the occupation to be erased is ignored. Then he issues his fatwa and the US gets their ass kicked worse than they're getting it now.
The Pentagon will increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to around 145,000 this summer, from the current 140,000, in recognition of the continued difficulty coalition forces are having in providing security leading up to the hand-over of political power to Iraqis on June 30.
The new troops will come from the Marine Corps, which will move up a deployment originally planned for this fall and send 5,000 Marines to Iraq by August. The first troops in that contingent ? 2,200 Marines from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit ? have already left their home base in San Diego for Iraq. The remainder will come from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in North Carolina.
Overall, U.S. force levels in Iraq could rise even higher than 145,000 as Marines already in Iraq have their tours extended to overlap with incoming replacements, said Lt. Gen. Robert Magnus, deputy commandant for programs and resources.
What part of higher than 145,000 can't you read? I said 150,000 after the rotation is done. The above confirms that.
No official US presence in Iraq? What planet are you on?
The US isn't hiring anybody? Excuse me? You've never heard of Halliburton or Brown and Root? You need to go here and see the list of PMO awarded contracts. You think it's all Iraqis doing this work? Are you nuts?
Bremer's no longer in authority as of June 5th? Then why on June 8th:
Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia leader whose militiamen have been fighting the US occupation forces in several Iraqi cities, was banned yesterday from standing in Iraq's forthcoming democratic elections.
Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, signed an order stating that, with immediate effect, members of illegal militias "will be barred from holding political office for three years after leaving their illegal organisation".
And here's the facts from the horse's mouth about the Embassy from Dan Senor, Senior Adviser, CPA, DOD Briefing, Tuesday, June 15, 2004:
MR. SENOR: On your first question, obviously, we need substantial space, property, for the U.S. mission here. This will be the largest -- one of the largest U.S. missions in the world -- I briefed on that over the weekend -- close to a thousand U.S. employees, close to 600 to 700 Foreign Service nationals. The largest USAID mission in the world will be here. And the Iraqi interim government recognizes that if we are to continue to play the role here that they are hoping we will play going forward, we will need not only the requisite property from which to operate, but in an area that enables us to maximize, to the extent that we can, the security of our U.S. citizens working here. And so we are going to work out with the interim government -- and this has been the basis of discussions that Ambassador Bremer has had with Prime Minister Allawi as to what's basically made available. Certainly nobody intends to use space permanently. It's just a matter of what we can use here in the near future that meets the criteria that we've laid out, and the prime minister has been receptive to that.
Q Where's the embassy going to be then?
MR. SENOR: It's going to be within the current Green Zone. And we will be -- certainly when Ambassador Negroponte arrives -- but Ambassador Jeffrey, who's the deputy chief of mission who's already here, will be, I think, providing some tours to the press and providing information to show you the facilities that we will be using. The current idea, the current plan is to use the existing CPA headquarters as, effectively, some office space for the embassy, sort of an annex, if you will. And then the actual main embassy building will be in a different location nearby, but within the perimeter of the current Green Zone.
Anything else you want to know?
You'e simply and totally clueless about anything going on in Iraq, aren't you?
Slashdot accepts this report (which is not terribly significant) but ignores submissions which establish that the Total Information Awareness Program - which is far more insidious than a few CID guys running around in civilian clothes - is alive and well and running right now as a Pentagon black budget item./.'ers...clueless.
A minor act of terrorism far smaller than the terrorism conducted by the US in the Phillipines and elsewhere - including Iraq and Afghanistan.
"War" is a conflict between state (and perhaps ethnic) actors.
"Terrorism" is not "war" (except in the sense that all conflict between groups is "war") and cannot be combated by (conventional) "war". It can only be combatted by a combination of counterintelligence and policy change. Remove the reasons for the support of terrorists by populations and you can then remove the terrorists who are then by definition limited in number. Any other approach is counterproductive.
NOTHING the US has done since 9/11 has had any significant effect on the ability of terrorists to function against the US or the rest of the world. See the Google news page on any given day for this obvious fact. Ergo, use of the military and the rhetoric of "war" to combat terrorism has been an abject failure.
"Simply put, if you find a spy, you can shoot them."
