The reason he was defeated in Basra is because he was making his Iranian handlers angry. Iran wants that area stabilized for the Shiite government and primarily Shiite Iraqi army. US, Iraqi, and Iranian interests all matched in the Basra situation.

It is different in Baghdad where Iran hasn't put a collar on Sadr and still encourages his trouble-making.

Iran wants the entire country to be calm so the US will leave and they can move in. They are interested in the end game not the current game.

FTFA: the US military said in a statement on Saturday.
OK, and we all know that their statements are gospel truth...

It said Iraqi troops began the last stage of Operation Saulat al-Farsan (Charge of the Knights)

Knights Templar?
Nice choice of mission title, it's not like that is going to piss anybody off.

A statement from the US Army? I wonder what really happened.

I hope it's true.

slackist: Nice choice of mission title, it's not like that is going to piss anybody off.

yes, because we should let the enemy tell us what we're allowed to call the operation, as it sets a great precedent for battle.

Great, so when are the troops coming home?

Glad to see some progress, ANY progress. Can we GTFO now? Oh no, we will be in there for another 100 years, that's right.

slackist: Knights Templar?
Nice choice of mission title, it's not like that is going to piss anybody off.

I know if I were a general, I'd name things "Operation Kill the Filthy Camel farkers" just because being a real-life troll would amuse me.

/Though this is probably why I would never get to be a general in the first place

A statement from the US Army? I wonder what really happened.

If we follow the past example, we bribed them lots of money to go home for a while and don't get into too much trouble, like we have done for the past year.

We are losing in Eurasia. We have always lost in Eurasia.

Doesn't the phrase "The surge is working" necessitate political progress? Isn't that the whole point? Sharing of oil revenues? No? Anyone?

Remember, liberals support the troops. They accuse them of lying when ever things go well in Iraq, they call our generals liars on national television, they call them stupid, they call them thugs, they compare them to Nazis and accuse them of terrorizing women and children in the dark of night, but it's just WRONG... WRONG to question a liberals patriotism when they never waste a chance to besmirch American military people or their own country. If you point out what liberals actually say they screech about how they're being "attacked" for questioning the policies of the current administration.

randomjsa: Remember, liberals support the troops. They accuse them of lying when ever things go well in Iraq, they call our generals liars on national television, they call them stupid, they call them thugs, they compare them to Nazis and accuse them of terrorizing women and children in the dark of night, but it's just WRONG... WRONG to question a liberals patriotism when they never waste a chance to besmirch American military people or their own country. If you point out what liberals actually say they screech about how they're being "attacked" for questioning the policies of the current administration.

Well, I'm glad Iraq is all solved then.

All joking aside, the thing that can unite Shi'ite, Sunni, and the Kurds is a hate for all things Persian. I am amazed at how many people call the Iranians Arabs. There may be ethnic divisions within Iraq, but the ethnic divisions between the Arabs and Iranians is significantly more.

randomjsa: Remember, liberals support the troops. They accuse them the liars of lying when ever things go well we are fed BS about the occurances in Iraq, they call our generals liars when they lie on national television, they call them stupid when they act stupidly, they call them thugs when they act thugishly, they compare them the Bush administration to Nazis and accuse them of terrorizing women and children in the dark of night, but it's just WRONG... WRONG to question a liberals anyone's patriotism when they never waste a chance to besmirch American military people or their own country. If you point out what liberals some people actually say appear to my biased mind to say, they screech about how they're being "attacked" for questioning the policies of the current administration. But that's the pot calling the kettle black and I wasted everyone's time.

gugnaut: Doesn't the phrase "The surge is working" necessitate political progress? Isn't that the whole point? Sharing of oil revenues? No? Anyone?

They have de facto sharing in their annual budgets and are working through a bill to formalize it all. When that happens, will you suddenly say the US is winning, or will the goalposts move yet again?

My benchmark:

When oil companies think it's safe enough to spend money fixing up Iraq's pipeline and processing, I'll believe the surge is working.

Five years later and we just now gain control of the third largest city...Heckuva job.

