Pseudo- try i Islamic cuisine- Kabobs & lamb very nice, also read some books of Islamic history really fun- also please visit Dubai - KUwait - Indonesia - India- ur perspective of Moslems will change.

There are alternative views: Two years on, the echoes of Vietnam are getting louder As the Iraq insurgency grows, so do the similarities with Indochina Max Hastings Friday June 24, 2005 The Guardian A year after the Iraq insurgency began in 2003, sceptics asked: "Is this the new Vietnam?" At the time, many of us who pontificate about these things answered no. Simplistic historical comparisons are almost always mistaken. It seemed premature to pass any melodramatic judgment about Iraq. Today, another year on, important differences persist. The US commitment in Iraq is much smaller than in Vietnam, and so is the casualty rate. Half a million Americans spent five years pursuing victory in Indochina, and five more disengaging. "Only" 140,000 US soldiers are deployed in Iraq. George Bush is likely to declare victory and start getting out, rather than escalate his war as Lyndon Johnson so disastrously did. Yet in significant respects Vietnam comparisons have become unavoidable. First, it is hard to believe that Washington's objective - the creation of a viable local government and institutions to run Iraq as a unitary state - is achievable within an acceptable time-frame. Second, intelligence is proving a critical weakness. Recently, I heard an American commander deplore the extraordinary paucity of information on the ground: "We spend all these billions of dollars on the CIA and your SIS, and we know next to nothing about what the other side is doing. We need less technology and more spies." Third, and most important, whatever military successes American forces achieve against the insurgents, there is no sign that they are winning the critical battle, for hearts and minds. The experience of ordinary Iraqis with the US military is at best alienating, at worst terrifying. There is no hint of shared purpose, mutual sympathy and respect between the armoured columns rolling along the roads, intermittently belching fire, and the hapless mass of local people, caring only for survival. Last month, BBC4 screened an uncommonly vivid documentary, A Company of Soldiers, about a unit of the US 8th Cavalry fighting in Iraq. It brought all the old memories of Vietnam flooding back. These shaven-headed young philistines, fearful and even sometimes tearful, wore on their arms the horse's head badge of a formation I knew in Indochina as the 1st Air Cavalry Division. As the 8th Cavalry's armoured vehicles roared forth on patrol, their occupants seemed infused with the same bewilderment about an unknown enemy that one remembered so well in the boondocks of Indochina. These soldiers' view of Iraq was determined by what they could glimpse through their weapon slits, or at night on their infra-red screens. "We're trying to save their lives," said an exasperated officer about the Iraqis, "but they're not helping us by getting in our way." Soldiers quizzing local people through interpreters on a house search are young men from Ohio or Wyoming, Georgia or New Jersey. Yet cocooned in helmets and sunglasses, body armour and weapons that conceal almost every inch of flesh, they do not seem human at all. They resemble the robot legionaries of Darth Vader. The doctrine of "force protection" - making preservation of American lives the first mission priority - has made US forces unconvincing peacekeepers in Somalia and the Balkans, Vietnam and Lebanon. So, too, has insensitivity about the interests of the people they are allegedly fighting to help. There was a powerful scene in the TV film, in which a bored and jumpy soldier impulsively put a bullet into a dog. Its owner emerged from his house, bent over his pet's corpse for a moment, then walked away, throwing up his hands in impotent misery. Whatever commanded that man's loyalty six months ago, who can doubt which side he is on today. "This is Indian territory ... If we meet the enemy, we shall overwhelm him with combat power," said the unit's colonel, briefing his officers for an operation. After an emotional episode in which the whole regiment learned live on the radio about the death on patrol of one of its men, the colonel warned: "I don't want to hear anyone say anyone's dead on the net, right?" The key imperative for every counter-insurgency campaign is to engage sympathetically with the population. "The only time most Iraqis converse with Americans is when a civil affairs officer comes to pay out compensation for killing somebody in the family," a reporter who has spent several months in Iraq observed recently. American forces bring nothing in their wake that Iraqis can perceive as good or helpful, only a cacophony of military noise, spasmodic death and destruction. In all this, of course, the resemblance to Vietnam is striking. US commanders would say more emollient tactics are impossible in the face of an increasingly violent insurgency. The suicide bombers, rocket firers and snipers oblige US units tooperate as they do. If men went forth on f