They did - in Falluja - after which they burned the bodies. Somehow that pissed the US off despite the fact that it was perfectly correct behavior so we killed another 800-1000 civilians.
"What is the point of having a military if not to defend our own soil?" If you spent more time on our soil, I might agree with you. Iraq is not your soil, and the US military has no business being there as there was absolutely NO threat to the US from Iraq (unless you count Saddam's insults).
Not to mention Afghanistan from whom there was also absolutely NO threat (Al Qaeda is not Afghanistan, despite whatever harboring they may have received there.)
The US military is a disaster waiting to happen. The troops are poorly trained, the officers incompetent, the budgets FAR out of line with effectiveness, and its members are patsies and suckers for whoever is in power and for whatever nonsensical, illegal, and irrational "foreign policy" is being used to cover up naked grabs for money and power.
I spent three years in the US Army during Vietnam because I was too stupid to desert to Canada, but not so stupid that I would allow myself to be drafted and forced to become infantry fodder.
A soldier is a moron. A soldier is not a warrior.
And every US soldier in Iraq deserves exactly what he is getting there.
And when the final conflict between the Iraqi Hawza and the US comes to pass (when Sistani finally realizes the US has no intention of leaving ever), the Iraqi people will DESTROY the US military handing it the worst defeat in US history (unless Sistani grants them a truce to allow them to evacuate).
And we want these morons doing investigative work in the US - outside of the courts' control and outside of the methods and procedures developed by law enforcement to deal with the community?
Hardly.
This is just another naked Rumsfeld power grab. Colonel Hackworth was totally correct when he desribed Rumsfeld as an "arrogant asshole".
The Constitution went out, oh, about five minutes after it was passed when one of the Adams, governor of Massachusetts, suspended habeaus corpus during Shay's Rebellion.
It hasn't been respected since.
You ever hear of guys like Nixon, Reagan, Carter, Kennedy, Johnson, etc.? They preceded Clinton by some time.
Clinton was just a bit slicker than Bush, that's all. And he got more pussy. Which, along with post-alcoholism and drug abuse, is probably why Bush is such a mean-spirited asshole.
Excuse me - most computers ARE owned by "computer neophytes" by definition.
And how many people do you think are doing business these days cleaning spyware off home computers? I just started my tech support business and out of my first 3 clients, I had one with spyware it took me two visits to get rid of since it had registry keys and dlls all over hell on the machine. Ad-Aware was not enough for this thing.
Or do you think there are half a billion Windows MCSE's out there?
"diverting the Internet browser of the computer, or similar program of the computer used to access and navigate the Internet, to one or more Web pages not of the owner or authorized user?s choosing;"
Does this mean defaulting IE to MSN is now illegal?
"Calling a property like unto a drug dealer is a legal absurdity."
But calling a property a "cancer" as Ballmer did attempts to reduce the value of that property by claiming that it damages intellectual property.It's the same thing as calling a house termite-ridden.
Anybody involved in selling that property would seem to have cause to complain, possibly legally.
As in fact they did and do regularly in columns and editorials in Linux publications.
However, you are probably correct that these people have no standing to sue Ballmer or Microsoft in court.
As Ballmer has no standing to sue anybody who says "Windows is CRAP" - because that is more like saying "your house is ugly".
OTOH, if I say, "Windows is insecure" and cite all the worms and viruses, I am directly stating something as a fact about Windows. Is Microsoft prepared to sue over these statements? Based on the Brazil case, it would seem so.
OTOH, people who say your house is ugly because you have weeds growing in your yard or you painted it purple can complain to the city who will force you to clean up your property in order to prevent devaluing property on either side of you.
So it's not that cut and dried who can do what for what reason, legally. That's why lawyers make tons of money and why lawyers are scum.
It is likely that Microsoft took this tack because it might come in handy later for suing it's critics elsewhere including in the US.
Oh, wait, this is where I'm supposed to claim that "Grandma" would NEVER do that because she can't possibly know what a "powertoy" is!
Oh, wait, this is Windows we're talking about, not Linux! So I guess, magically, "Grandma" can figure it out (whereas on Linux this would be impossible, right?)
