And how many countries opposed? Not 192-45. Most would have NO OPINION.

And since when, ever in history, has the reason to war been decided by polling all the countries of the world, and then counting hands? Never.

This whole debate started with the statement that only 2 countries were on one side of a debate which is, incredibly wrong. There are 45 on one side and how many on the other? France, Germany, China, Russia? How many? Probably a LOT less than 45.

FYI...just very recently the Chinese admitted that their military is not any match for the US military...they also stated that they intended to change this scenario...but it will take them a couple of decades or more...assuming that they can ever become a military match.

yeah.. technologicly they would be fucked... but as a matter of man power is what i mean

How many soldiers they can actually field that are adequately supplied...I do not know. I do know that the army they fielded in the Korean conflict...were not all armed...some went into battle unarmed...and had to wait for an armed comrade to fall.

I do know that the US put 16 million people into uniform during the 2nd World War with less that half of our current population and a fraction of the current GNP. I suspect that...if push comes to shove...the US can still field and adequately supply the largest Army on the earth regardless of another countries population.

Grieving families...grieve...but their grief does not have any correlation to the current losses being militarily insignificant.

i understand in war people have to die. thats normally a givien and we should all be happy there not the same numbers as wars in the past..

Ok... but the point is why are those losses being incured in the first place...

The mission in Iraq is multiple...important (in my opinion)...and will suceed if the American people do not withdraw their support...but to accomplish the mission will be long term (a decade or more in my opinion)...and I fear the American people will withdraw their support

Very well put. While this may not be another Viet Nam (YET), the problem with those that support the war is that they can't see the big picture (while they preach to those who oppose it to WAIT and you'll see it will get better).

There will be another "benevolent dictator" who eventually will come to power (with the support of the US) and rule. And of course, we will probably arm him to the teeth, until one day, he decides he'll take after someone else with his army.

No wait..that's what happened with Saddam!!

http://www.ibillsucks.info/files/coalition_large.gif

Revealing, no?

The bottom line is that 44 other nations' prime ministers/presidents/dictators said "We support the U.S. in the Iraqi war." They may have even sent a few items also.

BIG DEAL! The bottom line is that there were ONLY TWO countries who found Iraq to pose such a big threat to world peace that they comitted a large amount of troops to the war effort.

Now THAT is what is most important..nations that are FIGHTING, not giving lip service support about the war.

Absolute BS. Not a word of truth.

Again, I agree with you whole heartedly.

This war is NOT about a military victory. It is about having a SECURE democracy flourishing in Iraq with the LEAST amount of casualties.

To say 800 plus deaths is "no more than an irritant" is to greatly demean the death of each American, or coalition soldier. Not to mention the THOUSANDS of innocent Iraqis that have died.

who said we won the war? everything is fucked up...

:1orglaugh Wow..I guess you PROVED me wrong with those 2 sentences!

I mean, it's not like the ENTIRE middle east is flourishing with repressive regimes and has a history of dictatorial rule does it??

You were dismissed several years ago.

Fact...there are but a relatively small number of nations on this earth that have the ability to do much more than pay "lip service" and the US usually bears the burden...troop wise and expense wise. Study and maybe you will learn...not.

You are right..and those countries with the exception of Britain have opposed the war! :1orglaugh

I appreciate that you are laughing at these countries...for being on the wrong side of history. You finally got something right. I am marking the date down. In the long run they will pay a much heavier price than what the US is currently paying.

:sleep

No we can defeat them, we are just doing it wrong :glugglug

Sometimes you are just out the window.
I'm laughing at YOU tard.

You said "you are right" (meaning me) then you laughed at the countries that opposed the war. Hmm...you have extreme difficulty comprehending what you read and now you have a problem with posting what you mean??

:1orglaugh Go to your room and pop some more pills.
:1orglaugh

To theking & Colin and everyone who can see straight, :thumbsup

Here's a run down of the same arguments, over and over again.

