We predicted it..."We need ground troops"

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DC

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We knew it and now the talking heads are dropping hints...Sen. Lugar "We will lose the war without ground troops" Sen Robb "This is not Vietnam, we need a massive force beyond air power"

Sen Lugar "This is not Vietnam because NATO is involved and NATO demands a stable Europe".


Well, kiss saving Social Security goodbye, and no refunds or tax cuts because as we all know "how do we know the American people will spend the money in the right way?" The only right way is to let Billy spend it the way he wants to.

Sorry, but I am absolutely disgusted

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes"
 
DC;You knew he was a snake...
NOW is the time for all of us to contact our senators and congressman and thoo them in no uncertain terms:No GROUND TROOPS!
We do not need to be the worlds guardian or policeman.
We went to Vietnam and after untold dollars and untold lives we got out. The day we left the NVA was in Saigon-I mean Ho Chi Minh City.So what did we purchase with all that blood and money?
I believed in Vietnam.Militarily the war was over and we won in 1967.Then Richard Nixon,Jane Fonda and Henry Kissinger gave it to them and hung us out to dry.
We should NOT let it happen again!

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Better days to be,

Ed
 
just saw on the news where they're moving tanks, and Apache tank killin' copters a little bit closer to the border. hum....wonder why?

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fiat justitia
 
I have already e-mailed my senators and told them in no uncertian terms no ground troops and to get out while we can. I suggest you all do the same and try to get others to do so. Imagine the impact on Washington when all the congress critters show up tommorrow morning to find tons of negative e-mail about Kosovo. Get to writing folks. Before we have anoyher Viet Nam on our hands.

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"It's like deja vu' all over again!"- Yogi Berra
 
I think they've been prepping us for ground troops for quite a while now.

And, I still think we should press for the Department of Defense to be renamed: War Department. Or, if that is too plain, then the Department of Armed Humanitarian Intervention. ;)

It clearly has nothing to do with Defense any longer.
 
STUPIDITY!!!

In Viet Nam we telegraphed every military move we made. Gave the enemy intelligence as to our troop concentrations, allowed their agents to move freely among our troops. Look what happened.

In Iraq the Generals controlled the press, did not allow them to move freely among the troops, would not allow them on the front line and manipulated them with mis- information as to troop placements. Look what happened.

Today we announced that 24 apachees were being sent to Albania along with 18 MLRS launchers and supporting troops. We are telegraphing our moves and allowing the press too much information. It sems the same type of idiots are now in charge of the military as we had during the Viet Nam war. I feel sorry for the troops being led by these Jerks because I have seen this before.
 
Greyfox; I agree with E-mailing our representatives(??), however I read somewhere that out of over 500 total representatives(I wonder who they represent) only 35 actually read, or pay attention to E-mail. What I do when I send an E-mail, is print 2 copies of the E-mail, send one as a cover letter to the senator or congressman, and keep one for my files. The article said they pay attention to letters. Hmmmm.
Paul B.
 
Jim, the pictures at the web site you posted are truly horrific. They brought back memories of a similar thing I saw back in 1969 at some firebase along the Cambodian border. Rows of body bags waiting to be airlifted out. The only difference was that they contained Americans.
 
I believe that it is immoral for us to debate the issue without having a gut-level feel for what's going on there. Hence that URL.

That doesn't mean I'm convinced it's a good idea to delve in there, although I think if it IS possible to do some good we should.

Note the "IF". I've got very serious doubts about the current "ways and means", especially any originating with President Sleazeball.

Jim March
 
Jim.
OK the pictures are gruesom, but this is what happens in war. Were the bodies the result of executions, crossfire, shelling. It is hard to say.

I heard from a friend who was an observer there and he has seen much worse.

War is nasty and civilians always pay the price.

We do not need to loose lives for someone else's war, these people have been at it for centuries and will be at it for a long time to come.WE DO NOT BELONG THERE! This is a Civil War.

We are being led by people who have no concept of war, who have no concept of what it takes to win and who are standing in the middle and seem to be unable to make a decision to commit either way.

Those old farts in the Senate who want ground troops are too eager to spend young men's lives, it is always the old who cause the death of the young.
 