Now let's see how many/. Windows trolls can figure out what I'm saying here.
I've been following detailed accounts of the situation in Iraq since the war started.
You've been listening to Fox News, that's obvious.
Here's a quote from an article last fall:
Now, in an effort to bolster the 37,000 member Iraqi police force, Bernard Kerik has arranged to utilize an abandoned Soviet military base in Hungary as a training center. He plans to train an additional 28,000 policemen over the next 18 months, bringing the number of Iraqi police to 65,000, which he judges should be enough to police the entire country.
All those months Rumsfeld was cooking the books. In late March the Pentagon released a chart summarizing the numbers of Iraqi security force troops. It tells a different story from the one peddled by Rumsfeld. The summary notes that 75,844 Iraqis were on the payroll as police officers, but only 2,865 were fully qualified and on duty. Another 13,286 were deemed "partially qualified" and supposedly on duty, while 3,245 were in training. Three-fourths of those on the police payroll had received no training. Six months earlier Rumsfeld had declared that 55,000 police had been trained. Not even close. (Despite the small size of the new Iraqi police force, it has been a primary target of the insurgents, who recently mounted attacks on police stations in Basra that claimed the lives of dozens of civilians. And Iraqi police elsewhere have been killed in assaults.)
The Pentagon summary also shows that Rumsfeld had been stretching the truth about other security forces. It notes that the new Iraqi Border Police needed 8,835 officers, but this force had not one fully trained officer on duty. It did have 8,601 partially qualified police and 179 in training. The Department of Border Enforcement required 16,892 troops; it had 9,873 partially qualified troops, no fully qualified people and none in training. Of the 40,000 troops needed for the Iraqi Armed Forces, only 3,249 had been fully trained and deployed. A mere 2,400 were in training. The Pentagon summary does note that the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps had 34,683 members who were receiving on-the-job training. (A Civil Defense Corps group in Falluja vanished during recent fighting there.) And it reports that the security service designed to protect government facilities and Iraqi infrastructure had a force of 73,992.
All told, the Pentagon summary maintains, there were 208,821 Iraqis in the various security services. But counting only those fully trained and on duty, the total was 114,789. And 95 percent of that force comprised security guards and civil defense members -- not the front-line forces. Add up the active and fully trained Iraqi police, border personnel and military forces, and the number of Iraq security troops is 6,114. Throw in those partially trained, and the total goes up to 37,874. The Iraqi security forces hardly could boast over 200,000 troops "providing security," as Rumsfeld claimed in March.
In other words, you're an idiot.
Try listening to somebody other than Rush for a change.
I am perfectly well aware that most ghetto blacks are not murderers. I was referring to those who do carry guns and don't like whites, obviously.
And I spent eight years in Federal prison with those guys, okay? So I know CONSIDERABLY more about them than you do - and I know cops (at least, correctional officers) better than you, too, and they're assholes as well, you're right about that.
A few US advisors leave and the largest US Embassy in the world moves in - and you can't comprehend that.
The troop count including the British and others is going to be 150,000 when the rotation finishes - you can't comprehend that either, right?
And you figure 150,000 US troops means there is no US "presence" in Iraq after the 30th - even though Bremer and the others remain in command of virtually everything.
Yes, you are a spewing sack of shit moron yourself.
I said "every Iraqi I've seen quoted". By definition that does not include 25 million Iraqis. It means exactly what it says.
What I see on the news are quotes from average Iraqis who are NOT news and they are saying they are all concerned about their security. What part of that can't you comprehend?
The "26,000 strong Iraqi police" are regarded by the average Iraqi as either criminal thugs or members of the insurgency. The ones that aren't are afraid for their lives because they are associating with the US troops. And comparing that tiny number to the number of cops in the US is pathetic not to mention the superior communications technology the US cops have which can allow them to respond quickly (not that they do, of course) to criminal acts.
"what unofficial presence remains is being packed up to be shipped out come the 30th."
Aahh, exactly what "presence" is this that is leaving the 30th?
I'm sure the 150,000 US troops over there who ain't going anywhere for the next couple years - unless of course Sistani says different in due time - would like to know they're coming home on the 30th. Other than in bodybags, of course.
