Look people, look at the numbers that Alex was nice enough to post. The UK, arguably the second most powerful military in the world, who is totally commited, has only 8,700 troops in Iraq. USA >135,000, UK 8,700. So unless someone is going to argue that France is going to contribute vastly more than the UK has, the US is going to have to do virtually all the lifting regardless.

.....Just a bit of an update on this...the UK is not the second most powerful military in the world....but its damm close...it is however the military force in Europe today.....
....Now heres a bit of dishearting information....If the UK and the rest of europe enter the EU ...as is planned..that could create a serious clusterf*ck if say we were looking for troop commitments from UK,Poland, Germany, etc...for an operation like whats going on in Afghan or Iraq....because the EU intends to field a unified EU army...in which EU political and military intrests take precidence over any national intrests like commiting forces with the US...in essence it overrides both nato and national intrests for EU intrests...and those same 8,700 UK troops would be able to disengage themselves from the EU command structure so easily....by the way....the US still as part of their NATO commitment has bout 150,000 service personnel consistently deployed in western Europe...and last time we publiclly pondered re-deploying NATO commitment troops (who are protecting western Europe from Stalin's ghost) our 'FAIR-WHEATHER' friends cited our NATO commitment as grounds for keeping them there....

The UN civilian offices in Bagdad were bombed and the UN civilian staff pulled out. This is very different from having blue capped peace keepers on the ground. The UN had no troops on the ground to support it's stafdf and the US troops obviously couldn't do the job. Bit rich to accuse the UN of abandoning Iraq over this.

Yet again I must emphasis that a UN peace keeping mission (blue caps on ground not just some fancy resolution) would be about perception not troops. It should not need extra troops. The very fact that the Iraqis see control of the military situation change from US to a UN mssion (which the US will probably control anyway) will give them some confidence that the US is not there to stay.

Will a UN mission add a significant number of troops? NO maybe 20k max.
Will this have a significant effect on stability on the ground? YES
Will the US therefore be able to reduce it's troop numbers? YES
Will fewer US kids be killed? YES

The current policy is not working. Something needs to be done and I believe 'working with allies' is your best hope. Note that Honduras today announced the withddrawal of it's troops. This trickle is turning into a landslide. Within a few months only US and British troops will be left.

Paul.

Draginol,
The UN were not in Iraq as peacekeepers when they left they were there unarmed and in no sense militarily.
I certainly agree that the Iraqis want an Iraq run by themselves but I believe the common Iraqi in the street sees the need for a strong military force to keep the peace for some time to come.
It is pretty obvious now that very few people (and certainly no one in power) envisaged the current state of affairs before the war, things are not good at the moment and like most people the average Iraqi will be looking for someone to blame. They have a natural mistrust of Americans and so it doesnt take much for the extremists to persuade them that this is all the fault of the US......Imperfect as the UN is, I dont see the US has much choice.
My feeling is that if Bush wins in Nov then, after the election, he will do exactly what Kerry is proposing now....i.e. build bridges with the UN and go in as a UN force. If I was a betting man I would put money on it

My apologies to Solitaire/Paul, I seem to be repeating you. I had not seen your last post when I replied.

One other thing, I believe those countries who went 'all the way with the USA' were pathetic when it came to fronting up with troops. If they believed in this war where was their commitment. It seems obvious that they just payed lip service just to curry favour with the US...they are far worse than those like France and Germany who said we disagree and stayed away.

‘No Hijackers For 9/11’

Repentant arms dealer reveals disgruntled
U.S. military on the verge of revolt

Back in May 2003, a journalist in Portugal reported on a sensational, marathon meeting of a group of U.S. pilots that issued a report concluding that the story told by the U.S. government about what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 was improbable and unlikely.

Except for several notices on the Internet, that story was basically never reported in the U.S., and largely debunked when the reporter flubbed the name of the organizer, creating disbelief in the minds of many readers.

