Never again!
Why we fight.
Posted on 03/15/2003 10:23:56 AM PST by grahm_crackers
Good Morning.
It is June 4, 1944.
Welcome to The Mullings Cable Network's continuing coverage of: "Operation Overlord: What's Taking So Long?"
I'm Rich Rundling. Let's go first to MCN's White House reporter, Greg Smith for the latest.
SMITH: Thank you, Rich. Hill Leaders have told MCN news that an invasion of Europe is, in their words, "very, very imminent." These sources, who have been privy to briefings by the Roosevelt War Cabinet, tell us that "the number of troops, the number of ships, and the sheer size of war materiel shipments" clearly point to an invasion, possibly within the next 24 hours. Rich?
RUNDLING: Thank you, Greg. Now to the War Department and our reporter there Jim Smith. Jim? What are your sources there saying about a possible attack point?
SMITH: Well, Rich. Advisors to General Marshall are hinting at a strike at Pas de Calais, perhaps as early as tomorrow. However we believe this might well be disinformation and the real point of attack will be at Normandy. We have learned that Ranger and Airborne elements have been, in effect, rehearsing for the kind of terrain they are likely to encounter on the Normandy beaches and that Airborne units might be dropped in as early as tonight.
RUNDLING: So, Winston Churchill's famous phrase: "We shall fight on the beaches..." now must be considered as a clearly coded message to the French Resistance. For more on invasion plans, let's switch to London and our MCN reporter Eric Smith. Eric what are you hearing about where these troops may be going and when they might be going there?
SMITH: Rich, as you can see, the weather here is not good. Military meteorologists have advised SHAEF Command to stand down for at least the next 24 hours. If we can zoom in on this map behind me, you can clearly see that the combination of time and tides is most favorable for only the next 48 hours for a landing in France. Senior advisors to General Eisenhower are aware of, and very concerned with, the reports of growing impatience among many Americans with the amount of time it has taken to mount this invasion.
RUNDLING: Indeed, many here are asking why it has taken two-and-a-half years from the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 to June 1944 to reach this point. Eric, if they can't go within that window, what are Eisenhower's options?
SMITH: No good ones, Rich. Intelligence officers here in Britain are worried that if this operation has to be delayed for as long as two weeks, word will almost certainly leak to the German high command allowing them to move their defensive forces from their current location at Pas de Calais to behind the Atlantic Wall above Normandy.
RUNDLING: That would be unfortunate. Let's turn now to our MCN military analyst retired General Theodore "Teddy" Smith, the famous "Senior Señor of Santiago Bay." General, you helped design the invasion of Cuba in 1898 -- just 43 years ago -- during the Spanish-American war, what do you make of this?
SMITH: Well, Rich, I'll use this map to illustrate. Assuming our troops will try to cross these beaches here ... and ... here. And assault these cliffs... here, then they will have to be supported by a naval bombardment from... here. So, we expect the Hun is flying air reconnaissance and will bring to bear their air assets to disrupt any pre-invasion shelling as soon as Allied ships are detected in this area ... here.
RUNDLING: What about tanks, General - the Panzer Divisions of General Rommel?
SMITH: Rommel is almost certainly moving his Panzer Divisions behind the Atlantic Wall ... here ... for use in a counterattack if and when the Allied forces breach those lines.
RUNDLING: Now, to Christianne Smith on a satellite phone in the French countryside. Christianne, what can you tell us?
SMITH: Rich, there is a growing sense of apprehension here about 40 miles away from what we assume will be the point of attack on the beaches of Normandy either tomorrow or the next day. Mayor Jacque Capituler is with me. Mayor, tell our viewers how you feel about the coming invasion.
CAPITULER: We don't want to be liberated. We don't need to be liberated. The Germans have established a perfectly workable government, here. The Americans should go liberate someone else, somewhere else.
RUNDLING: The thorny issue of civilian casualties and collateral damage brought onto our living room screens from right there in France, Thank you Christianne. To ... where? Ok, to Edward Smith with the forces of General George Patton in Britain. Edward.
SMITH: Rich, I am here in Kent, England opposite the Pas de Calais just across the English Channel which, if the weather were better, you could see behind me. MCN can now confirm that the activity here in Kent, which has been named "Operation Fortitude" is, for want of a better phrase: A complete fake.
RUNDLING: Fake? Explain, please, for our viewers.
SMITH: MCN can now report that Patton has constructed, literally, a phony army here. The tanks are cardboard. The planes are rubber. The radio traffic is faked. Reports of troop movements are completely fabricated. This operation, clearly, is designed to fool the Germans in Europe and Americans back home into falsely believing that the attack -- which we now think will come tomorrow if the weather lets up -- will be aimed at Pas de Calais instead of Normandy.
RUNDLING: Excellent reporting, Edward. Joining me, now, in the studio is MCN's Senior Ethics Advisor Emma Smith. Emma? What does it mean to the American way of life when their very own government engages in this kind of deliberately false and misleading information?
RUNDLING: Thank you, Emma Smith. And good luck with your exciting new book: "The Soviet Experience; Success, Solidarity, and Stalin." We have received a few e-mails from viewers expressing discomfort with General Theodore Smith's use of a word to describe our German adversaries which, in some minds, is derogatory. MCN apologizes for the use of the "H" word on our air.
So, there you have it. The Allied Expeditionary Forces will, in fact, invade Europe not at Pas de Calais as the American public had been lead to believe, but at Normandy. And, that attack will take place either tomorrow or the next day, depending upon the weather.
This is Rich Rundling, MCN News.
