Nira

Number 10 has said it made a mistake in failing to mention that a large part of its dossier on Iraq was copied from an outdated thesis on a US student's website.


You don't say? I bet it means that �we are sorry that we got caught�, but we have more lies up our sleeves.

MortalWombat

Nira, that link seems to be broken.

I think this is the correct one.

Clutch

Not having (yet) attained the general state of resignation with respect to moon, I'm having trouble following the reasoning of the responses to the OP.

Suppose I stipulate the following, arguendo:

(1) The United States won WWII single-handedly.

(2) The behaviour of US administrations in the 1800's is of less than immediate relevance to the current situation.

(3) All snide remarks directed at anyone voicing approval of revolutionary tactics without actually firing shots in anger are absolutely warranted, and are terribly clever besides.

Okay with everyone?

Now, then: What do the hardened sceptics make of the crucial recent fabrications employed to sway domestic and international opinion in favour of war? Fabrications bought or sold or both by the current president, or his father, or the elements common to both administrations.

That seemed rather obviously the point of the OP, but nobody has edged into the same area code as an actual answer, so far.

Five times burnt, sixth time trusting?

leonarde

about the UNSCOM departure in 1998. Let's get the
dope from Richard Butler, the head of UNSCOM. The
interview is from August of 1998. A taste:Above and much more of interview at:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middl...utler_8-6.html

But basically the situation in 1998 was: Iraqi stonewalling reached such levels that real inspection work had to be halted; only "monitoring" was going on. The US bombing didn't help things but Butler was clearly disgusted with the whole thing (Iraqi non-compliance).

Cheers!

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by moon
Gulf War II
(1) Saddam kicked inspectors out of Iraq in 1998. This has been repeated ad nauseum by every warmonger in town. In fact, the U.S. ordered Richard Butler, the head of UNSCOM, to withdraw inspectors prepatory to the U.S. bombing of Iraq in Operation Desert Fox.

As has been pointed out to you repeatedly, the inspectors left because they weren't being allowed to inspect.

(3) The administration has often claimed that there is a link between Saddam and al Qaeda, when in fact the two are bitter enemies.

Ever hear the expression "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"?

It turned out to have been a total fabrication by the firm of Hill and Knowlton, a P.R. firm in the employ of Kuwaitis.

Why blame the US?

The bombing of Libya in April, 1986 was justified, according to Reagan, as "self-defense," in retaliation for the bombing of a German dischoteque in which an American soldier was killed. No evidence for Libyan complicity in the bombing was ever presented, and German intelligence explicitely denied the link. The target, Qaddafi, was not killed, but dozens were, including his 18 month old daughter.

Note how after the bombing that Libya quit shooting at our planes? Before then every so often there would be a bit in the paper about some suicidal Libyan pilots taking shots at US planes in the med.

Roosevelt probably lied about the Pearl Harbour attack, but there is some controversy about that. What is known, however, is that Truman lied about the necessity of bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which left some 140,000 civilians dead.

You've asserted this many times but never proven it.

theyeti

If you're referring to the battle of Moscow, which is appears you are, then you're wrong. The Germans made huge advances in the south in the summer of '42, including the capture of much of the oil-rich Caucases. In fact, the battle of Moscow, while it was a huge victory for the Red Army, had the unforutnate effect of emboldening Stalin, such that he thought that the initiative was now in the hands of Russia. A subsequent Russian offensive at Kharkov led to a disasterous encirclement of a magnitude equal to those of the war's early days, and the Red Army generals, finally given a free hand by Stalin, decided to keep retreating as the Germans pushed forward. It wasn't until the battle of Stalingrad that the Germans were turned back, and by that time the US had been in the war for over a year, and was well on its way to defeating the Germans in N. Africa. This meant that the Germans lost two armies at the same time.

The Westren allies were mostly responsible for the destruction of the Lufftwaffe, as they were able to directly attack German air fields. There was also the bombing campaign, both strategic and area wide. And the Germans put a large amount of effort into building the Atlantic Wall, and in defending the West against a possible allied invasion. It's not clear that Russia could have won the war without the Westren allies.

theyeti

theyeti

While I'm sure theyetis did help, the Persian Corridor, the Far East route, and the Black Sea were probably more significant. And also, as you note, the allies did send supplies through the Arctic as well, although this was less than 3% of the total. Here's a break-down of how much supply was getting through by which routes:



* "Other" includes the Soviet Artic and Black Sea Routes._

The total tonnage that the US sent to the USSR rivals what it sent to Europe from Normandy to the end of the war.

One quick thing I should have mentioned in my last post. Had the Westren allies not stopped the Germans in N. Africa, Germany could have taken the Middle East, and not only had access to its oil, but also have threatened Russia's southren flank. So it's kind of hard to believe that the USSR fought this war alone and was unaffected by what the Westren allies did.

theyeti

Amen-Moses

Originally posted by theyeti
If you're referring to the battle of Moscow, which is appears you are, then you're wrong. The Germans made huge advances in the south in the summer of '42, including the capture of much of the oil-rich Caucases. In fact, the battle of Moscow, while it was a huge victory for the Red Army, had the unforutnate effect of emboldening Stalin, such that he thought that the initiative was now in the hands of Russia. A subsequent Russian offensive at Kharkov led to a disasterous encirclement of a magnitude equal to those of the war's early days, and the Red Army generals, finally given a free hand by Stalin, decided to keep retreating as the Germans pushed forward. It wasn't until the battle of Stalingrad that the Germans were turned back, and by that time the US had been in the war for over a year, and was well on its way to defeating the Germans in N. Africa. This meant that the Germans lost two armies at the same time.