The record was corrected in stunning fashion Feb. 25 on Alex Jones’ Prison Planet radio program when former Pentagon arms salesman Donn de Grand-Pre, author of three books that allege 9/11 was an inside job, set the record straight, because he was the man who organized that conference. That 72-hour non-stop symposium by a group of military and civilian pilots concluded the flight crews of the four passenger airliners involved in the 9/11 tragedy had no control over their aircraft.

de Grand Pre, a retired Army colonel, is the author of “A Window on America,” “Confessions of an Arms Peddler” and his latest, “Barbarians Inside the Gates.” His thesis in the third book “is that the wars we have engaged in for whatever reasons since the end of World War II have not only been unconstitutionally waged, but have caused a net loss in political power. Each war was waged to divert our attention away from the true enemy within, and toward a contrived enemy outside our borders.”

de Grand-Pre explained that his third book actually has three parts: “OK, I’ve got three books out under the title, "Barbarians Inside the Gates." Book 1 was "The Serpent’s Sting," Book 2 is "The Viper’s Venom," Book 3, which just came out is “The Rattler’s Revenge.”

“And I’d like to quote from Book 2, which came out October of 2002. There is a very important paragraph there. It says,

"The trigger for the 911 activity was the imminent and unstoppable worldwide financial collapse which can only be prevented temporarily by a major war, perhaps to become known as World War III. To bring it off one more time, martial law will probably be imposed in the United States."

de Grand-Pre was the top U.S. arms dealer to the Middle East under the Ford and Carter administrations. What he saw caused him to leave government service and begin investigating the forces he saw warping our nation’s future.

In the interview with Jones, de Grand-Pre made several stunning assertions, among them:

• There were no hijackers on the 9/11 killer jets. And he said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Richard Myers) agrees with him.

In a previous interview that appeared on Michael Rivero’s What Really Happened website, de Grand-Pre had already outlined his conclusions about 9-11.

“The 9-11 activity and horrific destruction of US property and lives was intentionally meant to trigger a psychological and patriotic
reaction on the part of the US citizens, which is paving the way for “combined UN activity” (using the fig leaf of NATO) for striking key targets in both the Middle East/ South Asia and the Balkans. The goal continues to be ultimate destruction of all national sovereignty
and establishment of a global government.

“The trigger for the 9-11 activity was the imminent and unstoppable world-wide financial collapse, which can only be prevented
(temporarily) by a major war, perhaps to become known as WW 111. To bring it off (one more time), martial law will probably be
imposed in the United States.

http://www.johnkaminski.com/nohijackers.htm

To be very honest I suspect that Bush will do a deal with the UN anyway.

He needs to do something and just sending more troops will cost him votes. Doing a deal also lessens Kerry's accusations and saves him votes. The question is whether he'll try for a resolution saying nice things about the US giving control to Iraq or whether he'll go the whole hog and ask for a UN peacekeeping mission.

There are pros and cons for both.

Resolution of support:
pro
- leaves things as they are just gets UN backing
- leaves US 100% in control both militarily and politically
- gives perception that UN is involved
- may open the way for further countries to supply troops
con
- Spain and others have already said this is not enough for them to commit troops
- Iraqis on the ground will see no difference
- bit of a U-turn on stated policy
- likely to need more US troops

UN peace keeping mission
pro
- will gain troops from Spain, France, Russia, India and others
- Iraqis will see the change on the ground
- may be able to reduce US troop levels
con
- loss of some control. How much is the question. US would still be in charge militarily maybe not politically
- major U-turn
- not guarenteed to fix the problems


Paul.

Nazul, why don't you send that to the families of the people on those planes and in the buildings that were attacked. Your conspiracy theories are jutst stupid.

I have yet to see someone put forth a scenario where Kerry is able to bring in substantially more international help than Kerry.

I consider the UK the second most powerful military power on earth because of its ability to project force. Raw numbers of troops is meaningless if they cannot be deployed effectively. I don't recall seeing hundreds of thousands of Indian or Chinese troops deployed outside their borders on some UN sanctioned mission.

BTW, someone said how we should be trying to get Japanese help. a) The Japanese are already there and Some of their people have been kidknapped. UN approval is not going to bring any more Japanese troops.

a viable scenario in which kerry involves the international community(in only 3 acts!):

act 1) kerry's chooses a vice presidential candidate who isnt dick cheney (or any other signatory to the project for a new american century's blueprints for regime change in the middle east)

act 2) kerry appoints secretary of defense who isnt donald rumsfeld (or any former administration cabinet member who is a signatory to the aforementioned document)

act 3) kerry subscribes to several major newspapers and reads at least the front page as an adjunct to self-serving position papers and memos provided by his inner circle.

I'll tack on some more for you there Kingbee ...