Jim,
Sorry, I'm usually behind your posts 100% but this time you've struck out.
Death is NEVER pretty. Why do you think our seeing these pics is relevant to our decisions concerning US involvement in Kosovo?
This is the kind of crap we get from The Save Da Widdle Chiwdwen Foundation. Sentimentalist crap with no logical content or reasoned argument.
I have read enough of your posts to know you are capable of much better. I'm not flaming your stand on the issue, but I am disappointed in the lack of intelligent content in the above post.
Fact is, Kosovo just isn't our dance. Why do we have to be the policemen of the world and why do I have to foot the bill?
Dead Montagnard bodies are just as gruesome, but nobody's saying that we should go back to Vietnam and rescue them.
Dead Kurd children are just as heartbreaking, but we don't seem to mind that Saddam is killing them every chance he gets!
Dead Karen babies are also very upsetting, but nobody says we should go into Burma and save them either.
So why Kosovo? If Europe is so concerned about it's stability, let's let THEM handle it. Am I to believe that Germany, Great Britain, France, Spain, and Italy have no planes/bombs/missles? Or is it that it's not important enough for them to get seriously involved? Why the hell should they? We seem to be more than eager to take the bloody nose for them. All they have to do is sit back, enjoy the show and watch a country that they don't like anyway, (The US) get ass deep in alligators! Hell, it's a win/win for them. Either we quell Kosovo (they win) or we get into another Vietnam and lose our shirts and our economy goes to hell in a handbasket! (they win again. As our economy suffers, their's grows!) Why do you think they came up with the Eurodollar? To compete against us! They want nothing if not to see us pouring our tax dollars down a rathole in Kosovo.
Let's get out and STAY out!
Rant off.
Sorry if I singed your tail feathers Jim.

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Your mind is your primary weapon.
 
Jim,
Those pictures should serve as a reminder that war is nasty, grusome bussiness. All the more reason to stay out of it. I sure as hell don't want to see similar pictures of American bodies.
 
I don't want us there. I want us to arm the Kosovans to the point where no one can commit genocide with them as the victims. I want all the victims armed. This policy does not seem to appeal to the movers and shakers though.

However, if we are there I want overwhelming force from the beginning. This piddling incrementalism will get troops killed. I think we should pull out and quit now. But when you fight: kick their ass-don't piss on them.
 
As I said in another thread, I'm in favour of doing this IF we do the F***ing job right and IF we set it up so some other poor slobs are in there doing the nationbuilding after we GTFO.

But, we aren't gonna do the job right, and Clinton is not making any obvious signs that he has thought out the exit strategy.

Heck, I don't think they thought out the entrance strategy.

typical.

Mike
 
Ken, I get the feeling you took one look at the pics, said "ikky!" or similar, and moved on.

My point in that URL went a good ways beyond "this is yucky". Some of the bodies revealed much about the potential quagmire of the situation and is pretty solid proof there's true Nazi-level atrocities going on. In particular, the older guy (beyond military service age) with both eyes carved out.

That indicates a level of personal hatred WELL above average. It's worth knowing about. Second, it shows that morally this is a "concentration camp situation", rather than any kind of conventional war which would cause shot/burned/blown up bodies, civilian or otherwise.

And last, if you're arguing for total non-involvement under any circumstances, I don't think it's right to make that decision without seeing those pics.

My feelings on the matter are very similar to Coronach's, basically "if we can help in a sane fashion let's do so, but Clinton's probably gonna goatf**k it".

Jim March
 
Jim, I've defended you a few times (last night my girlfriend called you "paranoid" :) ) but this is too much. I really am glad that you post those pictures, and this is the 4th time (I think) that I've looked at them.
There are two bodies shown which are not fatalities from gunshot, shrapnel, etc. One is the old man with his eyes cut out. That's horrible, but unfortunately it doesn't make this some kind of unique war situation. The old man may have been interrogated, or the soldiers may just have been young men who had lost human sensibility and empathy. It happens to a lot of soldiers, after all. I suggest you pick up a copy of "Bloods," or I'll send you the relevant parts if you wish. The story of Gene Woodley is particularly gruesome, and he was an American Special Forces soldier doing recon. Atrocities like this happen, as do worse ones, even in "average" wars.
The other body that's unusual has been burned, which the caption says is proof that people have been "burned alive." I beg to differ. Not even close to proof, but again, it happens in war. Would you feel differently if you checked it out and found out that that particular woman was burned by a Tomahawk explosion?

