House passes HR 2956 (223-201) Redeployment from Iraq Act

mmarsh how about you look at some Iraqi news media outlets instead of some slanted biased one sided US tabloided news media crap....

http://www.world-newspapers.com/iraq.html

Oh and maybe if your posts weren't so blatantly one sided and highly opinionated people might not be so abrasive towards you....

-edit

This is rather interesting, an article talking about how the British pulling out of Basra has done nothing but turn it back into a lawless gangland...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20137025/
 
Last edited:
As British leave, Basra deteriorates

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20137025/

Violence rises in Shiite city once called a success story
The Washington Post

As British forces pull back from Basra in southern Iraq, Shiite militias there have escalated a violent battle against each other for political supremacy and control over oil resources, deepening concerns among some U.S. officials in Baghdad that elements of Iraq's Shiite-dominated national government will turn on one another once U.S. troops begin to draw down.
Three major Shiite political groups are locked in a bloody conflict that has left the city in the hands of militias and criminal gangs, whose control extends to municipal offices and neighborhood streets. The city is plagued by "the systematic misuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighborhood vigilantism and enforcement of social mores, together with the rise of criminal mafias that increasingly intermingle with political actors," a recent report by the International Crisis Group said.
After Saddam Hussein was overthrown in April 2003, British forces took control of the region, and the cosmopolitan port city of Basra thrived with trade, arts and universities. As recently as February, Vice President Cheney hailed Basra as a part of Iraq "where things are going pretty well."

But "it's hard now to paint Basra as a success story," said a senior U.S. official in Baghdad with long experience in the south. Instead, it has become a different model, one that U.S. officials with experience in the region are concerned will be replicated throughout the Iraqi Shiite homeland from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf. A recent series of war games commissioned by the Pentagon also warned of civil war among Shiites after a reduction in U.S. forces.
For the past four years, the administration's narrative of the Iraq war has centered on al-Qaeda, Iran and the sectarian violence they have promoted. But in the homogenous south -- where there are virtually no U.S. troops or al-Qaeda fighters, few Sunnis, and by most accounts limited influence by Iran -- Shiite militias fight one another as well as British troops. A British strategy launched last fall to reclaim Basra neighborhoods from violent actors -- similar to the current U.S. strategy in Baghdad -- brought no lasting success.

‘Surrounded like cowboys and Indians’

"The British have basically been defeated in the south," a senior U.S. intelligence official said recently in Baghdad. They are abandoning their former headquarters at Basra Palace, where a recent official visitor from London described them as "surrounded like cowboys and Indians" by militia fighters. An airport base outside the city, where a regional U.S. Embassy office and Britain's remaining 5,500 troops are barricaded behind building-high sandbags, has been attacked with mortars or rockets nearly 600 times over the past four months.
Britain sent about 40,000 troops to Iraq -- the second-largest contingent, after that of the United States, at the time of the March 2003 invasion -- and focused its efforts on the south. With few problems from outside terrorists or sectarian violence, the British began withdrawing, and by early 2005 only 9,000 troops remained. British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced further drawdowns early this year before leaving office.
The administration has been reluctant to publicly criticize the British withdrawal. But a British defense expert serving as a consultant in Baghdad acknowledged in an e-mail that the United States "has been very concerned for some time now about a) the lawless situation in Basra and b) the political and military impact of the British pullback." The expert added that this "has been expressed at the highest levels" by the U.S. government to British authorities.
Page 2
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20137025/page/2/

Things are not looking so good in Iraq for the Brits.
 
it may be a lawless gangland, but has that lawless gangland made any attempt to leave its land and attack US or british troops, or Journalists?

And yes, I think the british may leave completely soon.
 
Donkey

So let me get this straight.

If the news doesn't happen to fit your political opinion its obviously crap. Yeah, thats really an 'objective' philosophy. Pass.

Do You really think the Iraq newspapers are so un-bias? Who do you think controls the Iraqi Media? The US Government of course. Are you really that naive to think the Iraqi Press is free to print exactly what it wants? What exactly do you think an 'occupation' entails? The DOD has even admitted its manipulations in the Iraqi news.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120201454.html
In a statement, the command said the program included efforts, "customary in Iraq," to purchase advertising and place clearly labeled opinion pieces in Iraqi newspapers. But the statement suggested that the "information operations" program may have veered into a gray area where government contractors paid to have articles placed in Iraqi newspapers without explaining that the material came from the U.S. military and that Iraqi journalists were paid to write positive accounts.

Well as you can see, your opinion is actually quite bias. The difference between I (and most people) and you is that I know my opinion is bias. I don't deny it. All people's are, there is no such thing as a un-bias political opinion. But somehow, you seem to honestly think that your opinion doesn't stink. Let me spell it out to you; There is no such thing as an un-bias opinion. Finally, lets be Honest. The real reason people like you are abrasive is because your argument is as weak as it is unpopular, so you try and compensate with rudeness. People who have properly RESEARCHED their facts (and not regurgitated FOX NEWS talking points) do not need to resort to such pathetic cheap shots.
 
Last edited:
Sorry:eek:fftopic: but....

The way I remember it. It was us who sued for a rather dishonourable peace in Vietnam not the North Vietnamese.

It may have been us who forced them to the negotiating table, but they won every point from there on in. We were just glad to tuck our tail between our legs and bolt for home.

The biggest shame of it all was that we virtually had them on their knees as a fighting force, but there is no denying it, we were the first to blink.
 
Back
Top