Having traveled abroad and I think any American who has will agree with me ... the HATRED of George W. Bush and the United States unilaterialism policies are having an effect on the mind set of the non-US public. In every poll, every single one, the public does not support the united States. Much like the United States, there is genuine hatred of Bush and his policies

Here's a scenario: John Kerry is elected and immediately puts an end to unilaterialism. He brings in the UN to Iraq for the politics and NATO into Iraq for security. That provides the ligitimacy that this is a world issue, not a USA issue.That has been stated many many times in this post, but ... again, I think nothing will change some people's minds and they will find the arguments to make their first assumptions work.

Kerry won't bring in substantially more internation help.

He doesn't have to.

He has to stabilise the situation and turn Iraq into a Democracy with lower loss to US soldier lives. This does not require him to bring in substantial foreign troops.

By turning Iraq into a UN peace keeping mission as oppossed to a US occupation he can succeed in doing this with less troops and less loss of life.

More troops is not better.

paul.

Kingbee,

what you propose is magic. And like all magic it won't work. You can create the dragon, but the king won't turn up just like that. European countries do not suddenly gain military strength and send soldiers to Iraq because of the ritual you propose, or any other ritual for that matter. The claim that Europe would send soldiers if only there was more UN involvement stands in stark contrast to the fact that Europe can't do it, because Europe doesn't have the military needed.

The UK has and the UK is already involved. Other allies from Europe would be of little benefit to the US (or the UK) but come with strings attached. I cannot see how any military plan would work if the French have a say in it. Can you?


Solitair,

you are also proposing magic. You seem to believe that renaming the US occupation a UN peace keeping mission would somehow, by magic, make the whole task so much easier. It's not true. It would only make the task harder. Why so many believe that the UN are somehow more liked by Iraqis than the US, I do not know. But I have seen little evidence that this is so.

Reply #47 By: Solitair - 4/20/2004 2:27:26 AM The UN civilian offices in Bagdad were bombed and the UN civilian staff pulled out. This is very different from having blue capped peace keepers on the ground. The UN had no troops on the ground to support it's stafdf and the US troops obviously couldn't do the job. Bit rich to accuse the UN of abandoning Iraq over this.

Excuse me but the main reason for the limited coalition security for the UN compound was not their inability to do the job by the coalition, but a belief by the UN that they would not need any....lord knows no one would dare attack a UN compound...after all the 'help' they gave during the oil-for -food program....in fact the blame lies not with the coalition for the UN bitchout but squarely with the UN themselves seeing as they ignored a joint coalition study done for the UN of security threats they might have to deal with.....frankly the bombing was the shock the UN diplomats needed to bring them back to reality...it just remains to be seen if they understood the lesson

OUR NATION'S SCREWED UP SITUATION

Well, I don't really believe that I can ever change the minds of the radio talk-show fuck-ups, or even the average American who reads these words, and I'll tell you why. A few years ago I acquired a video produced by Mr. G. Edward (Ed) Griffin entitled Soviet Subversion of the Free World Press. In it, Mr. Griffin had a conversation with Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov, a former propagandist for the KGB who had defected to Canada from his post in India. Yuri, the son of a high-ranking Soviet officer, was a member of the propaganda arm of the KGB known as the Novasti press agency. Although the title of the video refers to only one part of Mr. Bezmenov's discussion, the last thirteen minutes of his interview (as much as I felt were necessary to get my points across) are extremely enlightening. Keep in mind that this was taped in 1984. Mr. Bezmenov's frank way of speaking and sense of humor was quite refreshing to hear, even though the content of his comments was disturbing and tragically true. I have inserted corrections or comments in brackets.

ED: Well, you spoke before about "ideological subversion" and that's a phrase that I'm afraid some Americans don't understand. When the Soviets use the phrase "ideological subversion" what do they mean by it?

YURI: Ideological subversion is the process which is legitimate and open. You can see it with your own eyes. All American mass media has to do is unplug their bananas from their ears, open up their eyes, and they can see it. It has nothing to do with espionage. I know that intelligence gathering looks more romantic. It sells more deodorants through advertising. That's probably why your Hollywood producers are so crazy about James Bond types of films. But in reality the main emphasis of the KGB is NOT in the area of intelligence at all. According to my opinion, and the opinions of many defectors of my caliber, only about 15% of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage as such. The other 85% is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion, active measures, or psychological warfare. What it basically means is: to change the perception of reality of every American that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.

Sound familiar? This is the problem we have now with the pro-Marxist, pro-Zionist, pro-Jewish, Israel-first policies of our government, the non-White immigrant invasion, racial tensions due to imagined racial equality, and everything else. The multi-racial, anti-White, anti-American society that is destroying this country is not opposed by most White Americans. We are not defending ourselves. And the Jewish War on Terror is not addressing the root cause of the problem - Israel.

