Japan halts Iraq troop dispatch

CNN ^ | November 13, 2003 | AP

[yonif]

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- The attack on Italian forces in Iraq will force Japan to postpone its dispatch of troops to that country until sometime next year, a top government spokesman said Thursday.

Japan was hoping to send its first batch of troops to Iraq to help rebuild the country by the end of 2003. But Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said the security situation is not yet stable enough.

[WOSG]

someone else criticized your comment, but I found it cogent.

To the credit of the Japanese, they put in more money for Gulf War I and also helped in the Iraq reconstruction, putting in more than the EU.

We are going to have to accept them as wimps in the War on Terror as a counterweight to the benefit of them being pacifist yet pro-US on our policy. Note they didnt give us heat over Iraq war like France and Germany.

[WOSG]

The only way we can get defeated by the terrorists is through defeatism.

[oceanview]

let's pull out of south korea and let them all go to hell there. if NK has missiles and wants to nuke Japan, let Japan worry about it.

[DEPUTYMAYTAG]

PUSSIES.

[Gumption]

Lol. That was pretty good.

[gaijin]

They're hard-working as heck, but they're racists, yes --no question about it.

Kudos for your honesty --you wouldn't believe the number of gaijin I meet who are professional apologists...

[gaijin]

What exactly is your experience in Japanese matters?

[Stentor]

Are you high?

High or Balkan?

[cmak9]

They don't want to be in our war. They have a lot of tall buildings.

True, but we should point out to these folks that we are the ones defending their nation, and we could start getting tired of it if they don't start helping us.

[Connservative]

We dont need a camp for any Iraqis. We need enough rope to hang the terrorists... but the trick is finding them first.

And just how do you plan on doing this?. Kind of hard taking these guys out when you don't know who or where they are until the attack is carried out. It stinks, but there you go.

When these Islamists claim that they get multiple new recruits for every one of their people captured or killed, they are not kidding.

[Mortimer Snavely]

That's fair.

[nuffsenuff]

Um... if the Japanese think that the only thing that would make them targets is a uniform they have another think coming...

Seriously. Like they wouldn't stick out anyway?

[Gunslingr3]

True, but we should point out to these folks that we are the ones defending their nation, and we could start getting tired of it if they don't start helping us.

Defending them from whom exactly? If we leave, will the North Koreans pile into a none existent amphib. fleet and invade? The Chinese? Bin Laden and company are warring against the U.S. because we have troops in their home countries and we have a history of propping up their repressive governments (not that OBL has a less oppressive government model in mind, but his appeal to history and current events touches a nerve - no doubt).

If I'd told you in 1990 that sending hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers to the Middle East to put an arab king back on his throne would result in the twin towers falling and 3,000 U.S. dead (nevermind the billions of tax dollars wasted), would you want to do it? Is that what America is about? Going around the world restoring monarchs that former European colonial powers put in place? My own reading the Declaration of Independence leads me to hold otherwise.

[WOSG]

Ordinary Iraqis are helping us.

They key is making them less fearful of helping us and more fearful of covering up for them.

It's hard be we need to be kind, compassionate and caring to the Iraqi civilians and ruthless no-mercy killers of the terrorists and enablers. As the marines said "No better friend, no worse enemy."


"When these Islamists claim that they get multiple new recruits for every one of their people captured or killed, they are not kidding. "

When Islamicists say anything, they are lying. They say they will win, they will not. They will lose. We frankly dont know if their recruiting is going well or badly. What's important is that each day, they have fewer terrorists.

[Libertina]

Hey Japan, thanks for nothing...

[mjaneangels@aolcom]

"Then we are owed an apology for that sitcom like moment when Bush was on the aircraft carrier when we were told the war was over."

Care to give me an exact quote where Bush said the war was over?

The answer is that you can not, because he did NOT say that. I know, I watched and listened to it live. No after the fact segments with media spin. Instead he talked about the end of MAJOR COMBAT OPERATIONS. He followed it up with talking about how this was NOT the end of the war and that there was much work left to do.

[BenLurkin]

[Destro]

Care to give me an exact quote where Bush said the war was over?

What, we Republicans are getting Clintonian all of a sudden? So the president says major combat operations are over while a sign (not his doing of course) over his head says "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" (which had nothing to do with the war we are now told but we were not told that back then for some reason-we stupid Americans seem not to ask the right questions) and it was our fault to ASS-U-ME that Bush meant the war was over. An assumption the president did deem to correct in later addresses to the nation because he ASS-U-MEd that the American people understood what he meant. It is our fault for not being bright enough to understand the words of the president which he spoke so clearly.

[Destro]

PS: I am "pro-war" but I am not "pro-covering up Bush's mistakes" in execution of the war.