US Army Bans Display Of American Flags In Iraq - NY Times

Dow Jones News Wire | 4/10/03 | Steven C. Higgins

[snopercod]

We don't want them to feel they have been conquered.

I'm glad you weren't in charge on Iwo Jima. We'd probably all be typing in Japanese right now.

[snopercod]

Thanks for relating that.

Has the DU so infested this site that one must now defend the flying of the American flag to FReepers?

[rintense]

Perhaps you should rethink our purpose there. And, I didn't say I agreed with the move, only that I understand why it was done.

[rintense]

We have a photo at work of two soldiers holding up the Michigan State flag in southern Iraq. It's awesome!

[snopercod]

Perhaps you should rethink our purpose there.

Apparently it's not to offend Yassar Arafat, Osama bin Laden, The House of Saud, Mohamar Khadaffi and other terrorists by displaying the American Flag on "their" soil.

We Americans must be sensitive to the "Arab Street", you know...

Has anyone on this thread cared to ask how the flag ban makes the fighting men and women feel? They are risking their lives for their country, only to have the politicians spit on them by banning the symbol of their country.

Every single one of them must be now asking themselves, "What am I fighting for, if not for the American flag and what it represents?"

Does anyone on this embarassing thread really believe that the terrorists are now saying, "Oh, how sensitive of the great satan not to display the hated flag. We've been wrong about the infidels for all these years. Allah forgive us, We're going to turn in all our suicide bombs now and become productive members of a free society."

But please, explain how our purpose there is to crawl on our knees and apologize to every Arab we see for actually believing in freedom and daring to bring it to them. Explain how our military should be reprimanded by the politicians for proudly displaying the universal symbol of freedom in a country dying for such things. I'd like to hear it.

[Cachelot]

Every single one of them must be now asking themselves, "What am I fighting for, if not for the American flag and what it represents?"

Yes. I wonder if this general critter is a Clintonoid? That may explain what Kondracke was talking about the other day when he mentioned Clinton contributions to the military: it's the dreaded "morale-buster".

[rintense]

Don't you think that our troops *know* why they are there, and can take pride that they have freed an entire country? Why not ask the troops what they enjoy more, waving our flag, or having the people they liberated waving our flag *for* them.

[Leto]

THe people in the mideast who hate the USA and want to harm us will twist any display of the Stars and Stripes to to further hatred of the US and attampt to portray Liberators as Conquerers. We and the world knows who is freeing Iraq, no need to provide images to our enemies they will use against us.

Wise decision based on advanced 'Strategery' not pride and emotion.

[joanie-f]

Thanks for the ping, John.

Just another example of the ‘upper crust’ in any organization not possessing the same courage/resolve/common sense insight as the ‘lower’ (if that isn’t a laugh) guys on the totem pole. Sometimes the buck doesn't stop in the right place on the decision-making ladder. It needs to stop a little lower in the ranks.

In this particularly sad case, General Wallace hasn’t got a clue. He has chosen to constrain our troops' patriot-inspired enthusiasm in the name politically correct, façade-oriented compromise. Wallace, in every other respect, may be a great, uncompromising leader. But his leadership integrity has taken a blow here.

It’s time to stop apprehensively monitoring the world’s ‘perceptions’ of that which we do. It’s time to start taking a good look at what they -- those about whose ‘perceptions’ we are always so obsessively, and self-destructively, concerned -- have been doing in order to stab us, and freedom in general, in the back. I, for one, will not soon forget the foot-dragging, and out-and-out potentially deadly behaviors (to differing degrees) of the likes of France, Germany, Turkey, Syria, Russia, China, et al over these past many months.

And I, for one, don’t care a whit what their (or anyone else’s -- the Muslim world included) ‘perceptions’ are about our reasons for pulling off the miracle we have thus far -- with the help of Britain and Australia -- pulled off in Iraq. Granted, there is much more to be done, and many potentially deadly dangers lurking beyond each tomorrow -- but that is all the more reason to allow our troops to do whatever they are moved to do in order to inspire them to continue pressing on toward more incredible successes in the war against terrorism/subjugation.

Every thinking American knows what our motives are. And display of the flag merely strengthens that knowledge. If our own troops are no longer allowed to do so, there are (and will continue to be, in increasing numbers) others who will pick up the slack. Unlike the 'percetpion' police, they (even the little ones) understand what the American flag signifies.

[Jeff Head]

well, this seems like an Army directive. I wonder if it applies to the U.S. Marines?

... or to the Iraqi people themselves ...

Winning Iraqi Freedom

[all_mighty_dollar]

Let the Iraqis wave the flag. It's a good 'pulse check' of Iraq anyway. It does my heart good to see the little girls smile and wave our flag.

As a former Army Basic Training DI, I can see that the 'student' has 'learned' and also that the 'instructor' has completed the mission. I base that on the addage we were given that if the student has 'failed to learn' the instructor has 'failed to teach'.

[BunnySlippers]

well, this seems like an Army directive. I wonder if it applies to the U.S. Marines?

I don't know although it appears to be the Marines who set off the furor. Neverthless, last night I noticed a big US flag flying on a flagpole right behind Ollie North on Fox News.

[Jeff Head]

Still lots of Iraqis flying that flag too ... all over.

[SAMWolf]

If are guys are good enough to die liberating these 3rd world hellholes, they're good enough to do it while raising the American Flag.

When we leave, the flags go with us.

PC be damned.

[Darksheare]

I agree, war ain't pretty, and it sure as hell ain't PC.
Wishing these idiot generals would learn that one.

Telling US soldiers to remove the US flag from ANYTHING is an insult to the uniform, the oath of service, said soldier's willingness to die for the flag, as well as the freedoms represented by the flag.

I thought that spitting on soldiers went out in the 70's.
(I know, I know, it was just re-spun into screwing the soldier by way of cutting their budgets.. different story, different time.)

[Darksheare]

You fail to miss the point.
If it's only about how the arabs will view it, then all is lost anyway.
Doesn't matter if our flag is visible to them, they'd twist ANYTHING around to suit their purposes anyway.THIS former soldier says: SCREW THEM.
If they are so thin skinned as that, then they needed to deal with Saddam themselves.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Distribute many many American flags to the Iraqi people. Let THEM joyously dance through the streets waving those. Get all international journalists to film it.

It will look much better we being waved in and welcomed as liberators rather than conquerors.

From a political perspective, I'm angry we can't wave them ourselves. From a tactical perspective, it is probably the advisable thing to do.

[Darksheare]

But they're insulting our troops with this as well as being unhelpful to our own troops.
This PC idiocy only hurts us.

Doesn't matter if the arabs see our flag or not.
That's PC wimpism.
Are they going to take down their flags because it might offend US?
NO.
The arabs will twist anything around to suit their purposes.
Doesn't matter what, they'll use anything.
This idiocy over our flag is merely a shadow, a maskirovka to see what PC BS the CLintonite types can get away with.
Yet another, 'How badly can we screw our troops this time?' deal.
Just like the fiasco with the black beret.
(Thanks and courtesy of General 'Pop a Quaalude' Shinseki.)

Has absolutely NOTHING to do with whether or not we're seen as liberators.
Arabs will see us as evil trespassers anyway.

[Darksheare]

From a soldier's perspective, it's yet another example of an idiot in the brass whizzing on the soldiers.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Without the brass the soldiers would be nothing. Without the soldiers, the brass would be nothing.

Speaking of nothing, I think this whole story is nothing and will evaporate before we can even snap our fingers.

At any rate, the Commander in Chief President Bush knows of this order. He must know a good reason for it. Since he has not rescinded it from above and it is standing, I wont particularly take issue with it.