YURI (continued): It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages. The first stage being "demoralization". It takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy exposed to the ideology of [their] enemy. In other words, Marxism-Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least 3 generation of American students without being challenged or counterbalanced by the basic values of Americanism; American patriotism. The result? The result you can see -- most of the people who graduated in the 60's, dropouts or half-baked intellectuals, are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, and educational systems. You are stuck with them. They are contaminated. They are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern [alluding to Pavlov]. You can not change their mind even if you expose them to authentic information. Even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still can not change the basic perception and the logic of behavior.

This should also sound familiar -- the religious belief in equality of the races, the belief in the Holocaust myth and reaction to historians who point out it's lies, the righteousness of our government's so-called War on Terror -- issues almost impossible to refute or counteract when you speak to the average American.

YURI (continued): In other words [for] these people the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. To rid society of these people you need another 15 or 20 years to educate a new generation of patriotically minded and common sense people who would be acting in favor and in the interests of United States society.

ED: And yet these people who have been programmed and as you say [are] in place and who are favorable to an opening with the Soviet concept - these are the very people who would be marked for extermination in this country?

YURI: Most of them, yes. Simply because the psychological shock when they will see in [the] future what the beautiful society of EQUALITY and social justice means in practice, obviously they will revolt. They will be very unhappy [and] frustrated people, and Marxist-Leninist regime does not tolerate these people. Obviously they will join the [ranks] of dissenters; dissidents. Unlike the present United States there will be no place for dissent in future Marxist-Leninist America. [Now] you can get popular like Daniel Elsburg and filthy rich like Jane Fonda for being a dissident [and] for criticizing your Pentagon. In [the] future these people will simply be [he makes a squishy noise] squashed like cockroaches for criticizing the government. Nobody is going to pay them nothing for their beautiful [and] noble ideas of EQUALITY. This they don't understand and it will be the greatest shock for them, of course.

Very interesting, eh? The result of the Jewish Marxist ideas of equality will result in some of the former believers to dissent when they realize what it is in practice. What he means on a higher level is that the Jews who HATE EVERYONE who is not Jewish are going to laugh in our faces when they're running the show. And the "useful idiots" who thought they were fighting for a good cause, racial equality, really a Jewish lie, will be handed their hat. Try walking through some African sections of Washington, D.C. at midnight some time, or have your kids sent to a majority non-White school and see how they like "equality in practice". Further, to show how much the Jewish elitists don't tolerate criticism even now, we're ALL under suspicion of being "domestic terrorists" if we're against the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Jewish War on Terror. Welcome to the Jewnited States of AmeriKwa. Where the Jews say, "When we want your opinion, we'll give it to you."

YURI (continued): The demoralization process in the United States is basically completed already for the last 25 years. Actually, it's over fulfilled because demoralization now reaches such areas where not even Comrade Andropov and all his experts would even dream of such tremendous success. Most of it is done by Americans to Americans thanks to lack of moral standards. As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him, even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents and pictures. ...he will refuse to believe it until he's going to receive a kick in his fat bottom. When a military [or Joint Terrorism Task Force] boot crashes his balls, then he will understand, but not before that. That's the tragedy of the situation of demoralization.

To put "demoralization" another way -- we don't know what's right or wrong anymore. White Americans, especially our biological leaders, White males, have been so pumped full of doubt that they don't know what to do. For example; we were wrong and guilty for owning slaves, we are wrong to be "racist" because Africans are our equals like ALL featherless bipeds, we were mean and cruel to our women by not allowing them to vote, or enter the military and professional occupations, we were too intolerant to homosexuals, and of course, we slaughtered millions of innocent, blameless, persecuted Jews JUST because of their religion in the so-called Holocaust. These guilt trips laid on us by the Jews have created not only self-doubt, demoralization, but even a self-loathing feeling in most of our White males. This is the demoralization he's referring to.

Demoralization also explains the behavior of the White police officers at the Seattle Riots a few years ago -- the cops who stood around with their hands in their pockets while stupid and violent Africans were attacking helpless Whites. Instead of doing the right thing, beating the brains out of the Blacks and arresting them, the cops were afraid to be accused of "racial profiling" or "racism". For more on demoralization and its ramifications, such as alienation, listen to Dr. Pierce's "As Ye Sow..." broadcast at http://www.natvan.com/internet-radio/ts/040701.mp3.

