That last was me forgetting to login to the forums as well.

Duh.

To: little whip

How long is Britain to pay for our assistance in WW2, Dear?

Britain paid its last financial installments on the debft from WW2 to both America and Canada a couple of weeks ago. The UK has paid what might be called its 'moral' obligation to the US for that period through its (till now) unflinching support in Iraq and Afghanistan, support that's even more deeply unpopular there than the war is here.

That's not the point. The point is, what does this say about the UK now? What sort of country is it? Do its people have the courage to face up to the consequences of their leaders' folly for the sake of their reputation in the world?

The English do not cut and run. Or so I have always believed. The Scots, the Irish and the Welsh may do so, but the English do not. When we put our hand to something, even if unwillingly in the first instance, we don't take it away until the task is complete.

The British Raj in India did not give up when it encountered the resistance of the devotees of Kali (the original 'Thugs'). Instead it hunted them down and exterminated them. It didn't give up when it encountered the resistance of Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Kashmir - instead it fought them to a standstill and contained them.

When the 150 men of the garrison at Rourke's Drift in South Africa were confronted by a Zulu Army of almost five thousand warriors what did they do? Did they surrender? Did they run? No. They stood and fought Cetshwayo's army, broke it and drove it away - and in the process gained 12 VCs (the Victoria Cross, which with the addition of a Bar, meaning a second separate award, is Britain's highest military decoration).

I've no doubt that your average British squaddie hasn't changed from those times to this - except that he's better equipped. But the mood of the people, the general public, has most definitely changed, I'm ashamed to say. Blair's decision to withdraw is no doubt politically expedient and will be very popular. But it ought not to be.

It ought to make every real Englishman thoroughly ashamed of the wankers that currently govern the country - because certainly no real Englishman could or should support such a despicable abandonment of a friend.

Ever since the cold war, democracies armed forces have been drastically cut back in favor of leaner, more capable per unit forces, but lesser long term deployable forces.

The British have come to the end of their ability to support and maintain military operations at the constant deployment tempo and world wide scale that has been Afghanistan & Iraq.

It would be wise for the United States to realize that we too have limits to our ability to deploy.

"How long is Britain to pay for our assistance in WW2, Dear? Just because we rescued your asses 60-odd years ago doesn't mean you must stand beside us forever and ever, right? The rest of Europe turned their backs years ago, but as is typical of the British, you do everything last, and not necessarily better.

We don't need ya's anyway."

That's a rather childish attitude. On the absolute contrary, we need as many partners and allies in the war on terror as we can secure, should things go nuclear. The world could expect an extermination campaign launched by the United States in the event of a nuclear destruction of a city.

If the best we can come up with is remove a dictator with no real power to influence the world militarily or otherwise, and after four years of Iraqi's not cooperating with an occupier, subjugate, enforce, utterly destroy major cities, perhaps we should leave them to Iran.

Whip listen to what you are saying.

"summarily executing every man, woman, or child even suspected of resistance."

Thats not right, that's not the moral guiding light this country is supposed to be for the world. That is totally ass backwards from why we got into this war for real, in the first place. Besides, thats won't accomplish much, it certainly isn't right,

I'm surprised at you, the voice of reason. Surprised that kiling civillians, on the whim of suspicion is best solution you can come up with. That's not fighting a war, thats allowing murder. Genocide.

You fight wars to end the violence, to stop the slaughter, not to start it. We fucked up in a big way, with a piss poor post war plan, lack of an effective plan B, no plan C, and sure as hell no Plan E, i.e. exit.

No timetables
No acknowledgment of the problems by the administration
No commitment of the forces necessary and realistic goals at the onset are what have made this situation what it is today and has been for years. Not the success of the terrorists/insurgents. They were going to do whatever they were going to do no matter what our actions.

I'll agree the line is fine between murder and collateral damage yet, just slaughtering people would make us no different then the terrorists who would do the same, that is important because we are different.

They have real problems to solve in Iraq, and it is their problem to solve.

"We are fighting a decidedly uncivil and compassionless enemy"

The fight is over between us an the armed forces or Iraq, is has been for some time. This uncivil and compassionless enemy, we fight one day and welcome with open arms the next. Wars are never civil. If they were, we would be at war always. The enemy in this case, is much less civil because he/she is irregular and not bound by any rule of law, war or otherwise.

I agree with you, leaving sooner rather then later, and leaving them Iraqi's and perhaps the Iranians' to themselves would be wiser then remaining forever.

Whip you cannot justify murder, and unethical acts, no matter how you try. I understand your anger and hurt and frustration with this war, this policy of doing nothing but staying the course. I whole heartedly agree with the idea that changes are needed.

However, you are advocating the murder or kiling of women, children, men, civillians, non-military targets, because extremists, and they have targeted civillians. For the most part I think the death squads are part of these extremist groups. The insurgency exists because of the extremists and our inability to bring security to the city and country. If there were security, and at least normalcy, if people could go about their business without having to cross a check point every 500 ft, then I imagine a world in Iraq very much different.

You all want to tell me these Islamic Extremists, want total chaos and murder, if that were true they would not be able to govern any better in their own nations, or Iran and Syria.

I further agree that this isn't our fight, we shouldn't be trying to referee any of this. Since when has it become our job to police the world? I fail to understand why after 4 years if we were going to do this, and not half-assed, there isn't a plan for an increase of 200,000 troops instead of 20,000. The generals on the ground stay no more are needed because they know this is a lost cause at this point.

We are just marking time. I don't think it's time for our military to just go around raping and killing and destroying everything because we are emotional regarding the situation. I wasn't around for Vietnam but every day that goes by and with every layer of muck that piles onto the situation and with every avenue of frustration and lack of progress this feels to me what Vietnam in my mind was about.

Achieving success at any cost was not nor should be the goal. We are not fighting for our survival. We are fighting for security of a foreign nation. That is not a war that must be won, certainly not at this stage of the game. Even if we win in Iraq, there will still be areas of the world and countries able to harbor terrorists, Israel, Libya, Syria, Iran, and if we were to eliminate all of those there would be still others.

I would love to see to a huge victory in Iraq, but the situation has not improved in the last 18 months, if you measure month by month it appears to be improving and then deteriorating, then improving again then deteriorating. Adding more troops only puts more troops in danger.