I never wanted us to be there. But I was and am in a minority on that fact.
And if we were going to be there, I wanted to use bombs, quick reaction forces, and never, ever own a piece of ground. Again, I was in a minority. I never believed in Powell's "you broke it you bought it" strategy, if we had never moved in, I would have been OK with bouncing the rubble, and leaving. But once we moved in and took it for our own and started policing, we did (do) owe it to them and ourselves to do the best job we can. It is not an easy job. I dont have a clear understanding of our plan. And that does piss me off. But I am told by people I believe that we ARE heading in a positive direction. If this sort of incident happened in Baghdad today, I think it WOULD be a hot news item from day one. The situation in Iraq today, from everything I can tell, is markedly different than it was in the spring of 2007. Do you remember how bad it was before the "surge"? We had basically lost at that point. Not just for ourselves, but for the people of Iraq to ever regain a sane country. The Lt Col. reading the rules of engagement is one point of fact. Which does swing my opinion significantly. I want another point of confirmation or two, since that is a very pivotal piece of information. If they did not follow the ROE, then there is no mitigating circumstances. And the shootings were not justified. Which moves them from tragic to wrong. The lying also considerably swings my opinion. You don't cover up when you did it right. The stonewalling is less worrisome. I would expect any person in any job would try to keep video out of the hands of everyone. It seldom helps when people can pick apart your work. Just look at the search team in the Casey Anthony case not wanting to release any information. Nothing good for them can come of it. That doesnt mean they dont have to turn it over, assuming a valid FOI request. Just that I cannot blame them for feet dragging. It is up to others to compel compliance. On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 11:09 AM, Medic <[email protected]> wrote: > > > The might of the US government and military should drop down like a ton > of > bricks on those who lie up their chain of command. > > Unfortunately the lying goes all the way to the top. It's not a case of a > pilot lying, everyone lied and used strong-arm tactics to bury the story > for > almost three years. > > > I cannot know that until we know _what_ their rules were. > > This tells you. Watch it. The Lt Col. reads of the ROE at the time of the > mission. The mission by the way was to protect the Iraqi civilians. > > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510813/ns/msnbc_tv-the_dylan_ratigan_show#36182090 > > > Were they allowed to shoot anyone with a gun? > > No. > > > We knew about this shooting in the summer of 2007. Where was all the > outrage then? > > Well the military was lying and downplaying it. Hard to be outraged when > you > don't know what to be outraged about. > > >Truthfully, I am WAY more upset about the Afghanistan shootings and > coverup > > than this one. There seems to be way less grey area on that one. > > Is there only room for one? Why are you even trying to quantify and compare > your level of outrage? What an utterly useless endeavor. They should -ALL- > outrage you. It should -ALL- make you want to convince your government to > stop "nation building." > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:315155 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
