Posted on 12/25/2003 2:17:29 PM PST by SUSSA
Edited on 12/26/2003 7:55:16 AM PST by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
Backdown #1. Finally checked Google, eh?
...their own senior officers followed the orders of their incompetent English general and watched their men charge off to slaughter repeatedly...
More lies. Colonel Brazier tried to stop the second wave at The Nek, but in the end he had to follow orders. Check it out so we can have your next backdown, Skip.
..many New Zealanders are angry over the memory of Gallipoli...
Not in the way you mean. They don't run down their dead for refusal to follow orders, like you have.
...while I can't recall their names...
You can't recall their names and you don't know the facts. You're a hypocrite on Zinni and you were caught out by me. Because of that, you try to switchbait with the Gallipoli issue, knowing of my sensitivity about and pride in Australia's feat of arms from the many posts I've made on FR on those topics. You would never dare to insult the ANZACs while you were actually in New Zealand, because if you did you'd be stretchered back onto your plane.
Then we went in with a small mixed force and did everything they said we couldn't.
Next the experts told us how the people would never support us, that winter would be disastrous and how we were going to get bogged down in a long drawn out war like the Russians had...Vietnam all over again.
Same folks were spouting almost the same BS about going into Iraq. Iraq wasn't going to be like Afghanistan, Saddam was going to use his WMD's and thousands of our troops would die, etc.
Everyone last one of those generals, admirals, colonels and other experts were making their proclamations based on out-dated tactics and thinking. Just like the huge Army it was going to take in Afghanistan...and instead it took a few thousand troops, some on horseback.
In Australian eyes perhaps...I always insisted it was a British operation. British incompetence, ANZAC blood.
"More lies. Colonel Brazier tried to stop the second wave at The Nek, but in the end he had to follow orders. Check it out so we can have your next backdown, Skip."How jolly nice of him. And in the end he bowed down to his English lord and allowed the men under his command to be senselessly slaughtered. A true Australian hero.
"Not in the way you mean. They don't run down their dead for refusal to follow orders, like you have."
Exactly in the way I mean. They are angry that their boys were senselessly slaughtered at the whim of English politicians and incompetent British general ship. They honor their dead, they detest how they died and swear it will never happen again.
So why don't you enlighted the folks here on how you Aussies allowed your English lord to disband your elected government less then twenty years ago and did absolutely nothing about it. I mean you went so far as to put it on the ballot then voted to remain subject to foreign monarchs.
You've got that wrong, too. The British suffered nearly three times our casualties.
...in the end he bowed down to his English lord and allowed the men under his command to be senselessly slaughtered...
More lies. There was no bowing, and no English lords. The men followed their orders and fought bravely. Scum like you aren't fit to clean the boots of men like that, let alone pour scorn on the manner of their dying.
Lies? Not at all. The Aussie officers allowed the foreign lord, a British General and his staff, to repeatedly send the boys in their command to senseless, needless death...and did not stop it.
And what you call going bravely to their death, in the finest Enlish tradition, most of us would call foolish. As our General Patton said, we don't want our troops to die for their country (or in your case for your lord's country), we want the other poor SOB to die for theirs. But I'm glad the English can count on their colonials to provide blood for their follies whenever they demand.
You still haven't shared why Aussies continue to allow their English lords to just dissolve your elected government whenever they want to.
We didn't have enough people in Afghanistan. We could have killed a lot more in Tora Bora if there had been a US BDE in country.
We had the airframes and time to deploy them Oct-Dec 2001
Rumsfeld nixed it
We fought a lot of those guys who got away in ANACONDA a few months later
We're still fighting them
And winning, a bit at a time
The ground troop stregnth in Afghanistan has gone up considerably since those halcyon days of "SOF won the war"
They did, but when the Northern Alliance troops stacked arms at Tora Bora and refused to press the attack there wasn't anything the SOF guys could do about it.
That's when we needed American troops.
There's twice as much infantry on the ground there now as there was during ANACONDA
Not a shining example of "War is different now"
Trust me, it isn't
I've oddly enough in my career worked for both Gen (then COL Clark) and Gen Zinni (CINCENT)
Clark I would not endorse. Everything Shelton said about him is true. He did not have a good reputation for taking care of his people.
Zinni, on the other hand, is perhaps the finest general officer I have served under. The people who malign his character here are fools
I wish he would not speak out, but as a current participant in OIF and a former participant in OEF I'm interested in his opinion. I know it's an informed and considered opinion.
I suspect he was split on the war 40/60.
I myself considered the strategy of it a 60/40 proposition. Worth doing on the whole, but a lot of short term down sides. We're winning over there, but the military is carrying the load and we're winning in spite of Rumsfeld and his policys not because of them
. I'll vote for Bush again, no choice at all there. But I'd feel a lot better if we got a new team at DOD
All the best
Qatar-6
Secretary Rumsfeld also serves at the pleasure of the President, and from everything I've read the Afgan considerations were a balance of political and military. Of course the military will always want more resources and I don't fault that one bit. Look at Somalia for instance.
However, the administration didn't want this to appear to be a military invasion; hence the less than traditional combination of light ground forces working with locals with sophisticated air support.
Had we gone in there with a full invasion force there is the very good change our reception would not have been the same and we could have ended up bogged down in a long drawn out quagmire.
I'd say that the administration, and Secretary Rumsfeld, did an outstanding job at preventing that.
No, the Turks slaughtered both.
...the Aussie officers allowed the foreign lord, a British General and his staff, to repeatedly send the boys in their command to senseless, needless death...and did not stop it...
Another lie. The soldiers followed their orders. You might as well say the American soldiers who hit omaha Beach or Tarawa were sent to 'senseless, needless death.' But you wouldn't dare, because you'd get booted from FR in a moment. Slandering your allies' dead is okay, especially from behind the cover of your computer monitor.
...And what you call going bravely to their death, in the finest Enlish tradition, most of us would call foolish...
I've never used any such expression. And what's with the 'most of us'? In five-and-a-half years on FR I've never seen one poster denigrate our military dead, in this way. Matter of fact I can only think of you and one other poster who'd be low enough to do something like that.
...you still haven't shared why Aussies continue to allow their English lords to just dissolve your elected government whenever they want to...
Thanks for the invitation, but I think I've called you on enough lies, already. You don't have to open another of your fresh steaming boxes.
Exactly as the Gallipoli ANZACs did.
Yes, I've pointed that out several times arealdy. The English killed their own people and the Austrailians allowed them to slaughter theirs. The slaugher was very disproportionate however, given the population of Australian. Given the numbers, it would have been the same thing as America, at the same time, loosing 520,000 killed in one nine month long senseless slaughter. Almost twice the number of troops then we had commited to the war. Americans wouldn't have stood up for that.
And there you go again "trying" to eqate the senseless slaughter of your troops with American actions...your military prowess is terrible. American's hitting Omaha Beach and Tarawa did so with sufficient planning and training to be prepared for what they did. Neither of those actions took nine months, were under competent military leadership and had every element needed for success. And we won those.
And I see you're still affraid to explain to the folks why you Aussies continue to roll over for your English lords...and allow them to simply dissovle the government that you elected on a whim.
That's okay...I can understand the embarrassment.
Not at all. Our military serves at the pleasure of OUR elected leadership. The ANZACs were slaughtered at the whim of ENGLISH politicians and incompetent ENGLISH generals.
You do seem to have a hard time understanding that subtle difference don't you>
It doesn't take a genius to know that when a ship is tied up in a port it cannot maneuver or protect itself...particularly a port in a country known to harbor terrorists. Some fine sailors died because of this general's ignorance or lack of caring.
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