Having been in the Army I can say two things about their lying:

* It's almost NEVER done. The time(s) I've seen the military lie to the public it was for the greater good and a lot of hand wringing went into it. ONE of the times I personally observed this was when we did exercises with F117 / B-1 bombers in Nevada, during 1988, and watched the military deny their existence to the public.

* Saw some other things they lied about, but NEVER something that covered up mis-conduct on our part. Just really important security stuff.


\ Had *very* high security clearance..."eyes only" kinda stuff.
\\ I'll trust every military commander we have before I trust a single senator.
\\\ Sooner we get our "Caesar" the better off America will be.

randomjsa: but it's just WRONG... WRONG to question a liberals patriotism

PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of anyone ambitious to illuminate his name.

In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
--The Devil's Dictionary

So what happened to the Mahdi army? And what of the Badr Corps? Did most of the militia guys melt into the population or retreat to outlying towns?

milominderbinder
The military is not at fault for spinning the truth, it's the Bush administration.

Supporting the Troops is not just a slogan, it has to be policy that includes meaningful benefits for veterans.

/OK, it's just a slogan.

/God Bless America and Support the Troops

quizybuck: gugnaut: Doesn't the phrase "The surge is working" necessitate political progress? Isn't that the whole point? Sharing of oil revenues? No? Anyone?

They have de facto sharing in their annual budgets and are working through a bill to formalize it all. When that happens, will you suddenly say the US is winning, or will the goalposts move yet again?

That's hilarious, an apparent Iraq war supporter complaining about moving goalposts.

LocalCynic: Great, so when are the troops coming home?

I second this question.

JewZeppy, if this was a voting thread, I'd give you a +1

Nice pic ClicheGuevara07.

Lee Jackson Beauregard:

PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of anyone ambitious to illuminate his name.

In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
--The Devil's Dictionary

QFT

Great, another trillion and it's a wrap-up.

milominderbinder
\\\ Sooner we get our "Caesar" the better off America will be.

... pardon? You _want_ an Emporer?

ManatOrr: LocalCynic: Great, so when are the troops coming home?

I second this question.

Ten bucks says you guys won't live that long. Hostilities in the Korean War ended 55 years ago and we still have a presence there.

milominderbinder
\\\ Sooner we get our "Caesar" the better off America will be.

I don't have a rebuttal, I just think everyone needs to contemplate this statement.

milominderbinder: Sooner we get our "Caesar" the better off America will be.

Hm. 6/10

I done contemplated it, Unca Jed!

Seriously? I thought Clinton was going to suspend the Constitution. Yes. CLINTON. And we dodged a bullet with Bush.

Lee Jackson Beauregard: randomjsa: but it's just WRONG... WRONG to question a liberals patriotism

PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of anyone ambitious to illuminate his name.

In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
--The Devil's Dictionary

Ambrose Bierce is made of win.

JewZeppy: But that's the pot calling the kettle black and I wasted everyone's time.

SuperLOL.

randomjsa: Remember, liberals support the troops. They accuse them of lying when ever things go well in Iraq, they call our generals liars on national television, they call them stupid, they call them thugs, they compare them to Nazis and accuse them of terrorizing women and children in the dark of night, but it's just WRONG... WRONG to question a liberals patriotism when they never waste a chance to besmirch American military people or their own country. If you point out what liberals actually say they screech about how they're being "attacked" for questioning the policies of the current administration.

Our generals are not "our troops". If you do not understand this you have a pathetically poor grasp of military operations, and english usage.

Troops are the rank and file who die in the mud. Generals are political creatures, officers who are legally require to spout whatever BS their Elected commander and chief decides upon.

That is, until they retire Then they tell a different story (new window) and one you'd do well to read.

does it "work" like killing the second in command in al-kaida does, or does it "work" in a different manner?

Seyyed Ali Khamene'i would like to take this opportunity to thank George W. Bush for giving him a nice little satellite country to play with.

...yeah, I'm sure it will last.

