Re-writing History

[Affentitten]

There was a vehicle that had a long-expired Texas registration sticker on it. Half the Middle East drives vehicles that are 5th and 6th hand importations and re-births. So not remotely unfeasible.

The al-Qaeda 'camps' and HQ's were uncovered much later after the invasion in places like Fallujah. ie. the insurgency was in full swing.

[abneo3sierra]

I'm going to call bull on that. What Ansar al Islam camps were there were outside the power of Saddam in Kurdish controlled areas. The latter were hostile to them too btw but were only in a position to do something about it in 2003. And FWIW Ansar al Islam was not affiliated with AQ.

As far as I know there has never been any link with AQ and Iraq that stood up to any scrutiny. Which is probably why this too vanished from the news.

And this too seems rather suspect. To b fair it is the first I've heard of it. to what end would there be car bombs in Iraq using Texas plates?

Our unit came up through Kuwait and into western Iraq, not in Kurdish areas. I did not get the info "from the news", got it in person...what I said, was it had been"on the news",was reported on because there were reporters embedded with us from Fox, and from CBS, both reported it, both networks ran the story briefly,then dropped it.

As for the Texas registration..anyone familiar with the US knows that the Texas/Mexico border is easy enough to get across, but I would be guessing only if I were to imply that was the intent. Intent or not,however, they were found by units of the 3rd Infantry Division, and also reported on, but not very much, this story ending after the first day.

Bush's administration had, as it's major flaw, the refusal to talk about things like this,instead trying to bury everything in secrecy. Now I am not sure what the story was with regards to either of these disappearing from news, they could not have been secret, because nobody who was involved was ever told to keep it as such,and the imbedded reporters did run the story initially in both cases.

[abneo3sierra]

There was a vehicle that had a long-expired Texas registration sticker on it. Half the Middle East drives vehicles that are 5th and 6th hand importations and re-births. So not remotely unfeasible.

The al-Qaeda 'camps' and HQ's were uncovered much later after the invasion in places like Fallujah. ie. the insurgency was in full swing.

The camps in the western desert were overrun and uncovered in the initial charge. "Al Qaeda in Iraq" came later, as an organization.

As to the registration, that is also possible, as mentioned, there is really no way to know what it's intent was. However, there were training manuals on infiltrating the US southern border, etc, which, when taken as pieces of a picture,instead of an entire picture themselves, this can be analyzed as one possible "worst case" situation.

[Affentitten]

The camps in the western desert were overrun and uncovered in the initial charge. "Al Qaeda in Iraq" came later, as an organization.

As to the registration, that is also possible, as mentioned, there is really no way to know what it's intent was. However, there were training manuals on infiltrating the US southern border, etc, which, when taken as pieces of a picture,instead of an entire picture themselves, this can be analyzed as one possible "worst case" situation.

Sure it came later. Because it wasn't there at first. The Ansar- al-Islam camps certainly were.

The intent of the Texas car bomb? I'd say it was to blow up and kill people. In Iraq. But you mentioned it because you were trying to create some misty conspiracy about maybe smuggling it into Texas or something. A plan worthy of Baldric.

[abneo3sierra]

Sure it came later. Because it wasn't there at first. The Ansar- al-Islam camps certainly were.

The intent of the Texas car bomb? I'd say it was to blow up and kill people. In Iraq. But you mentioned it because you were trying to create some misty conspiracy about maybe smuggling it into Texas or something. A plan worthy of Baldric.

The Ansar al Islam camps were/are different than the al Qaeda camps, I know this, I know that you know this, but you are trying to make it appear that they were somehow "confused" for each other, to create a causus belli. They were not. Both groups use different wording,different lettering, different everything, and the camps we overran in the beginning were al Qaeda, not Ansar al Islam.

Ansar al Islam was based along the northern Iraq/Iran border, where our units were far to the west and south of that, and the bases/camps overrun were in the first hours of the sweep north, quite far from their territory as well.

I was not trying to create a misty conspiracy here, I mentioned it because that was, to the front line troops, and to the intelligence units who followed, the most likely explanation.

edit: Also, as a side note...you yourself said only one was found, yet then you said it is common,that most vehicles have foreign registrations. While these two contradict each other..if so common,why only one found with these plates? Also, not sure where you heard that is common, as it is actually somewhat rare, being, as you said, only one having been found, in all of Iraq, at one of these camps. If you were a terrorist, who wanted a vehicle to use as a bomb, you would want that vehicle to "blend in" and Texas vehicle tags, in Iraq, would NOT blend in.

