Posted on 04/12/2003 8:56:10 PM PDT by null and void
Afghanistan. Albania, Angola, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland , Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Mongolia, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Palau, Panama, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Singapore, Slovakia, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Spain, Tonga, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan
We know who our friends are. They stood with us.
Links to the older threads
Day 1 ... 4557 posts
Day 2 ... 5704 posts
Day 3 ... 4751 posts
Day 4 ... 6045 posts
Day 5 ... 4869 posts
Day 6 ... 5126 posts
Day 7 ... 4110 posts
Day 8 ... 3863 posts
Day 9 ... 3532 posts
Day 10 ... 2545 posts
Day 11 ... 2774 posts
Day 12 ... 2495 posts
Day 13 ... 3885 posts
Day 14 ... 2918 posts
Day 15 ... 4681 posts
Day 16 ... 4016 posts
Day 17 ... 5023 posts
Day 18 ... 3001 posts
Day 19 ... 2950 posts
Day 20 ... 4161 posts
Day 21 ... 6632 posts
Day 22 ... 2635 posts
Day 23 ... 2325 posts
Day 24 ... >2200 posts
Mhking's live cam links
Live Video/Audio Feeds:
Updated 4/11/03 6P ET
(If you can't reach a feed by clicking on it, make sure to try copying the address, and pasting it in the appropriate browser -- WMV=Windows Media Player; Real=Real Player/RealOne; MP3=WinAmp/Audion/other streaming MP3 player; QT=QuickTime)
FR: Final Update: Streaming Video/Audio Links (Includes info & HTML/Javascript code on how to create your own multi-feeds page)
The FR Feedroom
"Mother Of All War Websites" (Additional links to live audio/video feeds)
VirtualTuner.com - Showdown in Iraq
WWI-TV Portal (WorldWide Internet-TV Portal Site)
Abu Dhabi TV (Real - Arabic)
Abu Dhabi BagCam (Real)
BBC/Baghdad Cam(Real)
BBC News 24 (Real - 56)
BBC News 24 (Real - BB)
CablePulse 24 - Toronto (WMV)
CBS/Baghdad Cam (Real)
CBC RadioOne - Toronto (QT)
CN8 Philadelphia (Real)
CNN+ (Spain) (WMV)
CNN Baghdad Cam (WMV)
CNN Radio (WMV)
CNN via KGW/Portland (Real - mostly down)
DW-TV Berlin (Real - German/English)
Fox News Channel (Audio ONLY MP3 - may not be working)
IraqiTV (Real)
IraqiTV (WMV - #1)
IraqiTV (WMV - #2)
IraqiTV (WMV - #3)
ITN News Channel - London (Real - Audio Only)
MSNBC/NBC (WMV/Feeds page)
MSNBC (WMV - Audio Only - Headlines & Breaking News)
MSNBC Bagdad Cam (WMV)
N-TV Berlin (Real - In German Where Available)
NTV Baghdad Cam (Real)
New NTV BagCam (Real)
NWCN, Seattle/Portland (Real)
Reuters Feedroom (Real - Raw Video Feeds)
Sky News (56K - WMV/Copy/Paste)
Sky News (BB - WMV/Copy-Paste)
SNN6 Sarasota, FL (Real)
WSVN-TV/DT Miami (WMV - Fox Affiliate)
Mo's Fox contact list:
Viewer Services Viewerservices@foxnews.com
FOX News Channel Comments Comments@foxnews.com
FOXNews.com Comments Foxnewsonline@foxnews.com
Question of the Day - Respond here. foxfeedback@foxnews.com
At Large with Geraldo Rivera atlarge@foxnews.com
Beyond the News Beyondthenews@foxnews.com
Bulls & Bears Bullsandbears@foxnews.com
Cashin' In Cash@foxnews.com
Cavuto on Business Cavuto@foxnews.com
Forbes on FOX Forbes@foxnews.com
FOX & Friends Friends@foxnews.com
FOX Magazine Foxmagazine@foxnews.com
FOX News Live Comments@foxnews.com
FOX News Live Weekend Edition Comments@foxnews.com
FOX News Sunday FNS@foxnews.com
FOX News Watch Newswatch@foxnews.com
FOX Report with Shepard Smith Foxreport@foxnews.com
FOX Wire with Rita Cosby Foxwire@foxnews.com
Hannity & Colmes - Sean Hannity Hannity@foxnews.com
Hannity & Colmes - Alan Colmes Colmes@foxnews.com
Judith Regan Tonight Regan@foxnews.com