/"six days, six weeks...I doubt six months."

slackist: Saulat al-Farsan

Yes jackass, because first of all, the US tells the Iraqi government what to name it's operations and second... templar? What? I didn't see any mention of templar, crusades, etc. A knight doesn't mean a crusader. If the farking Iraqis want to be knights, then they get to be farking knights. I don't see you over there so STFU.

Uh duh. Al Sadr told Maliki he was fine with him coming through Basra. Maliki himself never claimed to intend to fight Sadr's forces in Basra, but just to merely clean out the "riff raff" and other reckless elements.

Sadr's forces from Basra are all fine, aside from the initial batch that were killed. They might have left or stayed, but they stopped fighting Maliki in Basra ages ago.

It's not like they won't just dally elsewhere of course.

Wasn't there a Sadr cease fire declared last week?

milominderbinder: Having been in the Army I can say two things about their lying:

* It's almost NEVER done. The time(s) I've seen the military lie to the public it was for the greater good and a lot of hand wringing went into it. [blah, blah, blah snipped]

When I was over there (1981), they told us that Saddam Hussein was democratically elected, beloved by his people, and that we had to give him chemical weapons so he could take care of those evil, insurgent, terrorist, drug-dealing Kurds and Shiites.

ScubaDude1960: When I was over there (1981), they told us that Saddam Hussein was democratically elected, beloved by his people, and that we had to give him chemical weapons so he could take care of those evil, insurgent, terrorist, drug-dealing Kurds and Shiites.

"We" never gave him chemical weapons. What they didn't purchase from the Soviet Union, Iraq manufactured themselves.

yes, because we should let the enemy tell us what we're allowed to call the operation, as it sets a great precedent for battle.

Come back when you know how Guerrilla Warfare works.

Alien Robot said:

"We" never gave him chemical weapons. What they didn't purchase from the Soviet Union, Iraq manufactured themselves.

The best type of lie, is the lie that can be told absolutely straight-faced, and which even.. technically... is 100% true.

For example, if one were to say that "We never gave them chemical weapons... Iraq manufactured [them] themselves.", that is the BEST type of lie.

Why? Well, because... technically... it is 100% correct.

Now, of course, what the United States and Great Britain did was loan Saddaam money, so that he could use the "loaned" money to turn around and hire British and American firms to build fertilizer and chemical plants, which were.. by design... so-called "dual use" plants that could be used to manufacture either fertilizer or chemical weapons.

Then, the United States and Great Britain happily sold Saddaam the pre-cursor chemicals needed by the Us-built and British-built "dual use" facilities for the manufacture of chemical weapons.

Then, after the chemical weapons were manufactured in the plants that WE loaned the money for, by the British and American companies that WE recommended for the contracts, using the precursor chemicals that were happily supplied by US and British companies through their European wholly-owned subsidiaries, and the chemical weapons were then USED by Saddaam, the Us used it's veto on the UN Security Council to veto a Un resolution condemning the use of poison gas by Iraq.

But... yeah.... you *could* say that we never sold him chemical weapons, and you *could* say that we never condoned his use of chemical weapons. Technically, your statements would have a veneer of truth.

Non-technically, you'd be a farking liar.

ManatOrr: LocalCynic: Great, so when are the troops coming home?

I second this question.

well as we went there *only* to find WMDs, it could be a while yet.

randomjsa said: Remember, liberals support the troops.

Correct. As a Liberal, I fully support the Americans who are currently serving as enlisted men on the filed of battle.

I support their right to return home to their families at the end of their contracted service obligations, rather than being "stop-lossed" for years.

I support the idea that they should receive adequate medical and psychological services upon their return, rather than being given substandard medical care.

I support the idea of pay raises for our troops, whose salaries have actually *dropped* ove rthe past 7 years, if one takes inflation into account.

Of course, President Bush has vetoed bills mandating pay increases, and has submitted bills that carry only slight budget increases for the VA... slightly more VA funds than the VA had in peacetime in 2001, but now with 7 years of inflation and a huge war going on.

Basically, I, as a Liberal, support the troops far more than George W. Bush and his dim-witted chickenhawk cheerleaders ever could.

randomjsa said: They accuse them of lying when ever things go well in Iraq

Incorrect.

