Posted on 11/05/2004 6:57:34 AM PST by Ginifer
Tony Blair today praised the "extraordinary and heroic job" being done by the Black Watch in Iraq after the death of three Scottish soldiers in a suicide bomb attack south of Baghdad.
But the depth of feeling in Scotland itself over the redeployment of a Black Watch battle group was shown by comments from one of the dead soldier's brothers - himself a Black Watch private - who called President Bush "an a***hole" for starting a "war over nothing".
The three dead men were named this morning as Sergeant Stuart Gray, 31, Private Paul Lowe, 19, and Private Scott McArdle, 22. All three men were from Fife.
Private Lowe's 18-year-old brother, Craig, who returned from Basra last month, paid tribute to his "brilliant brother, comrade and friend" and said he had always loved his job.
But he told the Scottish Press Association: "He thought they shouldn't be there, they should all just be back here because it's a war which nobody knows why it was started or what it was done for."
Private Lowe said that his brother had thought little of Mr Bush and his reasons for going to war. He said "He just thought he was an a***hole for starting a war over nothing, trying to get money and oil.
"That’s what we thought ourselves, that’s what Paul thought as well, we all thought that. I think they should just get them all out of there now because if not we are going to lose a lot more than this."
Mary Gray, the mother of Sergeant Stuart Gray said of her son: “He was an experienced and professional soldier, a loving husband, father, son and brother, and a proud member of the Black Watch.”
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
"You are a total prat"
Don't worry, since I have no idea what a prat is, so you have not hurt my feelings.
Have you ever heard the expression, "The hit dog howls"? You have just demonstrated the truth of that old saying.
I have read many statements by British civilians, troops, and officers, bragging about the quality of the British forces in Iraq, which I agree with, since I have a great deal of respect for the British military. Unfortunately, almost without exception, these expressions of British pride in their forces were accompanied by put downs of the American forces and their tactics in Iraq. The British put down the Americans for wearing body armor, sunglasses, and helmets, while the British brag that their softly, softly method of wearing no body armor, no sunglasses, and berets instead of helmets was much more effective. The Brits talked about how they made friends with the Iraqis by walking on patrols while the frightened Americans blasted away at civilians with no provocation and hid behind sandbags.
I knew darn well that the reason that different methods were used was that the Americans were in a much more hostile environment than were the British, but I let it slide. When I learnt that the Brits were going to head up to Indian Country, however, I knew that the Black Watch was going to take some casualties, because their tactics would not work in a truly hostile area.
The Black Watch is supposed to only be in Iraq until just before Christmas, which is not very long from now. We will see if they stay up in the tough area until Christmas or if they withdraw first. Already they are not based in the area that they were first supposed to go to. It was first announced that the Black Watch would be based south of Baghdad, in the area where Ken Bigley's body was found near Latifiya. Now it looks like they are supposed to stay west of the Euphrates River, a much less populated and thus less dangerous area than what was initially proposed.
"And for your information they requested by the American military, unless you are stating that the American military were interfering in your elections by requesting fig leaves."
I know that they were requested to go north by the American military. This was so the Marines could go and take Fallujah. Would you prefer that the Black Watch be tasked with taking Fallujah rather than holding our coat while the Marines take Fallujah?
I was not talking about the Black Watch being a fig leaf when going up north. I was talking about the British sending troops into Iraq period. The British were just supposed to sit down there in relatively peaceful Basra and not take any casualties. When the MSM and the Rats attacked Bush for being in Iraq all by ourselves and not having any allies, the President or his backers, including me, could always point to our British friends and say that we did have allies. That was the fig leaf on the naked fact that for all practical purposes we are doing Iraq by ourselves. It was our WTC and Pentagon which were attacked afterall, so I have no problem with us doing by ourselves.
I think it was a mistake to ask the British to move into the more difficult territory. The British public does not like it, the troops of the Black Watch do not like it, and the officers of the Black Watch do not like it. With no support anywhere among the Brits, having the Black Watch take casualties will not be supportable and some face saving method will be found to get them out of there.
It would have been better to have never to have asked the Brits to move, since we really do not need them to knock out Fallujah. That way we could have all maintained the comfortable fiction that the British were really in just as tough an area as the Americans but that the British methods were responsible for the lower British casualties.
Now there are going to be lots of recriminations, such as those of the Black Watch trooper above who calls our President an a@@hole and who claims that the whole war is about nothing but American stupidity and a corrupt desire for Iraq's oil. We all would have been better off without such recriminations, including mine that the Black Watch will be forced to slink out of the north with their tails between their legs and yours that I am a prat for predicting such.