The 600-800 murders in Chicago are probably mostly drug dealers and domestic violence cases with a smattering of serial killers.
In other words, unless you are participating in illegal endeavors or married the wrong person, you're not likely to get killed in Chicago or anywhere else in the US.
This is not the case in Iraq where any Westerner stands out like a sore thumb and is considered a legitimate target by the insurgents - especially if he is a US contractor.
The situations are totally different even if the numbers seem the same.
Slashdot Mirror
Last Update: Saturday, June 19, 2004. 10:46am (AEST)
US soldier killed, contractor wounded in Iraq mortar attack
A US soldier has been killed and a contractor for a US firm wounded in a mortar attack on a US-led coalition base on Friday, the US military said.
"One Task Force Baghdad Soldier died and a Kellogg Brown and Root contractor was wounded when six mortars hit a coalition base at about 2:30pm," a statement said.
KBR is a subsidiary of US construction giant Halliburton.
The statement did not reveal the nationality of the contractor, who only received minor injuries.
The death raises to 614 the number of US soldiers killed in action since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, according to numbers from the Pentagon.
-- AFP
Have a nice day.
Well, Jefferson didn't think so. He issued the famous statement about "letting Shay go - for if you imprison men for riot and sedition, what check is there on government?" (not an exact quote, but close enough).
As I said, for the most part you are probably correct. However, it's not easy to draw the line where criticizing a product crosses over into criticizing a company. Granted, Linux being open source gives a much easier way to draw that line. Windows is a different story.
But the bottom line is this: if you say Linux as a piece of property is a cancer, you are indirectly saying that the proponents of that property are conducting business in a negative manner. It's very close to saying that Microsoft is selling a "drug-like" product (Windows) by claiming they are selling it in a "drug-dealer-like" manner.
Sure, it's all nitpicking - but that's what lawyers make their money on.
The bottom line issue is: what does Microsoft hope to gain by suing this guy for the obviously (to anyone with a brain) analogical comment about Microsoft acting like drug dealers? The obvious conclusion is they want to stifle criticism of their business practices - and by extension, criticism of their product line.
Fuck you, homes.
I clobbered your bullshit estimate with the Pentagon's own facts, and you can't handle it.
Tough shit, fool.
The shit has yet to really hit the fan in Iraq. That will come when Sistani finally realizes the so-called "government" is nothing but a bunch of Quislings and his call for all traces of the occupation to be erased is ignored. Then he issues his fatwa and the US gets their ass kicked worse than they're getting it now.
Have a nice day.
You have to be completely insane.
Nothing you've said is even remotely true.
Troop Count:
The Pentagon will increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to around 145,000 this summer, from the current 140,000, in recognition of the continued difficulty coalition forces are having in providing security leading up to the hand-over of political power to Iraqis on June 30.
The new troops will come from the Marine Corps, which will move up a deployment originally planned for this fall and send 5,000 Marines to Iraq by August. The first troops in that contingent ? 2,200 Marines from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit ? have already left their home base in San Diego for Iraq. The remainder will come from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in North Carolina.
Overall, U.S. force levels in Iraq could rise even higher than 145,000 as Marines already in Iraq have their tours extended to overlap with incoming replacements, said Lt. Gen. Robert Magnus, deputy commandant for programs and resources.
What part of higher than 145,000 can't you read? I said 150,000 after the rotation is done. The above confirms that.
No official US presence in Iraq? What planet are you on?
The US isn't hiring anybody? Excuse me? You've never heard of Halliburton or Brown and Root? You need to go here and see the list of PMO awarded contracts. You think it's all Iraqis doing this work? Are you nuts?
Bremer's no longer in authority as of June 5th? Then why on June 8th:
Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia leader whose militiamen have been fighting the US occupation forces in several Iraqi cities, was banned yesterday from standing in Iraq's forthcoming democratic elections.
Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, signed an order stating that, with immediate effect, members of illegal militias "will be barred from holding political office for three years after leaving their illegal organisation".