The sky is falling! The sky is falling! How do I know? Because Max "Chicken Little" Hastings says so! Max Hastings Friday June 24, 2005 The Guardian A year after the Iraq insurgency began in 2003, sceptics asked: "Is this the new Vietnam?" They were asking this before the insurgency began. They were asking right after the war started. The also asked in Afghanistan, Gulf War 1, Panama, and Grenada. Every time a soldier has even sneezed over the last 30 years, someone has yelled "quagmire!" At the time, many of us who pontificate about these things answered no. Whereas all the others who pontificate about these things answered yes. Simplistic historical comparisons are almost always mistaken. Therefore it's only natural that we're going to base this article on simplistic historical comparisons. It seemed premature to pass any melodramatic judgment about Iraq. Not that that stopped anyone. Today, another year on, important differences persist. Here come the simplistic historical comparisons... The US commitment in Iraq is much smaller than in Vietnam, and so is the casualty rate. Half a million Americans spent five years pursuing victory in Indochina, and five more disengaging. "Only" 140,000 US soldiers are deployed in Iraq. George Bush is likely to declare victory and start getting out, rather than escalate his war as Lyndon Johnson so disastrously did. And it's also likely that if Bush declares victory and pulls our troops that we will have in fact been victorious. Yet in significant respects Vietnam comparisons have become unavoidable. Unavoidable in the sense that every time a soldier so much as scratches his rear, comparisons are made to Vietnam. First, it is hard to believe that Washington's objective - the creation of a viable local government and institutions to run Iraq as a unitary state - is achievable within an acceptable time-frame. And it's hard to believe because of...why? Perhaps it's because you don't want it to happen? And please define what exactly an "acceptable time-frame" is. Would the 15 years it took the US to go from the Declaration of Independence to ratification of the Constitution be too long for consideration? Second, intelligence is proving a critical weakness. Recently, I heard an American commander deplore the extraordinary paucity of information on the ground: "We spend all these billions of dollars on the CIA and your SIS, and we know next to nothing about what the other side is doing. We need less technology and more spies." And this is news, right? You are just now figuring this out? Third, and most important, whatever military successes American forces achieve against the insurgents, there is no sign that they are winning the critical battle, for hearts and minds. Nope. We sure aren't winning their hearts and minds, now are we? The experience of ordinary Iraqis with the US military is at best alienating, at worst terrifying. There is no hint of shared purpose, mutual sympathy and respect between the armoured columns rolling along the roads, intermittently belching fire, and the hapless mass of local people, caring only for survival. Evil Americans! How dare they do horrible things like this to the poor Iraqi people! Last month, BBC4 screened an uncommonly vivid documentary, A Company of Soldiers, about a unit of the US 8th Cavalry fighting in Iraq. It brought all the old memories of Vietnam flooding back. These shaven-headed young philistines, fearful and even sometimes tearful, wore on their arms the horse's head badge of a formation I knew in Indochina as the 1st Air Cavalry Division. It's those darn simplistic historical comparisons agains! As the 8th Cavalry's armoured vehicles roared forth on patrol, their occupants seemed infused with the same bewilderment about an unknown enemy that one remembered so well in the boondocks of Indochina. And the jungles of Guadalcanal, the sand and coral of the Central Pacific islands, the beaches of Normandy, the trenches of France during WW1,...need I go on? These soldiers' view of Iraq was determined by what they could glimpse through their weapon slits, or at night on their infra-red screens. Because American soldiers are too stupid to learn from the experiences of those who have gone before. Did I get that anti-American rant right? "We're trying to save their lives," said an exasperated officer about the Iraqis, "but they're not helping us by getting in our way." So they had to destroy the village in order to save it. Oops, now I'm making one of those simplistic historical comparisons... Soldiers quizzing local people through interpreters on a house search are young men from Ohio

"American defeat in 1975." ???, CL

F22, that was an outstanding "Fisk"-ing. Displacedjim

Thanks, DJ. I hope you enjoyed it. :)

"One Muslim country with nuclear weapons is one too many, we dont want any more." Herc notice the part where i write "we don't want any more"? That implies there is one. I.E. Pakistan. Now why don't I want nuclear weapons in the hands of countries whose leadership has supported terrorism? Hmmm... Let me think on that a bit and get back to ya!

DLS 20 June 2005: "This is a war that is not followed via troops dispositions and casualty counts, but by opinion polls and election results." In light of opinion polls in US regarding support for the Iraq war and election in Iran (a country outside the environs of North Tehran)which side side has advantage, in this war without frontiers? 2005:

I would have to say we still do... Sooner or later my government will figure out they can't put the war in the news, and will move on to the massive Special Forces conflict this should be. Then we will sit back and watch as our efforts begin to diminish the enemy forces. Iraq is a rallying point for the Terrorists, but that will become background noise in five years as the Iraqi's are already getting pissed at the Sunni's. Personally I bet the Shia and Kurds slaughter the Sunni's once we leave, if the Sunni's don't wise up soon that is. It will be headline news for awhile, then Iraq will be but another page in history. I can't wait until our country takes this war economic, I'm drooling to see the Saudi's under and embargo. MMMMM....

As far as the "hearts & Minds" war is concerned, I propose the following: The USA pull out all their troops from Iraq, and those troops are substituted by an equivalent number of Italian troops, provided that we have so many soldiers. If we don't, then we supplement the troops with a dozen of Sicilians. Et voilà,....the war is won, and we are all at home for Christmas. Vanguard