[dieseltaylor]

Affy - Baldrick none of this fancy Baldric stuff.

Given the US seemed badly to misjudge what would happen when the Iraqui administration was disbanded, apparently had no plan for after success, failed to find any WMD, and any proof beforehand, it does strike me as entirely possible that ID'ing of enemy camps was either expedient or faulty.

I am not suggesting that the GI's were involved in anything shady. What I do find bizarre is why Texas plates seemed important. Stolen cars from the UK drive around Albania even now on UK plates.

As for the invasion - if you look at what the UK has been uncovering for reasons to go for war it appears Bair was/is a dupe or simply duplicitous. He lied to his Cabinet and he lied to Parliament. There was doctoring of everything to make it look like we had to go and invade. The hounding to death of an UK Iraqui expert who spoke out about it secretly to the BBC.

A man who has amassed a £15million fortune after leaving office. Hmmm. Those speaking tours are so lucrative. A fine example of self-interest.

[Affentitten]

The Ansar al Islam camps were/are different than the al Qaeda camps, I know this, I know that you know this, but you are trying to make it appear that they were somehow "confused" for each other, to create a causus belli. They were not. Both groups use different wording,different lettering, different everything, and the camps we overran in the beginning were al Qaeda, not Ansar al Islam.

Then I'm very mystified as to why the subsequent dozen or so reports post-war make no mention of this and conclude no plausible links between Saddam and al-Qaeda. No evidemce. Zip. Nothing.

eg. 9/11 Commission "Bin Ladin is said to have asked for space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but there is no evidence that Iraq responded to this request."

2006 Senate Report Postwar Findings..."no evidence of any Iraqi support of al-Qaeda, al-Zarqawi, or Ansar al-Islam."

Or the ground commander 7 months after the war "General Sanchez also said that since the war began, the coalition, the U.S. Army has not found a single al-Qaeda fighter here in Iraq. He said that the bulk of the opposition to U.S. forces continues to be Saddam loyalists and Iraqi nationalists. You'll recall one of the razondetras (PH) for the Bush- led war in Iraq was that this was a -- had become a hotbed of al-Qaeda terrorism. Again, the Army, seven months into the war has not found a single al-Qaeda terrorist...."

So if you guys were over-running all these positively identified camps, what happened to them in any subsequent reporting? I would have thought they would have bene front and centre in the evidence.

edit: Also, as a side note...you yourself said only one was found, yet then you said it is common,that most vehicles have foreign registrations. While these two contradict each other..if so common,why only one found with these plates? Also, not sure where you heard that is common, as it is actually somewhat rare, being, as you said, only one having been found, in all of Iraq, at one of these camps. If you were a terrorist, who wanted a vehicle to use as a bomb, you would want that vehicle to "blend in" and Texas vehicle tags, in Iraq, would NOT blend in.

Your logic is going round in circles. I said it was common that 'foreign' cars would be found in Iraq. Not impossible for a car that was once registered in the US to be found there (though I suspect it more likely that this one would have been procured/stolen in Europe from US service personnel stationed there). Only one was found.....in a bomb factory. The vehicle did not have Texas plates. It had an old Texas registration tax decal. I hardly think that is a perfect disguise. And what are you talking about 'blend in'? Where? You think they were going to smuggle a ready-made car bomb halfway across the world? It may be quite likely that Abdul the bomb-maker thought it ironic to use a once US vehicle to launch a bomb attack. But I think you're over-stating the conspiracy.

[abneo3sierra]

US service personnel do not ship our vehicles to our postings in Europe, at least none I ever met, nor myself, did this.

The rest of what you write here, however, on the Texas vehicle, is a logical possibility.

As to the al Qaeda..Bush's administration, for some reason, mostly seemed to want to minimize the entire thing..WE know that there were not "Ansar al Islam" camps in southwestern Iraq, they are in an entirely different area of the nation, along the Iranian borderlands, and somewhat along the Kurdish/northern areas...thus,mostly in the exact opposite area of the country where the camps were overrun.

Whatever his reasons, the General you referred to,also repeatedly denied/minimalized the presence of foreign fighters in general, in Iraq, yet despite this, those of us on the ground, repeatedly engaged groups of them,mostly Iranian, but also Saudi,Pakistani,etc. Perhaps his view from far away was somewhat different, as is yours.

[dieseltaylor]

Guardian 19th April

The minutes of a series of meetings between ministers and senior oil executives are at odds with the public denials of self-interest from oil companies and Western governments at the time.