YURI (continued): The next stage is destabilization.... It only takes 2 to 5 years to destabilize a nation. This time what matters is essentials; economy, foreign relations, [and] defense systems. And you can see it quite clearly that in some... sensitive areas such as defense and [the] economy, the influence of Marxist-Leninist ideas in the United States is absolutely fantastic. I could never believe it 14 years ago when I landed in this part of the world that the process will go that fast.

Of course, I'm not sure how much Mr. Bezemenov knows about the Frankfurt School and other Jewish assaults that I'll get into shortly. If he did, it shouldn't have been too surprising. Recall upon reading his next remarks that this interview was done in 1984.

YURI (continued): Most of the American politicians, media, and educational system train another generation of people who think they are living at the peacetime. False. United States is in a state of war; undeclared, total war against the basic principles and foundations of this system. And the initiator of this war is not Comrade Andropov of course - it's the system. However, ridiculous it may sound, [it is] the world Communist system, or the world Communist conspiracy. Whether I scare some people or not, I don't give a hoot. If you're not scared by now, nothing can scare you.

And as many of us have pointed out many times before (including Victor Wolzek on VNN and Frank Weltner of the National Alliance) Communism is a Jewish system. Even people who are not racially aware are no longer ignorant about the fact that Marxist-Leninist ideology is prevalent in formerly White Western Christian civilizations around the world (http://www.sierratimes.com/03/09/10/tedlang.htm). Communism, the creation of the Jewish son of rabbis Karl Marx based on centuries old Jewish traditions, is a major threat still, yet the other dragon head of Jewish power, Zionism, is the leading threat to the United States today as the "free trade global capitalism communist slave world run by the Jews" project continues gaining ground on all fronts. Remember, to them, the ends justify the means. Any means that is useful to secure Jewish power is what they'll do. The ideology doesn't matter as much as long as it leads to their desired results.

ED: Okay, so what do we do? What is your recommendation to the American people?

YURI: Well, the immediate thing that comes to mind is, of course, there must be a very strong national effort to educate people in the spirit of REAL patriotism, number one. Number two, to explain [to] them the real danger of socialist, communist, welfare state, Big Brother government.... The moment at least part of [the] United States population is convinced that the danger is real, they have to FORCE their government, and I'm not talking about sending letters, signing petitions, and all this beautiful, noble activity, I'm talking about FORCING [the] United States government to stop aiding Communism....and it is very easy to do; no credits, no technology, no money, no political or diplomatic recognition...

Sounds like good advice for how REAL patriots should handle Israel, doesn't it? Now, let's stop and look at some more revealing information from Mr. Griffin.

Closing statement from Mr. Bezmenov's final remarks underscores our nation's problem nicely:

YURI: You don't have much time, especially if you are talking about young generation, there isn't much time left for convulsions, or some other such bullshit, to the beautiful disco music... I know it sounds unpleasant. I know Americans don't like to listen to things which are unpleasant, but I have defected not to tell you the stories about such idiocy as microfilm, James Bond type espionage. This is garbage... I have come to talk about survival. It's a question of survival of this system. You may ask me what's in it for me - survival, obviously. I am now in your boat. If we sink together, we will sink beautifully. There is no other place on this planet to defect to.

http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/2004b/33104haddenwaronignorance.htm

Andrew,
The EU countries actually have substantial military power. They just don't often deploy it abroard. France and Germany are currently building a rapid deployment 40k joint EU army as the basis for a wider EU army. This entire force could be deployed. The recent surveys of Iraqis showed that they have no confidence in US or UK forces and they are very skeptical as to whether they will ever leave. Their belief in the UN is much higher (though no where near as high as it could be). The UN is therefore seen by the Shia clergy as a better interim peace keeping force than the US occupation forces. The top Shia cleric will only talk to the UN and not the US. That's all the evidence you should need.


Couchman,
The UN compound was indeed lightly guarded partly as a belief that the UN was safe from attack. This matched up with Iraqi surveys showing that less than 2% felt attacks on the UN or humanitarian organisation were acceptabe. The fact remains that the US has been unable to maintain safety and the UN had NO troops to do such a job. The UN needs to be outside it's compound to do it's job and it can't do that so withdrew it's staff. Sending staff back into a highly guarded compound with thousands of US troops outside achieves nothing.

Paul.