North Africa was over before the US entered the arena, in fact we had to rescue the US forces from a German counter attack on their first foray! In Russia itself the German advance was halted
by the supposed winter break of 42 but unfortunately for the German forces the Russians decided not to bother with a break at all! The only victory after that for German forces was the ill conceived taking of the Crimea (which Stalin was using as a side line for the main counter attacks) in early 43 which resulted in 750,000 German and Romanian troops being stranded with no supply lines. The subsequent Russian attack on the Crimea was one of the best strategic advances of the war and was over in days rather than the several months it took German forces to take the position in the first place.

The Westren allies were mostly responsible for the destruction of the Lufftwaffe, as they were able to directly attack German air fields. There was also the bombing campaign, both strategic and area wide. And the Germans put a large amount of effort into building the Atlantic Wall, and in defending the West against a possible allied invasion. It's not clear that Russia could have won the war without the Westren allies.

Hey I agree, without the 1000 bomber raids carried out in 42 by British, Canadian (25% of the forces), Australian, New Zealanders, Polish and South Africans (sorry if I missed any of our allies out) it is entirely possible that the new armour so desparately needed on the eastern front would have been produced in enough numbers to make a difference (the T34 was a huge advance as far as allied armour was concerned but the new Tigers were significantly better but in short supply).

Western allied forces did very little to help out the Eastern front directly though, the only help we could provide was in terms of technology, i.e by sending Merlin Engines to Russia that they were able to copy in massive quantities so that by early 43 they had air superiority over much of the front.

The first US raids in sufficient numbers (i.e the daytime 1000 bomber raids to compliment the nightime commonwealth ones) commenced in May 43, which was after the German forces on the Eastern front were already in retreat.

Heres a question for you, what nationality were the top 10 allied air aces of WWII? Correct they were Russian! Mind you they don't even figure in the top 100 of the entire war, all 100 places go to German pilots!

The top non Russian air ace was Polish and the next is a toss up between an American, Canadian and a Brit (web sources from each country all claim their guy the top, go figure. The next in the list is South African then it is a frenzy of names from lot's of diferent countries. (US figures tend to be conflated by those pilots shooting down suicide pilots, a bit unfair as they didn't shoot back! And some British figures are inflated by including V1 kills which is unfair for similar reasons but were at least harder to hit.

Amen-Moses

Amen-Moses

Noone said they were alone but even the figures you gave show that prior to 1944 (a year after the Germans were in retreat) the supplies getting through were paltry compared to those being produced in Russia itself (and its satellites btw).

The Black sea route is a good example, how were these supplies getting through prior to 1943? They weren't. Turkey was on the axis side and Greece was held by the Germans so nothing got through into the Black Sea, some supplies managed to get through via Iran and Afghanistan but nowhere near enough to make a real difference.

In the closing stages I agree that the supplies made a significant difference to the speed by which the Russian advance could progress and the destruction of German industry (although nowhere near as significant as was claimed at the time) did slow the re-supply of the Eastern front somewhat but as far as direct military action was concerned the Russians did it all by themselves.

Doesn't it show up in the figures I gave? 50,000 T34s were produced by Russia up to 1945 and those are just the figures for one Tank of many types (although by far the most numerous), on top of which you have to add the tens of thousands of aircraft, trucks, artillery pieces, rocket launchers and countless other Russian militray hardware, even if we provided a large percentage of the steel and other materials for their production it was still the Russian people who built the damn machinery!

In comparison the US, which was not under attack and had it's entire industrial base intact produced about the same amount of hardware in the same period of time.

On top of all this by late 1944 Russia had replaced its depleted Eastern armies to such a level that when they started to suggest opening a second front on Japan the US cringed and resorted to Atomic bombs rather that let that occur!

Amen-Moses

Vorkosigan

Heres a question for you, what nationality are the top 10 allied air aces of WWII? Correct they were Russian! Mind you they don't even figure in the top 100 of the entire war, all 100 places go to German pilots!

Yes, the Russian Air Force was so great, the Finns hammered it for four years with Brewster Buffaloes, an aircraft that was out-of-date in 1941 but still scoring kills against the Russians in 1944. The leading Russian ace had about 62 kills. The leading Finnish ace had 94, 34 in the Buffalo. The #2 Finnish ace had 39 of his 75 kills in the Buffalo.

• During its combat career, the B-239 is credited with 496 kills, against 19 losses, for a victory ratio of 26 to 1. Finnish air force records credit 41 kills to a single B-239 before it was shot down. Is there any other fighter aircraft in history which has a record as good as this? http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/f2a_3.html

One need only look at the tremendous figures piled up on the East Front by German aces like Hartman and Barkhorn. The two of them piled up as more kills than the top ten Russian aces combined.

Anyway, this is tangential.

Vorkosigan