#1 - US is alone in this

- US invaded Iraq unilaterally!
- No, there were 40+ countries, almost 25,000 non-US soldiers...
- Ok, but those countries weren't France or Germany or Russia, so they don't count!

#2 - Bush lied about WMD

- Bush lied and said that Iraq had WMD
Then so did Clinton, Kerry, Gore, France, Germany, and the UN.
- No, they were given bad intelligence, or the evil Bush mastermind tricked them!

#3 - The terrorist connection
-The US lied and said Iraq was linked to terrorism!
- Yes, Saddam openly financially supported terrorist organizations...
- Well yeah, but they said they were linked to Al-Quaeda!
Yes, Iraq provided support and haven for Al-Zarqawi, an Al-quaeda senior.
- No, he doesn't count for some reason. The U.S. said Iraq was with Usama!
Did we? I don't remember us saying that to the UN

The arguments always start the same, as you prove each point they dig themselves further and further.


For anyone interested, Kerry 'telling lies' for 45 minutes in 2002 on why Iraq is a threat and he's supporting the president (CSPAN)

Neither do domestic US murder rates.

thats the thing though.. there was almost no planning on what would happen from the moment the statue was toppled. It's an incredibly obvious blunder.. that you would hope an organization the size of the US army would be able to avoid.. nothing about them being perfect.. just semi-competent.. what you had was a drastically low amount of invading troops, which was fine as a technologically advanced crushing force.. but absolutely hopeless at the "oh shit, the regimes gone - we don't even have half the troops we need to guard Saddam's weapon dumps" part.. Where you now have soldiers dying because the army wasn't thinking far enough ahead to stop these millions of round of amunition, guns and shells falling into guerilla hands.

Too much blind faith in the transformation doctrine on a micro level.

tell me how that will happen oh wise one

will terrorists target France for NOT invading Iraq or what

mostly pissant countries and with special deals or dependant on US foreign aid so they had to support the action. How many billions was the US giving to Turkey to "provide basing rights" again?
I honestly don't know how you can recite this knowing full well most of those countries didn't do it out of any moral obligation but were paid off, under threat, dependant or as a bargaining tool with the US.

unfortunately for anyone that can see through the BS, is that excepting Japan, Germany and France alone - not to mention Russia and China are more important that those 35 countries that "helped out" put together.


http://www.subnovastudios.com/misc/iraqcontribution.gif

So the same old story. You still can't admit that the US didn't act alone, and you just play down the participation of other countries. Isn't that the same arrogance many anti-US people complain about?

So are you saying that a war action is only "justified" or "supported" if Japan, Germany, France, Russia and China agree? What planet have you been living on?

Fact is we still had 40+ countries helping us against Iraq's ZERO. You can scream all you want about the "status" of Non-US allies, but they still contributed over 25,000 troops.

23% of the countries of the world were publicly committed to the Coalition at the beginning of the war including direct military participation, logistical and intelligence support, specialized chemical/biological response teams, over-flight rights, humanitarian and reconstruction aid, to political support.

What part of 23% is unilateral???

If your argument is that it's not ENOUGH support, fine. Then what is?

All right children - Play nice or you'll get a time out.

First: DON'T INSULT AL GORE. He invented the Internet.

800 US deaths in a war involving over a million troops is a very low number. Don't quote my numbers here, but I think the US lost 50,000 men in Vietnam. In WWII Mother Russia lost over a million men. That kind of puts it all into perspective. An American life lost is a huge loss, but when comparing numbers from prior wars it's a very small number. This is obviously not Vietnam.

There is no such thing as an "illegal" war. In simple terms, war is the entension of politics by other means. There is no court of law that can say a "war is illegal". It is proper to say that there was no "justification" for war; But if this is the case then there obvously wasn't any justification for Iraq invading Kuwait (and raping Kuwait and setting fire to the oil wells).

WMD aside, this war is still part of the 1991 Gulf war. We never really stopped shooting. We enforced the UN no fly zone, they shot missiles at our multi million dollar war planes, and we bombed them back.

