Fine, if the Americans all share your opinion, then quite frankly there's nothing much more to be said. I will leave Free Republic for good. I'm sick to death of listening to this nonsense.
You insult my country, its commanders, who by all accounts have performed a brave service. You don't know anything about Basra, the firefights that went on - these were chillingly reported on Sky News, using night vision goggles. There was combat, pain and death. For you to denigrate the commanders, the British army, the bravery they showed or their progress is cheap, swinish, and arrogant. You have not proven that you are a military man, a military expert, nor have any expertise to back up your assertion that it was "too slow". All you have are the convictions of your own vanity and arrogance. And when you are called on it, you proceed to try and turn it on the person who is calling you out.
Obviously this wounds, otherwise you wouldn't lie in wait like this for the first opportunity that the Telegraph presents. I repeat: I don't like this article, I disagree with it. But this article is not an excuse for you or anyone else to denigrate the achievements of the British troops or their commanders. The fact that you and others would do so, is frankly disgusting. If it is the general opinion of posters here, I will tell Jim Rob to cancel my account, and I will be gone. Because quite frankly, I have no desire to hang out with people who having been shown the truest friendship possible, spit back in the face of that friendship.
Ivan
That is does not include me. I worked with Brits in Germany in the late 70's. I had a wonderful relationship with them. I served under a Squadron leader Knight ( or kknnniggut as he pronounced it) during NATO exercises. A real fine and funny fellow, he introduced me to the 6th sense of a staff officer. I participated with the 1st Field Force in Hamlin, Germany. All of this only to say that I have had experience with the British forces, and to be able to say, with conviction, that anyone who criticises the British military are full of it!
British newspapers are a different story.
But they don't represent the spirit of FR any more than this article represents the spirit of the Telegraph...
As far as Basra, as everyone pointed out, of course the plan was not to "rush to the center of Basra" just as it wasn't to "Rush to the center of Nasariya", etc. My point was not that the Brits were wimps, but that they could be *painted* as wimps just as this article paints Americans as dull-minded murderous thugs.
Hopefully you've been on FR long enough to realize that a thick skin is something of a requirement to stay on here.
You insult my country, its commanders, who by all accounts have performed a brave service.
Hang on there, mate. That was a Telegraph article which insulted America and its men in the field, who by all accounts have performed a brave service, too. That sort of thing is guaranteed to raise some hackles, but there's no need to sour a fine relationship over something that a "reporter" scrawled with a wax crayon.
Our nations are more similar than different - and sadly, the same may be said for U.S. and U.K. media. Good people on both sides of the Atlantic should be offended by that Telegraph article. You'd be justifiably angry if a similar screed disparaging U.K. troops were printed in a U.S. newspaper, correct?
Mass media: the enemy within.
I could only have been created to divide.
I can smell and recognize crap when I see it.
Take a break; chill.
This article hasn't changed my estimation of American and Brit troops one iota.
Or of the british people no matter what the media say.