Free Republic

Very sad breaking news on this one. The PM has announced that it may be she was actually killed by a rescuers grenade. This will of course trigger a barrage of arm-chair generals second guessing the decision for US Special Forces to go in - it is deeply, deeply sad - but it doesn’t change the following facts:

- At the point at which they thought she may be moved to AQ in Pakistan the tactical decision to go in became a no-brainer.
- The young men involved in the rescue operation were operating at real risk to their own lives - sometimes things go wrong. They remain heroic.
- The responsibility for her death remains with the kidnappers.

As with any operation that goes wrong lessons must be learned - lots of questions will be raised and SOP may be adjusted if necessary. But none of that changes that a choice had to be made, brave men made it - and although it didn’t pan out the way we would have prayed - it was still the right call.

In answer to numerous questions earlier in the thread:-

- The operation was carried out by unspecified US Special Forces. Respect to them for a difficult and dangerous job.
- All eight captors at the compound were killed in the operation.
- Norwood got her fatal wounds when one of the captors set off a suicide vest as forces closed in. Very difficult to imagine what even the best trained forces in the world could have done better, given a captor standing next to her who just has to pull a cord.
- She apparently survived the blast for a short while, but died on the way to hospital.
- The decision for a ‘go’ for the operation was given when it seemed likely she was about to transferred to Al Queida in Pakistan

(all above sourced from UK Press)

Respect to all forces involved. It must be terrible for the young men involved that the operation did not go to plan - however, they did their duty bravely, took out eight bad guys, and at least gave Norwood a chance - had she gone to Pakistan there would have been no chance.

Respect and sympathy to Norwood’s family. It takes a better soul than mine to go and do selfless Charity work and the ‘hearts and minds’ stuff of the battle unarmed. If only all of humanity had in their hearts what she had in hers.

“Our relationship with the UK will be affected. It wouldn’t surprise me that not too far down the road, the UK will announce their exit from Afghanistan.”

We’re in Afghanistan for the long term. No worries there.

It is frustrating though - there does seem to be a lot of ‘anti-Britishness’ coming from Washington. The persistence in calling the company “British Petrolium” being the most obvious. They removed the ‘British’ from the title about 15 years ago when it was realised that it is 40% American owned (and 41% British owned) - also the contractors who built the well and the contractors who operated it where all 100% US owned - so this whole undertone that the Dems are placing about the ‘British’ thing does stick in the craw a bit. I appreciate that it doesn’t help that the CEO is very obviously a Brit and has said some daft things, but the intent has always now been to do the right thing to sort the mess out. I would suggest this is best achieved by working together rather an exercise of self-righteous name calling that this show event seems to be.

Just to end all the speculation now this is a couple of days old.

- He was a regular white UK citizen who ‘went postal’. No War-on-Terror connections.
- Both guns used where legally owned. There is a lot of ignorance about UK gun laws on these forums. Guns are rare, many types are illegal, but certainly in rural areas like Cumbria there are large numbers of legal gun owners.
- As he had a criminal conviction he shouldn’t have been granted the license (*state fail*)

My thoughts and prayers with the families of victims.

64 bombs defused..... Heck of a tour, brave, brave man.

Word is it was a UK led op. SBS apparently.

“Not exactly - the NHS is so inefficient that an entire private provider network exists to get quicker doctor visits - this is not free, of course.

BUPA exists as the insurance provider —

http://www.bupa.co.uk/heartbeat/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bupa

Everyone seems to ignore this parallel (extra co
st) system when talking about the NHS. Perhaps an English FR person can elaborate?

This is correct. I pay 40% of my earning in income tax (plus another 10% in various other local taxes and compulsary national insurance schemes) - and for that I get included the NHS cover. However, I also chose to pay an extra £1300 (about $2000 a year) for additional private health cover. If I had cancer or a serious accident- I would get great care on the NHS. However, for more mundane and more common health ailments you get a poor service and I feel obliged in the interest of my family to pay the extra to get the level of healthcare and speed of access to healthcare that I want them to have.

One of the weird things over here is that if you let slip in conversation that you have additional private healthcare in some circles that is considered deeply unpatriotic!

“Since the UK is known for incredibly bad dental care,”

It is always curious the American comic obsession with British ‘bad’ teeth. Incidentally, I’ve watched on the news today a number of people cite British teeth as a reason to oppose nationalised medicine. There are many reasons to oppose socialised medicine but British Dental Care isn’t one of them! Dental care in the UK is one area of health care that is now predominantly delivered through private practice - so in many ways that argument is self defeating. I’d stick to pointing out the cost in tax and the service provided for that money and comparing it to what you could expect for a similarly funded private plan.

“US has very little in common with your police state. I’ve been. Very little.”

Well then - you will be delighted that your ‘heroes’ have taken another blow at this ‘police state’ by murdering a police officer last night. Cry FREEEDOOOOM Mell Gibson style. Party at your place huh.

You are a marxist loving, poorly educated, terrorist sympathising disgrace. Thankfully, you are the exception here on FR.

“Ha ha, you are such a joke comparing America to Britain”

I will compare America to Britain without hesitiation.

Both are fundamentally Beacons for all that is good in the world: The Rule of Law, the promotion of trade and enterprise, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, political freedom and democratic government. Both have proven over this century and last that when push comes to shove they will pull out arms and fight for all of the above instead of just bitching about other places. Indeed both currently have men in harms way doing just that. Both are currently suffering from left leaning governments.

I would say there are not two nations in the world that have more in common the the UK and the US.

And yet you apparently would side with some Marxist seperatist guerrillas in a place you clearly know very little about over the UK. Shame on you.

“seriously, Britain doesn’t belong in N. Ireland.”