On the Record with Greta Ontherecord@foxnews.com
Special Report with Brit Hume Special@foxnews.com
Studio B with Shepard Smith Studiob@foxnews.com
The Beltway Boys Beltway@foxnews.com
The Big Story with John Gibson Myword@foxnews.com
The O'Reilly Factor Oreilly@foxnews.com
War Stories Warstories@foxnews.com
Your World with Neil Cavuto Cavuto@foxnews.com
kcvl's CNN contact list:
Brad.Turell@turner.com
Walter.Isaacson@turner.com
Rick.Davis@turner.com
Eason.Jordan@Turner.com
stevecase@aol.com
allfeedback@cnn.com
Good Morning.
This is the Daily Thread of Operation Iraqi Freedom - Situation Room - LIVE THREAD.
It is designed for general conversation about the events of the day. In depth discussion of events should be left to individual threads - but links to the threads or other articles is highly encouraged. This allows us to stay abreast of the situation in general, while also providing a means of obtaining specific information.
Please have mercy on us dial up limited FReepers! Limit the big graphics, post links instead. A brief description of what the graphic is would help! If you post graphics, please "size" them so that our browsers continue to load the rest of the thread!
< img src="http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/daseal2.jpg" alt="Army Logo" width="151" height="150" >
To all who helped this get started and keep it running, thank you!
Featured Freepers: An.American.Expatriate for originating the threads, Null and Void for keeping these threads running on the weekends, Mo1 for the screamer, the AdminMods for their tolerance, mhking for the video links, Ragtime Cowgirl for her Exclusive Live Transcription Service, Fledermaus for his 15 minutes of fame, and, of course, Belly Girl...
Green Tracers....are bad guys!
Oh yeah...very weak, all day long.
Seems one of our guys has a bead on someone!
Posted on 04/11/2003 11:31 AM CDT by LS
We are witnessing the most recent iteration of the "Western way of war," a term developed by Victor Davis Hanson, a classics professor at California State University, Fresno, about a distinct style of combat used by Western armies over time. Hanson identifies a culture of combat in which predominantly free individuals, possessing private property rights and civil rights, engage in a fighting style that depends heavily on both unit discipline and individual initiative; which simultaneously seeks close combat yet employs standoff weapons; which has unprecedented lethality; and which pursues unconditional surrender by the enemy.
It also involves a paradox in which Western societies, with their value on the individual and human life, fight with unparalleled ferocity and willingly take high short-term casualties to effect a long-term result. They also risk the lives of many to rescue the one -- a characteristic not seen in non-Western combat (one only has to watch Black Hawk Down to appreciate the differences in styles).
Finally, in the West, peace is viewed as the norm, not an aberration. Consequently, breaches of peace are met with initial reluctance to use force, even to the point that Western societies frequently engage in denial and self-deception about the ultimate need for force. However, once the decision to act is made, overwhelming force is wielded to end conflicts quickly.
"Iraqi Freedom" perfectly conforms to the "Western way of war," which has totally baffled the network anchors and newsroom reporters who do not grasp it. But it is not lost on the so-called "embeds," who witnessed this war-fighting style up close.