Yes, I did go a little bit overboard in my reply and shouldn't have but I really resented the un-American charge. The media whipped everything into a fury back then and I'm afraid they'll do it again during Gulf War II (if it ever happens), just when we're flying. Just look at the recent duct tape crap.
Roger that. And at Paris, Brussels, Moscow, and Chappaqua too.
Never again!
Why we fight.
That was shortly after Ayatollah Khomeini had seized power in Iran, riding the slogan "Death to America" - and sure enough, the attacks on Americans soon began. In November 1979, a militant Islamic mob took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran, the Iranian capital, and held 52 Americans hostage for the next 444 days.
The rescue team sent to free those hostages in April 1980 suffered eight fatalities, making them the first of militant Islam's many American casualties. Others included:
April 1983: 17 dead at the U.S. embassy in Beirut.
October 1983: 241 dead at the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.
December 1983: five dead at the U.S. embassy in Kuwait.
January 1984: the president of the American University of Beirut killed.
April 1984: 18 dead near a U.S. airbase in Spain.
September 1984: 16 dead at the U.S. embassy in Beirut (again).
December 1984: Two dead on a plane hijacked to Tehran.
June 1985: One dead on a plane hijacked to Beirut.
After a let-up, the attacks then restarted: Five and 19 dead in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996, 224 dead at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 and 17 dead on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000.
Simultaneously, the murderous assault of militant Islam also took place on U.S. soil:
July 1980: an Iranian dissident killed in the Washington, D.C. area.
August 1983: a leader of the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam killed in Canton, Mich.
August 1984: three Indians killed in a suburb of Tacoma, Wash.
September 1986: a doctor killed in Augusta, Ga.
January 1990: an Egyptian freethinker killed in Tucson, Ariz.
November 1990: a Jewish leader killed in New York.
February 1991: an Egyptian Islamist killed in New York.
January 1993: two CIA staff killed outside agency headquarters in Langley, Va.
February 1993: Six people killed at the World Trade Center.
March 1994: an Orthodox Jewish boy killed on the Brooklyn Bridge.
February 1997: a Danish tourist killed on the Empire State building.
October 1999: 217 passengers killed on an EgyptAir flight near New York City.
In all, 800 persons lost their lives in the course of attacks by militant Islam on Americans before September 2001 - more than killed by any other enemy since the Vietnam War. (Further, this listing does not include the dozens more Americans in Israel killed by militant Islamic terrorists.)
And yet, these murders hardly registered. Only with the events of a year ago did Americans finally realize that "Death to America" truly is the battle cry of this era's most dangerous foe, militant Islam.
In retrospect, the mistake began when Iranians assaulted the U.S. embassy in Tehran and met with no resistance.
Interestingly, a Marine sergeant present at the embassy that fateful day in November 1979 agrees with this assessment. As the militant Islamic mob invaded the embassy, Rodney V. Sickmann followed orders and protected neither himself nor the embassy. As a result, he was taken hostage and lived to tell the tale. (He now works for Anheuser-Busch.)
In retrospect, he believes that passivity was a mistake. The Marines should have done their assigned duty, even if it cost their lives. "Had we opened fire on them, maybe we would only have lasted an hour." But had they done that, they "could have changed history."
Standing their ground would have sent a powerful signal that the United States of America cannot be attacked with impunity. In contrast, the embassy's surrender sent the opposite signal - that it's open season on Americans. "If you look back, it started in 1979; it's just escalated," Sickmann correctly concludes.
To which one of the century's great geostrategist thinkers, Robert Strausz-Hupé, adds his assent. Just before passing away earlier this year at the age of 98, Strausz-Hupé wrote his final words, and they were about the war on terrorism: "I have lived long enough to see good repeatedly win over evil, although at a much higher cost than need have been paid. This time we have already paid the price of victory. It remains for us to win it."
Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and author of "Militant Islam Reaches America."
I am a proud member of the LLSS crowd. Maybe the Iraqi's know everything that is said here before it's posted. Maybe our own preparations have made our forces immune to any attack that is based on the public domain information presented here. Maybe all members of the Iraqi military know the capabilities of our hardware so nothing we say here will help them.
But then again, maybe not. On this thread someone posted from their personal knowledge a strategeric piece of info about some of our hardware. I could envision a scenario where that tidbit could harm our mission.
It's better to err on the side of caution than see how close we can get to giving an advantage to our enemy. without really helping them.
The slogan "Loose lips sink ships" was coined way befor the Web admittedly. But during WW2, it was understood that even information that was widely known should be kept secret as much as possible since somthing we might think is a harmless incidental tidbit may be the info that helps the enemy get a better understanding of something important.
US soldiers lives may be at risk from our sharing of information and expertise here. I'd be comfortable with the news networks and sites like Freerepublic shutdown for the weeks surrounding the war. The freedoms of the press and speech are mainly to protect political dissent. We have no right to blab what may be militarily significant information about an imminent war.
A little paranoia in dangerous times is a healthy thing. The LLSS crowd aren't dishonoring their country. The are willing to offend you in the hope of preserving as many US lives as possible.
That would be a suicide mission. It would take 3 days minimum to link up with them. No way to resupply with all the AA around Baghdad. Crazy. Not to be believed.
America's Finest - The SpearTip of Freedom. (Photos of our deploying troops - share yours)
"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors; they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men." Samuel Adams
An air cushion landing craft passes an American flag as it carries U.S. Marines with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit to waiting ships from Onslow Beach in Camp Lejeune, N.C., Wednesday March 5, 2003. More than 2,300 Marines and sailors deployed Wednesday.
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