^ Totally agree.

As if anybody in Basra or Baghdad were responsible for America's ills.

But "Typewriters, baby! Typewriters!" He got that one right.

Friedman's a weird bird.

He goes from an incredibly thoughtful person when talking about climate change or economics, but then he also can be one of the biggest assholes on the planet, as in the runup to the invasion of Iraq.

The blogosphere has been measuring 6-month periods of the US occupying Iraq as a "Friedman unit", due to him telling us every six months or so, that we're going to only need another six months in Iraq to "turn it around" etc.

And his worst quote must be the infamous "suck on this".

In an interview with Charlie Rose in 2003, Friedman said:

"What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, um and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand?" You don't think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we're just gonna to let it grow? Well, Suck. On. This."

>> ^Farhad2000:
Camp Virginia is to the North of Kuwait City in an area called Jahra, I guess it was the staging ground and crossing point for the maneuver warfare plan of General Mattis and coalition forces because it's the closest point to entry into Basra, Nassariya and the oil wells.
Camp Arifijan is to the South of Kuwait City, near the Ali Al Salem airbase and serves as a logistics base, motor pool, helicopter support base and repair base for any elements in the Southwest Asian Theater.
Camp Victory is located near the Baghdad International Airport, this is where most of USO come through, also features a Subway and Pizza Hut.
I wonder where they do deployments now. Makes sense to just shuttle people into Baghdad but I don't think that is possible logistically.



Hmm.. maybe it wasn't camp Victory. I was in Kuwait both before and after.

[edit] I'm pretty sure it was. I see Victory closed in 2006. I was there in 2005.

Camp Virginia is to the North of Kuwait City in an area called Jahra, I guess it was the staging ground and crossing point for the maneuver warfare plan of General Mattis and coalition forces because it's the closest point to entry into Basra, Nassariya and the oil wells.

Camp Arifijan is to the South of Kuwait City, near the Ali Al Salem airbase and serves as a logistics base, motor pool, helicopter support base and repair base for any elements in the Southwest Asian Theater.

Camp Victory is located near the Baghdad International Airport, this is where most of USO come through, also features a Subway and Pizza Hut.

I wonder where they do deployments now. Makes sense to just shuttle people into Baghdad but I don't think that is possible logistically.

I have a friend from Basra, whose parents won't let him come home to visit them because they're afraid he'll be killed.

It doesn't matter if the surge is working or not, because we don't care about reconstruction. We only work with destruction and mayhem. More troops, but still no planning. This war was started on an aggressive stance, with no foresight as to the period after toppling Saddam. Sure, they had a vote and they have a President, but do they have local governments to keep order and begin rebuilding what they've lost? No. They have rival sectarian militias who Saddam kept at bay. Now they have civil war.

Baghdad has the Green Zone to protect American diplomats, while the rest of the city has nothing but a broken sewer that is left untreated, and hopelessness.

We treat our POWs with torture; what surprises us about the way we ignore the struggling of the average Iraqi citizen?

I have a friend who is from Basra, Iraq, and when I saw those pictures I imagined him being tortured. It was terrible to think that his countrymen are being treated in such a way. And I don't care if they're guilty or not. I wouldn't want to see Osama bin Laden treated that way, because America is not supposed to sink to that level. That is the key point in this argument; the American Dream does not involve despicable practices such as waterboarding, forced masturbation, standing for hours on end, attacks by dogs, sleep deprivation, unending noise pollution, or any other catastrophic treatment of detainees.

If we treated our prison inmates this way, they would sue the government and win, because they have rights as American citizens. So what kind of rights do non-citizens, even supposed "enemy combatants" have? Sure, they're not U.S. citizens, but aren't they humans, nonetheless? Isn't it a round world we live on? Didn't we make up these invisible borders long ago?

Nothing gives anybody the right to torture anybody. Not even the guise of democracy in action. If they hate us for our freedom, for our differences, then why are we starting to look like them?

These incidents involving American troops are far too common for the fault to be evenly split down the middle in all cases.

During the first Gulf War I saw some footage of a spotter calling in an air strike on what was obviously (even through the camera) a Bradley and not a BMP (as the spotter called it). Plane came down and killed 9 American soldiers in about a quarter of a second, pilot (over the radio), "I believe that was a friendly, over." Spotter (to camera crew), "Damn I was afraid of that".

3/4ths of American combat casualties in the first Gulf War were from friendly fire.

I visited with the 17/21st Lancers in England not long after Gulf war I, some of the Scorpion crews told us a story about how when their Colonel met up with his American counterpart in the neighbouring regiment the US Colonel looked at the Scorpion and said, "What the hell kind of Bradley is that?"

In the 2nd Gulf war the British forces refused to serve alongside American troops, which is why they had their own separate domain (Basra and surrounding area).

In my experience working with US soldiers they are barely literate, under educated, lazy and incompetent. I have no doubt that most or all of the blame in most of these cases lies with the American troops because of an overreaction to the pathetic hit ratio of ground forces in Vietnam (1 confirmed hit per million rounds expended for small arms). Now troops are trained to shoot before they think and this is the consequence.

Ok, its been confirmed. VideoSift users are smarter than LiveLeak's. Here it is.

This incident definatley took place in Iraq, in Basra. According to the BBC the pilot of the A10 even came around for a second attack run. Lance-Corporal Matthew Richard "Matty" Hull was in the turret of his tank when it was hit, and the ammunition storage chamber burst into flames and the ammo went off, as well as the diesel fuel. The pilot of the A10 had over 25 years experience flying for the air force. How he didn't see the Union Jack painted on the tank through his optics, I don't know, but apparently, the forward observer attached to British forces told the pilots that there were no friendlies in the area. So once again, it looks as though fault lies on both side.

Digging through related BBC reports, I have found that the only other A10 attack was in Iraq back in '91. So this was definitely NOT Afghanistan.

"You liberal pussy quitters make me sick. You are incapable of looking past your own fucked up nose at the goal. Give up!"

Unbeleivable.

Noone is horrified by this quagmire because it's "so tough". We are embarassed and, frankly, pissed-off because it is illegal, immoral, and an enormous lie that has lead to deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, drained our national treasure, lit the middle east on fire, and shredded our constitution in the process.

It will take generations to correct the grotesque path that your elected officials have taken the entire world on, all so meatheads like "davido53" can see dead Iraqi children on their teevee's.

David: If you love killing Iraqi kids so much, why are you on VideoSift instead of in Basra?

Petreus also publically admitted (in testimony to US foreign relations committe) that the attack was not cleared by, or endorsed by US forces. He in fact did not even know that the Iraqi military were going to attack Basra until the moment it occurred. This is nothing more than continued sectarian infighting endorsed by the so-called Iraqi government.

The attack on Basra made Sadr stronger and further increased sectarian tensions. The Iraqi army was unsuccessful. They failed in their attempt. Now Sadr and his militia will be even more vigilant and more likely to react violently to small incursions by Malaki and his ilk in Sadr's so-called territory.

Yes militants were killed. But so were women and children. Even more were injured. Such facts oh-so conveniently omitted from US media.

McCain is either senile or he is a very bad liar.

Vote McCain. Vote ignorance.