I call liars, liars. People who lie, are liars.

The current crop of senior Generals were promoted to fill the shoes of Generals who were FIRED for telling the truth, and were put in their positions on the understanding that they'd lie, obfuscate, and spin spin spin for all they were worth.

As a Liberal, I call this by the highly technical term of "bullshiat artists". That"s what they are, and that's what I call them.

randomjsa said: ...they call our generals liars on national television

I've never appeared on national television, so I can't have called them liars on national TV.

I do, however, call them liars on the internet, and in everyday conversations... because, well, they ARE liars.

I call this trick... the trick of calling things what they are... "honesty".

randomjsa said: ...they call them stupid

Well... choosing to take a promotion to fill the shoes of a guy who was fired for telling the truth might *seem* like a smart move to those who are short-sighted, self-centered, and more interested in self-agrandizement than in the good of their service and country.

In the bigger picture, it is pretty stupid to throw away one's decency, honesty, integrity, reputation, and self-esteem, in order to be trotted out in one's uniform for the express purpose of telling lies to cover some chickenshiat chickenhawk's ass.

Heck... even Colin Powell, in hindsight, probably agrees with me about that.

Right?

randomjsa said: ...they call them thugs...

Nope. Never called any Generals "thugs".

randomjsa said: ...they compare them to Nazis...

Anyone can be compared to anyone else.

And anything can be compared to anything else.

I could compare Elephants to Giraffes, and show that they really aren't much alike at all.

Now, if I were comparing folks who were "just following orders" to torture and murder people who were held in camps, even though they'd never been convicted of a crime, or even accused of a crime.... to NAZIs... well, those folks would be a lot closer to NAZIs than Elephants are to Giraffes.

Right?

randomjsa said: ...and accuse them of terrorizing women and children in the dark of night...

Ever seen video from the opening salvos of the War?

The bombs raining down upon Baghdad, bridges destroyed, flames reaching up into the sky, electricity out across an entire city of over a million inhabitants?

Well, it was at night, and there were plenty of women and children in that city...

Right?

randomjsa said: ...but it's just WRONG... WRONG to question a liberals patriotism when they never waste a chance to besmirch American military people or their own country. If you point out what liberals actually say they screech about how they're being "attacked" for questioning the policies of the current administration.

Ah, I see that you have made an unwarranted assumption about the nature of Patriotism, and even about the basic meaning of the word.

For me, Patriotism is about loyalty, honor, and duty to one's fellow citizens.

For me, Patriotism is about protecting and defending the constitution of the United States.

For you, apparently, "patriotism" is about some sort of fetishistic worship of the trappings of militarism, and unthinking reverence of anyone wearing military garb, whether their actions deserve reverence, or not.

In other words, you think that waving a flag, and cheering on some hopped-up little pseudo-authoritarian piece-of-shiat while he defecates on the constitution, pisses all over the actual troops as soon as he's done "using them", and works to destroy any semblance of honor, integrity, honesty or truthfullness within our military's senior ranks, somehow makes you PATRIOTIC.

I, on the other hand, am an American... and I see your brand of "patriotism" as the exact diametric opposite of what real American patriotism has always been about.

So... technically... I don't question your commitment to your twisted and distorted view of patriotism.

You're PLENTY patriotic... by your farked-up and bone-headed definition of the word.

;)

I so want this Sadr prick to die.

randomjsa: Remember, liberals support the troops. They accuse them of lying when ever things go well in Iraq, they call our generals liars on national television, they call them stupid, they call them thugs, they compare them to Nazis and accuse them of terrorizing women and children in the dark of night, but it's just WRONG... WRONG to question a liberals patriotism when they never waste a chance to besmirch American military people or their own country. If you point out what liberals actually say they screech about how they're being "attacked" for questioning the policies of the current administration.

Ok fess up which tv/radio personality are you really?

A sadder Bastian falls?

Easy to fix. He just needs to say the Childlike Empress's name, and then Atreyu, Falkor, and the Rock-Biter will come back from The Nothing and rally for victory!