Posted on 03/28/2008 12:22:04 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
It wasn't that long ago that some British officers felt compelled to criticize the US approach and boast of their own superior skills in dealing with insurgency.
I remember at the start of the Iraq Liberation. they kept on lecturing us on how we weren't handling things the right way.
Iraqi militia success means Britain must fight – or admit failure ( Times of London Headline)
Yeah I remember the bold “We wear berets and are popular, you Americans wear helmets and frighten little kids”-smugness:
Wow - the Times of London should conduct a tutorial for the Democrats in Washington. Their strategy is to repeat the British failure. Unfortunately, the Republicans and Bush are not savvy enough to use this new testimonial in support of their policies, and the Obama/Clinton/Reid/Pelosi rants will rule the media.
That said, the British failure should be placed on their government and their senior officers. The average Tommy in the trenches in Iraq and up in Afghanistan, along with the Aussies and Canadians, are doing outstanding and courageous work in cleaning out the Islamist scum in spite of their governments' restrictions. The Canadians especially have been doing some hard slogging, and are suffering significant casualties. They are all outstanding allies.
Ironically, they all speak English.
My tagline was apt then - and now.
I remember the british soldiers deriding ours as “wearing so much armor as to look like a mutant ninja turtle”
It is quite surprising to see such astute honesty coming from the London Times in this day and age, instead of socialist sniveling loserism.
I certainly agree with that.
It transpired several years later that the Brits were poorly equipped and didn’t have the armor they very much needed for Iraq. British soldiers were needlessly killed or injured as a result, and the British public knows it.
The Brits had orders to stay in their camp..keep their heads down and don’t return any fire.
They used their Phalanx to worn of incoming..but did not use it to shoot at incoming.
Their only strategy was to stay alive and leave as soon as possible.
They moved their base to the airport..to reduce their exposure.
We had a friend in Basra last year..US Special Forces..observed all this.
more evidence.
When the going gets tough, the limeys get going.
They’ll be running away from Afghanistan in the next year too.
Yeah, because that worked out so well for them didn’t it ?
I’ve been saying for years how they are bad allies, and only now are people beginning to see it.
If we’d have told them to go running back to their europeon buddies back in 2003 we’d have been in Iraq months earlier, instead of wasting time with the limp wristed UN. We could have assigned Basra to some more reliable ally, or even better our own troops.
Instead the sniveling brits have left us with another mess to fix.
Axlrose: Yawn.
“I’ve been saying for years how they are bad allies, and only now are people beginning to see it.”
You’ve been saying it for years because you are an anti-British bigot. You are obsessed with the UK. The Brits aren’t running anywhere. They are increasing troop numbers in Afghanistan (part of the reason for the draw-down in Iraq) and are keeping around 4000 troops in Iraq until at least the end of the year. You mention a ‘more reliable ally’. Who exactly would that be? Everyone else in the Coalition of the Willing is leaving or has left. The UK are the only ally of the US still serving on the frontlines of both threatres in the War on Terror, despite having suffered far higher levels of casualties there than any other US ally. The hundreds of killed and wounded UK troops in Iraq alone have spared the sacrifice of American blood in that Southern Region since 2003.
“Instead the sniveling brits have left us with another mess to fix.” Quite frankly, that is a digusting comment to make. If it were made about US forces in Iraq I believe the poster would be banned from this site very quickly (quite rightly so). You should feel ashamed of slandering British soldiers (many of whom have been wounded and killed) from behind your computer screen.
Thanks for the link. This is based on the opinion piece in the Times of London. I fully appreciate the opinion/argument made, but disagree with it. In a similar way, I have disagreed with UK and US editorial pieces calling for complete withdrawl from Iraq.
“When the going gets tough, the limeys get going.”
Funny: I can think of lots of examples of the US government doing this: (Vietnam, Somalia, Beirut, Iran), but not the UK.
Please enlighten me as to where the UK ‘got going’ in recent decades? The UK will likely have a presence in Iraq until the US leaves and is increasing its Afghanistan committment: “UK ‘in Afghanistan for decades’” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6220856.stm
England was the peacekeeper in the Gulf region for a long time, but had to cut back and eventually pulled out altogether. The USA is doing that job now, and the alternative is Russia. Tribal warfare continued all along and apparently still continues and probably will continue when the oil is gone and they are back to tents and camels.
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