And here's the facts from the horse's mouth about the Embassy from Dan Senor, Senior Adviser, CPA, DOD Briefing, Tuesday, June 15, 2004:
MR. SENOR: On your first question, obviously, we need substantial space, property, for the U.S. mission here. This will be the largest -- one of the largest U.S. missions in the world -- I briefed on that over the weekend -- close to a thousand U.S. employees, close to 600 to 700 Foreign Service nationals. The largest USAID mission in the world will be here. And the Iraqi interim government recognizes that if we are to continue to play the role here that they are hoping we will play going forward, we will need not only the requisite property from which to operate, but in an area that enables us to maximize, to the extent that we can, the security of our U.S. citizens working here. And so we are going to work out with the interim government -- and this has been the basis of discussions that Ambassador Bremer has had with Prime Minister Allawi as to what's basically made available. Certainly nobody intends to use space permanently. It's just a matter of what we can use here in the near future that meets the criteria that we've laid out, and the prime minister has been receptive to that.
Q Where's the embassy going to be then?
MR. SENOR: It's going to be within the current Green Zone. And we will be -- certainly when Ambassador Negroponte arrives -- but Ambassador Jeffrey, who's the deputy chief of mission who's already here, will be, I think, providing some tours to the press and providing information to show you the facilities that we will be using. The current idea, the current plan is to use the existing CPA headquarters as, effectively, some office space for the embassy, sort of an annex, if you will. And then the actual main embassy building will be in a different location nearby, but within the perimeter of the current Green Zone.
Anything else you want to know?
You'e simply and totally clueless about anything going on in Iraq, aren't you?
Slashdot accepts this report (which is not terribly significant) but ignores submissions which establish that the Total Information Awareness Program - which is far more insidious than a few CID guys running around in civilian clothes - is alive and well and running right now as a Pentagon black budget item. /.'ers...clueless.
"Stuff that matters" - yeah, right.
A minor act of terrorism far smaller than the terrorism conducted by the US in the Phillipines
and elsewhere - including Iraq and Afghanistan.
"War" is a conflict between state (and perhaps ethnic) actors.
"Terrorism" is not "war" (except in the sense that all conflict between groups is "war") and cannot be combated by (conventional) "war". It can only be combatted by a combination of counterintelligence and policy change. Remove the reasons for the support of terrorists by populations and you can then remove the terrorists who are then by definition limited in number. Any other approach is counterproductive.
NOTHING the US has done since 9/11 has had any significant effect on the ability of terrorists to function against the US or the rest of the world. See the Google news page on any given day for this obvious fact. Ergo, use of the military and the rhetoric of "war" to combat terrorism has been an abject failure.
"Simply put, if you find a spy, you can shoot them."
They did - in Falluja - after which they burned the bodies. Somehow that pissed the US off despite the fact that it was perfectly correct behavior so we killed another 800-1000 civilians.
"What is the point of having a military if not to defend our own soil?" If you spent more time on our soil, I might agree with you. Iraq is not your soil, and the US military has no business being there as there was absolutely NO threat to the US from Iraq (unless you count Saddam's insults).
Not to mention Afghanistan from whom there was also absolutely NO threat (Al Qaeda is not Afghanistan, despite whatever harboring they may have received there.)
The US military is a disaster waiting to happen. The troops are poorly trained, the officers incompetent, the budgets FAR out of line with effectiveness, and its members are patsies and suckers for whoever is in power and for whatever nonsensical, illegal, and irrational "foreign policy" is being used to cover up naked grabs for money and power.
I spent three years in the US Army during Vietnam because I was too stupid to desert to Canada, but not so stupid that I would allow myself to be drafted and forced to become infantry fodder.
A soldier is a moron. A soldier is not a warrior.
And every US soldier in Iraq deserves exactly what he is getting there.
And when the final conflict between the Iraqi Hawza and the US comes to pass (when Sistani finally realizes the US has no intention of leaving ever), the Iraqi people will DESTROY the US military handing it the worst defeat in US history (unless Sistani grants them a truce to allow them to evacuate).
And we want these morons doing investigative work in the US - outside of the courts' control and outside of the methods and procedures developed by law enforcement to deal with the community?
Hardly.
This is just another naked Rumsfeld power grab. Colonel Hackworth was totally correct when he desribed Rumsfeld as an "arrogant asshole".