BTW, I do not think that the Black Watch will be forced to abandon their mission due to a lack of bravery on the part of the British troops and officers, which I do not doubt. I think it will be political pressure on the British government exerted by British public opinion that will cause the mission to be "re-evaluated" or some such other weasel words to cover the fact that they will not hang.
Maybe I will be proved wrong. We will see.
Black Watch senior officers question No 10 Iraq strategy
(Filed: 29/10/2004)
Speaking at Basra before boarding an aircraft, 19-year-old Pte Manny Lynch, from Fife, admitted that he was nervous.
He said: "We have heard a lot about the triangle of death, which makes everyone nervous because it seems much worse up there than it has been down here.
"We have controlled the situation down here while the Americans seem to have ruined it up there."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/29/nirq29.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/10/29/ixnewstop.html
"They are just angry as you'd expect them to be when a brother/son is killed."
Still, not everyone showed so little class, for example:
Mary Gray, the mother of Sergeant Stuart Gray said of her son: “He was an experienced and professional soldier, a loving husband, father, son and brother, and a proud member of the Black Watch.”
Now that is grace under pressure. God Bless you Ms. Gray and your son.
Grace isn't something I associate with your previous comments about our 'fig leaf' army.
Cut them a little slack eh, while you sit safely beside your computer.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1250555/posts
Watch facing test that the GIs failed
scotsman ^ | Oct 19, 04 | Colin Freeman
Posted on 10/19/2004 8:05:13 PM PDT by churchillbuff
A MONTH ago, in preparation for covering the on-off prospect that is January’s Iraqi elections, I attended a hostile-environment training course in Hereford run by ex-SAS men. Amid the tips and pointers on how to dress a gunshot wound, how to spot a car-bomber, and what little one can do if kidnapped, there was a brief rundown on the three kinds of men with guns out there: professional armies, such as the Brits; semi-professional, like the fledging new Iraqi army, and unprofessional, like just about everybody else.
The Americans, despite being the biggest and the best-equipped, were not put into the category I expected. "You could call them professional if you want, but as far as I’m concerned they’re nothing of the sort," snarled our tutor, who, during his stints as a security consultant in Baghdad in the past year, had developed nothing but contempt for them.
"Our guys are professional. The Americans? Somewhere in between the other two."
The voice of an expert speaking his mind, or just professional rivalry? Within the next couple of months, or even weeks, we may finally find out. Under a Pentagon request to the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, up to 650 troops from the Black Watch regiment may be moved from the relative tranquillity of southern Iraq to more hostile areas near Baghdad, freeing up their American counterparts to crush the guerrilla city-state of Fallujah ahead of the Iraqi elections.
In the mess-halls around Basra, and for armchair generals such as me, it poses potentially fascinating, and until now, unanswerable questions. Could the Black Watch really succeed where the Yanks have failed? Or, as American GIs like to think, are the Sunni-dominated areas around Baghdad really just much tougher neighbourhoods? Are the Brits about to learn what Iraq is really all about?
One of the reasons it is such a guessing game is that, in general, HM forces in Iraq keep very quiet about the activities of their partners up north. During my 18 months of reporting there for The Scotsman, the British officers I have interviewed have always politely avoided the subject, even if the rest of the world hasn’t. As one senior British diplomat, speaking at the height of the furore over the US Marines’ sledgehammer siege of Fallujah, explained: "When you’re in a coalition like this, you don’t make your differences public."
Privately, however, large numbers of British soldiers of all ranks seem to share the opinion of my ex-SAS man from Hereford. "Whenever we get trouble with the locals, it’s because the Americans have been here," one British sergeant told me last year near Basra. "It gets to the point where we’d rather not have them coming into our sector at all."
Some of these impressions are no doubt partly informed by what they read in British newspapers, which have taken great pride in portraying "Our Boys" as softly-softly heroes and the Yanks as trigger-happy cowboys. In fact, opportunities for direct comparisons are generally limited, given that the British and American sectors of Iraq are mostly separated by several hundred miles of sandy desert.
But among the one group whose opinion really does count - Iraqis themselves - the perception of a good-soldier/bad-soldier divide has developed entirely on its own. Many who travel between American-controlled Baghdad and British-controlled Basra insist - without any prompting from me - that things are more relaxed, better-run and more friendly down south.