The UN says is acting as if it didn't support this. The UN knew Iraq was a thorn in everyone's side, and they wanted to be done with it. They knew the US was going in.

Illegal war my ass. They surrended in 1991, aggreed to the terms, and them broke everyone one of them for over a ten year period. There is no doubt in my mind that we are doing the right thing here.

Those are old figures from before the war or at the start it was a "pledge" figure it's not even a quarter of that.. as of May of this year the total UK troop commitment was 8400. It's still not a token amount though. Even against the US forces of fifteen times that. Most other countries were though.. besides one or two stand outs at the couple or several thousand level it's a hodge podge of 100 troops here, 200 de-miners there, 100 police here..

The US is currently making a big deal about Austarlia withdrawng it's current 250 troops from air traffic ontrol and other non-action duties as if the Iraqi's would miss 250 aussies helping out the US in contracter roles.

250 professionals can very well be missed and I assume they are professionals. Let me give you a factual senario...a 12 man Army Special Forces team...is qualified to train...and command 800 local combat personell. So you can see that to replace 250 Army Special Forces personell could reduce your force multiplier by 16,000 combatants.

You are an uneducated idiotic parrot!

research about the no fly zone ( or even read if you can a few posts higher ) and you will find out that it newver was a UN measure.

It was US/UK using their multi million $$$ planes ( lol ) to attack Irak.

Read, comprehend and stop being a parrot!

:2 cents:

Normally I would agree if these were the special forces.. but they are not some of them are literally the guys waving the pingpong bats around on aircraft carriers.

The rest that are guarding officials will be replaced with contractors if they are withdrawn.

No. Just look up Operation Telic.

The British Defence Secretary outlined on 7 and 20 January, and 6 February the deployment of substantial maritime, land and air packages to provide a broad range of military capabilities for potential operations against Iraq. Overall, some 45,000 personnel are involved.

Naval Task Group 2003, which had long been planned to deploy via the Mediterranean and Gulf en route to the Far East for participation in Exercise Flying Fish, was augmented to provide a significant maritime and amphibious capability. The Task Group comprises:

* HMS Ark Royal (aircraft carrier)
* HMS Ocean (helicopter carrier)
* HMS Liverpool (Type 42 destroyer)
* HMS Edinburgh (Type 42 destroyer)
* HMS York (Type 42 destroyer)
* HMS Marlborough (Type 23 frigate)
* HMS Richmond (Type 23 frigate)
* HMS Grimsby (mine-hunter)
* HMS Ledbury (mine-hunter)
* RFA Argus (hospital ship)
* RFA Sir Tristram
* RFA Sir Galahad
* RFA Sir Percivale
* RFA Fort Victoria
* RFA Fort Rosalie
* RFA Fort Austin
* RFA Orangeleaf
* HMS Splendid

The amphibious force numbered some 4,000 and included:

* HQ 3 Commando Brigade
* 40 Commando Royal Marines
* 42 Commando Royal Marines
* Helicopter air groups aboard Ark Royal and Ocean

Some 14 other Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels have also involved in the operation, including:

* HMS Chatham (Type 22 frigate)
* HMS Turbulent
* HMS Brocklesby (mine-hunter)
* HMS Blyth (mine-hunter)
* HMS Bangor (mine-hunter)
* HMS Ramsey (mine-hunter)
* HMS Shoreham (mine-hunter)
* HMS Sandown (mine-hunter)
* HMS Roebuck (survey ship)
* RFA Sir Bedivere
* RFA Bayleaf
* RFA Brambleleaf
* RFA Grey Rover
* RFA Diligence
* RFA Sea Crusader

The land force numbers some 26,000. The primary units deployed in whole or in part include:

1(UK) Armoured Division:

* Headquarters and 1 Armoured Division Signal Regiment
* 30 Signal Regiment (strategic communications)
* The Queen's Dragoon Guards (reconnaissance)
* 1st Battalion The Duke of Wellington's Regiment (additional infantry capability)
* 28 Engineer Regiment
* 1 General Support Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps
* 2 Close Support Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps
* 2nd Battalion, Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers
* 1 Close Support Medical Regiment
* 5 General Support Medical Regiment
* 1 Regiment, Royal Military Police
* plus elements from various units including:
o 33 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment
o 30 Signal Regiment
o 32 Regiment Royal Artillery (Phoenix UAVs)

7th Armoured Brigade:

* Headquarters and Signal Squadron
* Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (Challenger 2 tanks)
* 2nd Royal Tank Regiment (Challenger 2 tanks)
* 1st Battalion The Black Watch (Warrior infantry fighting vehicles)
* 1st Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (Warrior infantry fighting vehicles)
* 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery (AS90 self-propelled guns)
* 32 Armoured Engineer Regiment
* plus elements from various units including:
o Queen's Royal Lancers (Challenger 2 tanks)
o 1st Battalion Irish Guards (Warrior infantry fighting vehicles)
o 1st Battalion The Light Infantry (Warrior infantry fighting vehicles) (withdrawal announced 30 April)
o 26 Regiment Royal Artillery
o 38 Engineer Regiment

16 Air Assault Brigade:

* Headquarters and Signal Squadron
* 1st Battalion The Royal Irish Regiment
* 1st Battalion The Parachute Regiment
* 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment
* 7 (Para) Regiment Royal Horse Artillery (105mm Light Guns)
* 23 Engineer Regiment
* Household Cavalry Regiment (1 x armoured reconnaissance squadron)
* 3rd Regiment Army Air Corps (Lynx & Gazelle helicopters)
* 7 Air Assault Battalion, Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers
* 13 Air Assault Support Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps
* 16 Close Support Medical Regiment
* 156 Provost Company RMP

102 Logistics Brigade:

* Headquarters
* 2 Signal Regiment
* 36 Engineer Regiment
* 33 Field Hospital
* 34 Field Hospital
* 202 Field Hospital (Volunteer)
* 4 General Support Medical Regiment
* 3 Battalion, Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers
* 6 Supply Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps
* 7 Transport Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps
* 17 Port & Maritime Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps
* 23 Pioneer Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps
* 24 Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps
* 5 Regiment, Royal Military Police
* specialist Royal Engineer teams
* airfield engineer support units from 12 Engineer Brigade
* elements from 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment
* elements from additional Royal Logistic Corps Regiments

The air component deployed on Operation Telic numbers about 100 fixed-wing aircraft and 27 support helicopters, supported by some 7,000 personnel. Aircraft types involved include:

* Sentry AEW1 command & control aircraft (from 8 and 23 Sqns)
* Tornado GR4 bomber/reconnaissance aircraft (from 2, 9, 12, 31 and 617 Sqns)
* Jaguar GR3 attack/reconnaissance aircraft (from 6, 41 and 54 Sqns)
* Harrier GR7 attack aircraft (from 1, 3 and 4 Sqns)
* Tornado F3 air defence aircraft (from 43 and 111 Sqns)
* VC-10 tanker aircraft (from 10 and 101 Sqns)
* Tristar tanker aircraft (from 216 Sqn)
* C-17 transport aircraft (from 99 Sqn)
* Hercules transport aircraft (from 24, 30, 47 and 70 Sqns)
* Nimrod aircraft (from 51, 120, 201 and 206 Sqn)
* Canberra PR9 reconnaissance aircraft (from 39 (1PRU) Sqn)
* Chinook helicopters (from 7, 18 and 27 Sqns)
* Puma helicopters (from 33 Sqn)

RAF Regiment units provide ground defence for the force. The Army's 21 Signal Regiment provides communications support for the Joint Helicopter Force.

SOURCE:
http://www.operations.mod.uk/telic/forces_archive.htm

well um.. we're the ones that invaded and took over their country.. i think it's safe to say we're winning the pointless war