The documents were not offered as evidence in the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into the UK's involvement in the Iraq war. In March 2003, just before Britain went to war, Shell denounced reports that it had held talks with Downing Street about Iraqi oil as "highly inaccurate". BP denied that it had any "strategic interest" in Iraq, while Tony Blair described "the oil conspiracy theory" as "the most absurd".

But documents from October and November the previous year paint a very different picture.

Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq's enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blair's military commitment to US plans for regime change.

The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP's behalf because the oil giant feared it was being "locked out" of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms.

Minutes of a meeting with BP, Shell and BG (formerly British Gas) on 31 October 2002 read: "Baroness Symons agreed that it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government throughout the crisis."

The minister then promised to "report back to the companies before Christmas" on her lobbying efforts.

The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about opportunities in Iraq "post regime change". Its minutes state: "Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity."

After another meeting, this one in October 2002, the Foreign Office's Middle East director at the time, Edward Chaplin, noted: "Shell and BP could not afford not to have a stake in [iraq] for the sake of their long-term future... We were determined to get a fair slice of the action for UK companies in a post-Saddam Iraq."

Whereas BP was insisting in public that it had "no strategic interest" in Iraq, in private it told the Foreign Office that Iraq was "more important than anything we've seen for a long time".

BP was concerned that if Washington allowed TotalFinaElf's existing contact with Saddam Hussein to stand after the invasion it would make the French conglomerate the world's leading oil company. BP told the Government it was willing to take "big risks" to get a share of the Iraqi reserves, the second largest in the world.

Over 1,000 documents were obtained under Freedom of Information over five years by the oil campaigner Greg Muttitt. They reveal that at least five meetings were held between civil servants, ministers and BP and Shell in late 2002.

The 20-year contracts signed in the wake of the invasion were the largest in the history of the oil industry. They covered half of Iraq's reserves – 60 billion barrels of oil, bought up by companies such as BP and CNPC (China National Petroleum Company), whose joint consortium alone stands to make £403m ($658m) profit per year from the Rumaila field in southern Iraq.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/secret-memos-expose-link-between-oil-firms-and-invasion-of-iraq-2269610.html

[abneo3sierra]

Diesel, I am not sure if I believe oil was the reason for the war, but I would not be THAT surprised, either...if so,however, we got screwed..we did not get any oil.

There interestingly is alot of talk of Libyan oil being the reason France and UK are so hot to topple that government..so, I would not doubt these reports too much, though I would not believe them just because they are written in a newspaper, either. I am not much of a follower of British politics, but I do know the "Guardian" is / was not a fan of Tony Blair.

[Stalins Organ]

IIRC about 75% of Libyan oil went to Europe already - although mostly to Italy. France "getting" it seems a fairly unlikely motivation.

[abneo3sierra]

IIRC about 75% of Libyan oil went to Europe already - although mostly to Italy. France "getting" it seems a fairly unlikely motivation.

However, by that same argument, Iraqi oil, both before, and after the war, does not make up any but a negligible amount of oil imported into the USA.

As for the French, again, not sure if I believe it..there is an online newspaper called the EUtimes.net, which I am not at all sure I believe, but they have run several stories about the French cutting a deal for Libyan oil, then supporting the rebels in hopes of getting a better deal..probably about as truthful,or untruthful,as the Americans going to war for Iraqi oil, at least.

[Affentitten]

US service personnel do not ship our vehicles to our postings in Europe, at least none I ever met, nor myself, did this.

The rest of what you write here, however, on the Texas vehicle, is a logical possibility.

I saw plenty of American registered vehicles around the US garrison towns when I lived in Germany 1992-97. Perhaps the policy changed. The Brits also procured their cars back home because it was tax free.

As to the al Qaeda..Bush's administration, for some reason, mostly seemed to want to minimize the entire thing..WE know that there were not "Ansar al Islam" camps in southwestern Iraq, they are in an entirely different area of the nation, along the Iranian borderlands, and somewhat along the Kurdish/northern areas...thus,mostly in the exact opposite area of the country where the camps were overrun.

Whatever his reasons, the General you referred to,also repeatedly denied/minimalized the presence of foreign fighters in general, in Iraq, yet despite this, those of us on the ground, repeatedly engaged groups of them,mostly Iranian, but also Saudi,Pakistani,etc. Perhaps his view from far away was somewhat different, as is yours.