The real difference between the UK and the US, though, is not about cheery smiles at checkpoints or foot patrols in soft berets: American soldiers, when faced with crowds of friendly Iraqis, are every bit as good, if not better, at responding in kind. Instead, it is when things go wrong - when there are crowds of unfriendly Iraqis - that a yawning gulf quickly opens up so noticeably.
Thirty years in Northern Ireland have taught the average British soldier to shoot only in the most trying of circumstances, or face a court martial or even civilian murder charge. And while the rules of engagement are in practice perhaps a little looser in Iraq, the general sense of reticence to open fire still seems to apply, irrespective of the provocation.
and to you max
i am impressed with your very reasoned response to our british friends assault on you. your original post may have been a tad stern but calling our great president what he did ,did require a stern rebuke. all in all a good job
and let both the marines and the black watch meet thier quota of muslime scum.
"Per capita the death rate is almost identical."
Britain has had a total of about 70 deaths, including many that are not due to combat. America has had over 1000 combat deaths. Is the population of America ten times as great that of Britain? I think not.
As I see it you think we wilol slink away, we are just sodding fig leaves, we have had it easy, and to top it all we were there and three British troops were killed just to help in your presidents election.
Funny that is what the comies Ani war lot and libs in my country are saying.
Prat means a idiot who shoots his mouth of.
I guess though when you get into uniform and go over there things will change, so when are you going over there.
I was nervous before every fking tour I did in North Ireland, I was nervous before Bosnia before Kosovo and nervous before Iraq.
Any one who is claims they are not nervous is a liar. And there is not a single soldier who has been in combat who would not agree with me
A tad stern what planet are you on, he insulted my Army, and he claimed that the Black watch was mover up there to help in your general election, with his talk of fig leaves.
Ok I will ask you is he right did your President play politics with the soldiers I don’t think so Max thinks he did what’s your view.
I posted this quote for this statement, "We have controlled the situation down here while the Americans seem to have ruined it up there."
Cheap shots like saying "THE AMERICANS SEEM TO HAVE RUINED IT" are typical of the kind of crap British soldiers, officers, and journalists like to dish out about Americans.
Show me a quote by any American soldier, officer, or journalist criticizing the British Army in Iraq and I'll apologize.
Tony...I hate to see the Brits attacked on this forum. I have the utmost respect for your armed forces (especially your special forces). I served with many Brits during my 8 years of active duty. I'd gladly launch bullets next to you guys any day. Thanks for your help in these tough times. Airborne.
I said only three had been killed, we have over a thousand. Before The Black Watch went in to relieve our soldiers, they made a smart-assed remark 'The americans made a mess of it'.
I'm sorry they were killed, but that pissed me off when they said it. They were nice -n- comfy in Basra.
I bet they have changed their minds about it now. I think their commander should apologize for that comment.
The major disagreement is on how to fight it.
My own view would of been fighting a total intelligence led black ops war. Tracking down terrorist leaders and assassinating them.
The Israeli model on a global scale.
We have the means, the equipment and the personal to carry out such a op.
On Iraq the question is why are we there.
Saddam has been removed and with him the threatened Nuclear, Biological and Chemical arsenal.
To bring them democracy they don’t seem to want it, its going to take a lot more troops and a lot of money and resources to deal with this crisis.
A Black ops might not look sexy and tv visual but I bet by now we would of eliminated most of the top terrorist cadre.
Instead using conventional means we are fighting and killing the foot soldiers while Osama Bin Laden and his ilk are still running free.
Now that does not make me anti Bush, that does not make me anti American, or liberal.
But what I have seen is polarizing of views on both sides which allows little room for flexibility in thought or tactics.
Tony
I guess if you were in the bar when me and my mates were drinking with members of the USMC when we were slagging each other of you would of gone into a right hissy fit.
You are just looking for reasons to slag the Brits of.
But remember one thing they are out there while you are safely tucked up in your bed.
Correct me if I'm mistaken but, didn't the Muslims in Britain protest having to wear the 'cross' on their police uniforms and they were taken off so as not to offend Muslim police officers?
And I didnt miss my wife and two kids one bit I was having such a lovely nice and comfy time in Basra
.The police don’t wear a cross they wear a crown as servants of her majesty.
Do any American police departments have the cross as apart of there uniform
How many British soldiers were killed and wounded in Basra again....I forget.
America has never had a cross on their police uniforms, England did. I believe they called it 'The Queens Cross'.
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