Posted by: Art on May 01, 19103 at 13:21:04 In Reply to: Re: Typical posted by Eric on April 30, 19103 at 14:15:53

Hi Eric

"First of all, NO ONE is claiming that the demonstrators were Saddam supporters, or Ba'ath party members."

Sure they did. The so called "school" you and Dick talked about has never been a school but was in fact a Ba'th party HQ. The whole area is known to be supporters of Sadaam which is why we occupied the HQ. A Fox news inbed reporter gave a visual (TV) tour for all to see including the arms cache located in the school. That's Sadaam's strategy. Build a military complex and disguise it as a school so we don't bomb it. Those Ba'th party demonstrators could care less about using that building as a school. Why should they, it's never has been used as a school when Sadaam was in charge, they worked at the HQ. All the Sadaam supporters want is to create an incident to force US troops out. Of course, that isn't going to happen. Unfortunately, the radicals with the weapons are hiding amoung those who don't have weapons but that's the game they play. It's the same tactic they used in Korea back in the 50's so it's nothing new. Our troops have seen it all before and are trained to deal with it. As you said, I wasn't there but I do know the military and I know they would not fire unless fired upon. If one soldier did fire without being fired upon, all the soldiers around him would know and he would immediately be facing UCMJ charges. No soldier would risk that. To believe otherwise would mean that you believe Sadaam's Ba'th party members rather than our troops. We may have political differences but in fairness, I don't believe you or any of the others really believe that.

"But there are growing signs that they are failing, not surprisingly, at a job they are not trained to do, adminster a civil society."

Wrong again. Our troops are indeed trained for the mission they are currently doing and they are doing it very well. As long as pockets of resistance are around that fire weapons at our troops, our combat troops will be there to ensure things don't get out of control. Of course, they are trained to not fire unless fired uppon which is what they did. When the mission changes to one of police work versus security, they will remove the combat forces and replace them with military police who are trained for civil functions. For now, we have exactly the right troops for the job, combat troops. If Sadaam's supporters want to shoot at our troops, that will be the last thing they do and that will become crystal clear if it hasn't already. That's not a failure, that's what our troops are trained to do. If they want to demonstrate peacefully, that's fine too but no shooting. It's totally up to them but they will receive the response appropriate to their conduct.

BTW, enjoyed your comments regarding Khomeini's notion that Shiite clerics should be in power. That isn't going to happen in Iraq because the SecDef already said that isn't going to happen. OTOH, how do we help the Iranian people rid themselves of the problem without becoming directly involved ourselves. Most of the people in Iran don't want the clerics in charge as you and Scott correctly stated but what can we do to help the people help themselves without us becoming directly involved? Tough problem, any thoughts?

Cheers

Art

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