Oh right. Despite being pilloried worldwide for faulty intelligence and false claims about the link between aQ and Saddam, the Bush administration covered up the very smoking gun that would exonerate them. And this evidence of al-Qaeda summer camps has never come out, despite a dozen or so State, CIA, DoD reports into the matter, intense media scrutiny or whatever.

Perhaps YOUR view from close to the action was equally skewed, Herr Heisenberg.

[Affentitten]

However, by that same argument, Iraqi oil, both before, and after the war, does not make up any but a negligible amount of oil imported into the USA.

However, American dependence on ME oil is growing exponentially. So being in control of one of the major reserves, as well as ensuring regional stability is important. Personally I doubt that the view in 2003 was that long term. I'm just saying that you can't measure the importance of oil in snapshots of one or two dates.

[costard]

Hey Ron, good call on the money not mattering to the poor sods who fight the wars. Australians get paid about three times as much as the Yanks. You're fighting your own here.

Back to the morality/religion thing - I think we can simplify the argument and let it be be more tractable to reason if we understand that the difference between man and the "lower" order of animals is the acuity in the perception of time. Most of the arguments given have a time variable that applies: if we recognise that this is important, the argument is simplified, and for the most part (where we argue reasons for group behaviour) comes back to certain economic groups fighting for control and supremacy. Go back and read each counter, note where the perception of time plays a role: you will get what I mean. If you can't undertand "perception of time" as relevant, think about conciousness as a travelling loop in existence, the individual experiencing time, needing to predict events to enable enhanced survival capabilities.

The Libyan rebels constituted a central bank subservient to the IBS as part of their program. Where in history is there a precedent?

[abneo3sierra]

Did not know Australians paid that much...wow..still, that said, there really IS no price worth life..therefore,even paid 10x the salary, if we did not believe we were doing something that matters, we would not do it..what is the difference between dying with money, or without, in the end lol.

I do follow your argument on morality..I guess the best way to say my view though, is that the reasons a person makes good choices, are probably less important than the fact he/she does make them. If someone wants to tell me a potato in their yard, is telling them to be a better human being, I will be happy they are listening to the potato. The central tenet of the Christian faith, at least (again, simply being the one I am most familiar with, I am sure it is a basic part of all faiths) is what God called the "Greatest Commandment" ie.."Love the Lord..with all they heart, and love thy neighbor as thyself" ..however many times it has been mis-followed through history..and I know, this is many times..it is a tenet that, if actually followed, would make everyone a better person, as we all love ourselves, so the world would then be filled with everyone obviously caring more for everyone else. Probably impossible lol, but a worthy goal, I believe.

[Stalins Organ]

aus military pay rates as of November 2010 are at http://content.defencejobs.gov.au/pdf/triservice/DFT_Document_PayRates.pdf

Links to the various US rates can be found here - http://usmilitary.about.com/od/2011pay/a/2011paychanges.htm

dunno how they compare - the US rates are presented in a fractured manner compared to the Aus chart.

[abneo3sierra]

According to that chart,for the Australians, the pay is pretty comparable, at least at the grade I looked at.

[Affentitten]

According to that chart,for the Australians, the pay is pretty comparable, at least at the grade I looked at.

The Australian pay scales are quite Byzantine. The base rates are easy to understand, but there are variables that get thrown in to do with length of service, specific duties, overseas posting, hardship, combat, SFOR attachment, family, accomodation allowance etc etc etc

Not even the payroll people understand. Every 6 months or so there is some sort of scandal because they find out they have over or underpaid some group of soldiers.

[Stalins Organ]

there's a bunch of allowances on page 2 of the document I linked to.....and if all else fails there's this - http://www.defence.gov.au/dpe/pac/

[Affentitten]

Having the allowances on the chart doesn't mean they're always understood or applied properly. I think it all went fine throughout the 80s and 90s, but once you started getting stuff like sailors being attached to air force load master units posted overseas within a combat zone and delivering SFOR troops to a battlefield it all started to get a bit tricky keeping track of the paperwork.

Plus of course the usual corporate reaction to pay mistakes: if they haven't given you enough, it takes 6 months of appeals and case files to get the $$$. But if they paid you too much, they're on your doorstep the next morning demanding it paid back in a lump sum right now!

[abneo3sierra]

...

Plus of course the usual corporate reaction to pay mistakes: if they haven't given you enough, it takes 6 months of appeals and case files to get the $$$. But if they paid you too much, they're on your doorstep the next morning demanding it paid back in a lump sum right now!

haha, you must have served, Aff.. : )