The result is that Reuters, CNN, most of the old-line broadcast networks and the New York Times, largely because of their liberal bias, have drifted into a quagmire of their own. Because of their aversion to making "value judgments" about anything, including military success, the mainstream media equated a terrorist pickup truck, armed with a half-a-dozen poorly trained irregulars with a .30-caliber machine gun, to a squad of Marines. This is, of course, absurd. We never even fought the worst Iraqi troops -- they quickly and quietly left. When coalition forces encountered the best Iraqi units, they have killed Saddam's forces by the truckload, according to one report.
The media's quagmire deepened when it failed to understand the straightforward explanations patiently delivered by Generals Vincent Brooks and Tommy Franks. The follow-up questions at the CENTCOM briefings indicated that either the journalists deliberately ignored the information they were handed, or worse, utterly failed to understand it.
From the onset of hostilities, allied commanders, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, have consistently told the press exactly how the campaign would unfold. In a nutshell, the Rumsfeld/Franks plan resembled Gen. Douglas MacArthur's "Island Hopping" strategy in World War II in the Pacific, where, it is worth noting, MacArthur had the lowest casualty ratio-to-troops employed of any general in any theater of the entire war.
The Rumsfeld/Franks plan was obvious to anyone wanting to understand it: bypass strong points, isolating them and allowing them to run out of food, ammo, and above all, severing their command and control from Baghdad; blast northward along twin lines of attack so as to draw out the Iraqi Republican Guard into an open fight; and seal off all avenues of escape (or reinforcement) for Saddam and his regime; and topple Saddam's oppressive government.
Journalists' incessant questions, both at the briefings and in the studios, about the coalition's "threatened" or "overextended" supply lines were nonsense. The supply-line issue was baseless: coalition forces, in a pinch, could always have been temporarily re supplied by air; but there was never any danger of outstripping supply lines because American aircraft controlled the skies, and coalition spies and special operations people dominated the intelligence functions. Nevertheless, for nearly a week, news headlines kept harping on "insufficient force." (Someone might want to tell that to the Iraqi "elite" Republican Guard!)
The media's staggering inability to grasp the Western way of war has left it re-fighting Vietnam, or, worse, World War I, and the pundits should have known better, if for no other reason than our stunning success in Afghanistan. Does anyone recall the "quagmire" alerts then? After only a week, journalists were complaining that some of the northern cities had not fallen, and that American fighters could not handle the intense cold of the mountains. Only a few weeks later, Taliban and al-Qaeda thugs were scurrying into the hills as fast as they could, thoroughly routed by an "insufficient" American force.
As Hanson points out, rarely do Western armies outnumber their enemy, but they always place superior force and firepower in theater. Typically, the Western way of war relies on superior training and discipline -- mixed with the individual initiative inherent in free societies and simply not present in un-free armies -- that results in an unparalleled success rate.
How often did commanders in the field boast about their units' superb training and about the cohesion of "the plan?" And is it not telling that individual commanders in the field, acting on their own initiative, and not Tommy Franks or Donald Rumsfeld, ordered the rescued of Pfc. Jessica Lynch? Yet again, the mainstream media missed it, to the point that it virtually ignored training as a key element of the combat situation, even when the GIs themselves repeatedly cited their superior preparation as key to the low casualty ratios and to battlefield victory.
Long after U.S. troops have departed Baghdad in victory, and turned Iraq over to a new, democratic government, the media will still be stuck in its own "Vietnam quagmire" of false perceptions and flawed assumptions. The mainstream media's only salvation may be to replace network anchors and newsroom reporters with reporters who were with the troops, and who saw the Western way of war in operation. To those "embeds," there is no question that the war has proceeded on schedule, on plan, and to a victorious and just conclusion.
Larry Schweikart, a professor of history at the University of Dayton, teaches a course in "Technology and the Culture of War" and has written program histories of the United States Navy's Trident Submarine System ("Trident," Southern Illinois University Press, 1984) and the USAF's National Aerospace Plane System ("The Quest for the Orbital Jet," USAF, 1998)"
Food for thought.
2 handcuffs!
We all should know by now that few newspeople have ever been in combat.
Nam Vet
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.