Clinton? CLINTON?
Were you just born ten or fifteen years ago?
The Constitution went out, oh, about five minutes after it was passed when one of the Adams, governor of Massachusetts, suspended habeaus corpus during Shay's Rebellion.
It hasn't been respected since.
You ever hear of guys like Nixon, Reagan, Carter, Kennedy, Johnson, etc.? They preceded Clinton by some time.
Clinton was just a bit slicker than Bush, that's all. And he got more pussy. Which, along with post-alcoholism and drug abuse, is probably why Bush is such a mean-spirited asshole.
Good thing they're against us - redeems them for all the bad food and lack of bathing.
OTOH, Alizee...
Excuse me - most computers ARE owned by "computer neophytes" by definition.
And how many people do you think are doing business these days cleaning spyware off home computers? I just started my tech support business and out of my first 3 clients, I had one with spyware it took me two visits to get rid of since it had registry keys and dlls all over hell on the machine. Ad-Aware was not enough for this thing.
Or do you think there are half a billion Windows MCSE's out there?
Oh, wait, MCSE's...Maybe you're right.
"diverting the Internet browser of the computer, or similar program of the computer used to access and navigate the Internet, to one or more Web pages not of the owner or authorized user?s choosing;"
Does this mean defaulting IE to MSN is now illegal?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
"Calling a property like unto a drug dealer is a legal absurdity."
But calling a property a "cancer" as Ballmer did attempts to reduce the value of that property by claiming that it damages intellectual property.It's the same thing as calling a house termite-ridden.
Anybody involved in selling that property would seem to have cause to complain, possibly legally.
As in fact they did and do regularly in columns and editorials in Linux publications.
However, you are probably correct that these people have no standing to sue Ballmer or Microsoft in court.
As Ballmer has no standing to sue anybody who says "Windows is CRAP" - because that is more like saying "your house is ugly".
OTOH, if I say, "Windows is insecure" and cite all the worms and viruses, I am directly stating something as a fact about Windows. Is Microsoft prepared to sue over these statements? Based on the Brazil case, it would seem so.
OTOH, people who say your house is ugly because you have weeds growing in your yard or you painted it purple can complain to the city who will force you to clean up your property in order to prevent devaluing property on either side of you.
So it's not that cut and dried who can do what for what reason, legally. That's why lawyers make tons of money and why lawyers are scum.
It is likely that Microsoft took this tack because it might come in handy later for suing it's critics elsewhere including in the US.
"You can say whatever you like about Linux, and there's not a lot anyone can do about it."
Yeah, there isn't a lot anybody can do about Linux despite whatever they say about it!
That's what's nice about Linux!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
You're absolutely right!
So now I threaten to kick your fucking ass!
You have no problem with that, right?
Good, nice to see you're consistent.
Oh, wait, this is where I'm supposed to claim that "Grandma" would NEVER do that because she can't possibly know what a "powertoy" is!
Oh, wait, this is Windows we're talking about, not Linux! So I guess, magically, "Grandma" can figure it out (whereas on Linux this would be impossible, right?)
Now let's see how many
You're the ignorant one.
I've been following detailed accounts of the situation in Iraq since the war started.
You've been listening to Fox News, that's obvious.
Here's a quote from an article last fall:
Now, in an effort to bolster the 37,000 member Iraqi police force, Bernard Kerik has arranged to utilize an abandoned Soviet military base in Hungary as a training center. He plans to train an additional 28,000 policemen over the next 18 months, bringing the number of Iraqi police to 65,000, which he judges should be enough to police the entire country.
Here's another quote from an article here:
All those months Rumsfeld was cooking the books. In late March the Pentagon released a chart summarizing the numbers of Iraqi security force troops. It tells a different story from the one peddled by Rumsfeld. The summary notes that 75,844 Iraqis were on the payroll as police officers, but only 2,865 were fully qualified and on duty. Another 13,286 were deemed "partially qualified" and supposedly on duty, while 3,245 were in training. Three-fourths of those on the police payroll had received no training. Six months earlier Rumsfeld had declared that 55,000 police had been trained. Not even close. (Despite the small size of the new Iraqi police force, it has been a primary target of the insurgents, who recently mounted attacks on police stations in Basra that claimed the lives of dozens of civilians. And Iraqi police elsewhere have been killed in assaults.)