As for ground troops, well, we told them so. A friend and I were just discussing our growing certainty that ground troops (and a draft) were inevitable in this mess, then I log on and find this. Small world.

A relevant quote from Gene Woodley:
Woodley relates that when Calley was tried for My Lai, he and his friends were scared because they had also "cleansed" villages. The difference was that Calley had put people in a ditch to be machine-gunned, but "when you dead, you dead."
If my friends and I die in Kosovo, we'll be dead for good.
 
Jim,
"Oooh yucky?" You're damn right it's yucky! You're also right that i didn't spend half an hour looking at those pics either. Why? I've seen MUCH worse damage to the human body in my life and I personally, have had my fill. It's an old and very trite saying these days, but "Been there. done that." Don't wanna spend my time looking at it if I don't have to.
I'm not a pacifist by any means. let somebody attack those that are dear to me and watch the bloodbath begin. I will WHATEVER it takes to stop the threat and sleep well that night knowing that I did what was right.
Let a foreign power attack our borders and watch me run to the sound of the guns!
Let some Terrorist Raghead cap off just ONE US Citizen without provocation and listen to me scream for the blood of that raghead.
Kosovo? Where does it fit the above?
There was a noticible lack of attention to the questions and doubts I expressed in my post, the only thing you really said was that I am apparently too squeamish to deal with it, and that those pictures were somehow relevant to our national policy.
I'll say it again, Why should we be the policemen of the World and why should I (and all the other taxpayers) have to foot the bill?
You take the stance that the Kosovo action would probably be acceptable to you if you thought it would be carried out in a "sane" manner and could possibly resolve the issue.
Do you realize how many centuries these idiots have been killing each other?
The Serbs/Albanians/Yugos/Kosovars/Croats/Bosnians,etc,etc,etc... (pick a label, they change yearly) have been killing each other for centuries before the United States existed and will still be "cleansing" raping, murdering and torturing each other long after our flag is a distant memory in the minds of our descendants.
Do you believe that military action can stop the KKK from commiting atrocities?
it's the same thing. A racial hatred that has been fed and lovingly nurtured for almost a thousand years.
I find it amazingly arrogant (I'm pretty damned arrogant myself if you hadn't noticed.) for amyone to believe that we can stop something like this.
Absolute Best case scenario.
We go in, suffer some losses, but nothing too major, and the killing stops.

For awhile.

It's not worth one American life or one dollar from my pocket. I don't care HOW many pictures you get me to look at.
BTW, I did look at every single picture. I have read so many of your posts that I agreed with or learned something from that I believed that there must be something worthwhile there, or you wouldn't have posted the link.
Perhaps that's why I got so irritable with you. I was dissapointed.

Pax.

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Your mind is your primary weapon.
 
Whelp, gotta disagree with Ken on this one. :) On at least a few points.

Yeah, you're absolutely right that we can't make these murdering bastards love one another. This particular iteration of the ongoing blood feud was caused by the majority Albanian Kosovars being oppressive to the minority Serbs a few years back. But thats just this spasm of hate. Its been going on forever, it seems.

But the best case scenario you outlined (the killing stops, for a while), is still a pretty good one, and yes, it is worth US blood and money. Why? Because like it or not, we are the cop on the beat. We didn't ask for the job, we don't want the job, but we got the job.

We enjoy a lot of perks from being the World Wide Top Dog right now...but we also have a lot of responsibilities. They go hand in hand. If we don't shoulder the burden it will not be long until we no longer enjoy the benefits. Wanna be a leader? Act like one.

And my original statement on a different thread still holds true (IMHO, of course):

If you are a witness to an atrocity, have the power to stop it, and do nothing...the blood is on your hands as well.

Mike

PS FLAME AWAY!
 
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