You know, I expect to find terrorist sympathisers in DUmmy world, but finding them here on FR has put a downer on my day.

How would you react if two US troops (just about to go to Afghanistan) had just been shot by terrorists in the area concerned and I posted something like:

“seriously, the US doesn’t belong in New Mexico” (or Hawaii or Alaska or wherever else the US might have started having soveriegnty over a few hundred years after we had soverignty in Northern Ireland.

Think about it. Then hold your head in shame.

Bring back the spirit of Kamel Attaturk.

Just to give some context to the terms in the UK and why the newspaper (which is usually very supportive of our troops) was able to make a story from it....

In the UK ‘Asian’ is usually used to describe anyone of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi or Nepalese background. For what Americans call ‘Asians’ we would usually use the term ‘Oriental’.

‘Paki’ is used on the streets (since at least the late 1960s) as the generic insult of choice for anyone who is what we call Asian (Indian, Pakistani etc.). Obviously, this really winds up Indians! However, in normal circumstances when people use it, it is meant in the same deliberate way ‘nigger’ is. It has become a word associated with contempt for Asians. I would never use it, just as I would never use ‘Nigger’ in normal conversation. I wouldn’t desribe myself as at all PC - I am just aware what is usually meant when most people use these words.

However, anyone who has served knows that words in banter of the military are part of the day-to-day life. There is no hate in the word in the context that harry used it, and come the shooting I am sure he would have dived in a fox hole with his friend. Also the military mix with many other nations for whom the word ‘Paki’ simply does not have any of the resonance that it has in the UK (hence the incomprehension on here why this even gets a paragraph much less headline news!).

Harry can walk with his head held high. But he needs to drop his grandfather’s habit of speak first and thinking later which gives those with an agenda against him an absolute gift.

‘Raghead’ is pretty universal in the military in the UK for Arab terrorists. Pretty fair game.

In a very British insult we tend to call the Taliban “Terry”. Terry Taliban. We beat Jerry and we will beat Terry.

If a Katyusha landed outside of 500m from him then he was not even close to being at risk from a broken finger nail - much less being killed. I had one land about 150m from me about 15 years ago courtesy of my freinds in Hezbollah. They are glorified fireworks. A direct hit would be bad news, but anything outside of about 25 meters is simply amusing if that is the best your enemy can do and you have serious precision weapons to answer back with. Hyped story.

“Dear Israel,
Do us and the world a favor...NUKE ‘EM!!!!!!!!!!”

I’m guessing that is a figurative request rather than a literal one. Otherwise I fear your geography may not be that sharp!

“And on a final note - they are not “VICTIMS” - they were investors who made BAD CHOICES. When you invest, you take a RISK”

Your a right to a degree. However, the worrying piece in all this is that these were not investments in companies in Russia or Latvia or Nigeria where you might expect to fall victim of a Ponzi scheme. This happened in the United States of America - which holds itself as a bastian of a fairly (rather than ‘overly’) regulated market. The accounting standards, the checks and balances, the laws in place, are supposed to mean that things like this don’t happen and when they do they are detected early. This went on for years! There will be all kinds of fund managers all over the world suddenly looking at the risk profiles of seemingly safe US investments and wondering if those risk assessments are sound, or how many other of these big funds are built on a lie. Money will be pulled, the selling will add to the panic, the downwards spiral will continue, it will be longer before investors like myself feel comfortable putting money back into America. (hey, you wont miss me at the moment the pound has collapsed anyway - but you will other international investors). This guy has not just hurt the invidual and institutional investors he served, he has hurt the integrity of the US markets, and with that he has hurt the United States.

I hope he is locked up till he draws his last breath.

If I understand the timing right this report is inacurate. The explosion took place at 15:00 local time which would mean the only people in the restaurants would NOT be observing Ramadan. i.e. not hardcore muslims. Probably very carefully planned, and probably has killed many people from allied nations. I certainly typically stay at a Marriott when travelling overseas. There but for the grace of god...

“Perhaps “Benign Despot” might be the best choice of Government for Pakistan at its current particular stage of social and political development...”

Agree with that. I always get depressed whenever I venture the opinion that democracy requires a mature civil society before it has any chance of working - and it needs to have had it for at least a generation. I always get abuse for being a pompous British Imperialist! I know the US holds democracy as an article of faith, and I agree it’s the ultimate end goal of any cultures development. But to keep going to nations that are essentially still in the tribal or feudal states of development and get them to leapfrog straight to working liberal democray always strikes me as nuts. Yet we try to do it again and again and again.....

Get a 20 year track record of:

- The rule of law
- The seperation of powers between the executive, judicary and legislature
- A stable economy and banking system
- The removal of nepotism and conyism and tribalism

Then you have half a chance of making democracy work. The ugly truth is you often need either a colonial power or a benevolent dictator to get those preconditions in place.

It is truly anyones guess who ends up running this mess of a country now. My hope is for someone with a similar world view to Mush. Bet I never thought I would say that 9 years ago!

“Ergo, not terrorism.”

And here lies the problem with the way we have ‘branded’ the war on radical-islam as the war on ‘terror’. One man’s terrorist is anothers freedom fighter and it was ever thus. All any oppressive regime who has insurgents fighting ‘for freedom’ now has to do is brand the freedom fighters ‘terrorists’ and we in the west have placed ourselves on the back foot for the argument.

Let’s be honest: our current war is with those who envision a world body politic structured upon a literal interpritation of Islam. (I call these people ‘Radical Muslim Headcases’ - you may chose to be less polite in your labelling!)

In this particular attack it seems the culprits are of this persuassion. I for once am on China’s side. China is by far the lesser of two evils.