The Pentagon summary also shows that Rumsfeld had been stretching the truth about other security forces. It notes that the new Iraqi Border Police needed 8,835 officers, but this force had not one fully trained officer on duty. It did have 8,601 partially qualified police and 179 in training. The Department of Border Enforcement required 16,892 troops; it had 9,873 partially qualified troops, no fully qualified people and none in training. Of the 40,000 troops needed for the Iraqi Armed Forces, only 3,249 had been fully trained and deployed. A mere 2,400 were in training. The Pentagon summary does note that the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps had 34,683 members who were receiving on-the-job training. (A Civil Defense Corps group in Falluja vanished during recent fighting there.) And it reports that the security service designed to protect government facilities and Iraqi infrastructure had a force of 73,992.
All told, the Pentagon summary maintains, there were 208,821 Iraqis in the various security services. But counting only those fully trained and on duty, the total was 114,789. And 95 percent of that force comprised security guards and civil defense members -- not the front-line forces. Add up the active and fully trained Iraqi police, border personnel and military forces, and the number of Iraq security troops is 6,114. Throw in those partially trained, and the total goes up to 37,874. The Iraqi security forces hardly could boast over 200,000 troops "providing security," as Rumsfeld claimed in March.
In other words, you're an idiot.
Try listening to somebody other than Rush for a change.
I spent eight years in Federal prison with ghetto blacks. I got along with a lot of them and didn't with others.
/.'er nerd who has never met any blacks. And you've never read any quotes from Iraqis for the last year, either.
How many do you know?
Admit it. You're a
You're entirely overreacting to my comment.
I am perfectly well aware that most ghetto blacks are not murderers. I was referring to those who do carry guns and don't like whites, obviously.
And I spent eight years in Federal prison with those guys, okay? So I know CONSIDERABLY more about them than you do - and I know cops (at least, correctional officers) better than you, too, and they're assholes as well, you're right about that.
You're a real rocket scientist /,'er, aren't you?
A few US advisors leave and the largest US Embassy in the world moves in - and you can't comprehend that.
The troop count including the British and others is going to be 150,000 when the rotation finishes - you can't comprehend that either, right?
And you figure 150,000 US troops means there is no US "presence" in Iraq after the 30th - even though Bremer and the others remain in command of virtually everything.
Yes, you are a spewing sack of shit moron yourself.
Have a nice day, rightwing cretin.
You can't read English, can you?
I said "every Iraqi I've seen quoted". By definition that does not include 25 million Iraqis. It means exactly what it says.
What I see on the news are quotes from average Iraqis who are NOT news and they are saying they are all concerned about their security. What part of that can't you comprehend?
The "26,000 strong Iraqi police" are regarded by the average Iraqi as either criminal thugs or members of the insurgency. The ones that aren't are afraid for their lives because they are associating with the US troops. And comparing that tiny number to the number of cops in the US is pathetic not to mention the superior communications technology the US cops have which can allow them to respond quickly (not that they do, of course) to criminal acts.
In other words, you're an idiot.
"what unofficial presence remains is being packed up to be shipped out come the 30th."
Aahh, exactly what "presence" is this that is leaving the 30th?
I'm sure the 150,000 US troops over there who ain't going anywhere for the next couple years - unless of course Sistani says different in due time - would like to know they're coming home on the 30th. Other than in bodybags, of course.
Moron.
8 guys killed 200 attackers?
Horseshit...
Unless of course the "attackers" were unarmed...ie, Iraqi civilians...
The 600-800 murders in Chicago are probably mostly drug dealers and domestic violence cases with a smattering of serial killers.
In other words, unless you are participating in illegal endeavors or married the wrong person, you're not likely to get killed in Chicago or anywhere else in the US.
This is not the case in Iraq where any Westerner stands out like a sore thumb and is considered a legitimate target by the insurgents - especially if he is a US contractor.
The situations are totally different even if the numbers seem the same.
True. AK rounds need Threat Level III or higher armor which is a PITA to wear in that heat.