British "false-flag" terrorist ops in Iraq?

[pin retaining]

Interesting.

you one of them there arrse bandits?

No, Im not a homosexual.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

For whatever odd reason some people invest a lot of pride in this sort of thing, usually people who've never been nearer to the military than attending an open day.
It's not as if special forces units tend to be deployed against each other anyway, as they're usually tasked with infiltration, infrastructure destruction and evasion, not set-piece battles with other elite units.

I see it whenever this sort of thing comes up anywhere - "our team is the best in the world" - and it irritates me. Special forces wherever they come from are all composed of double-hard bastards and they don't face each other. It doesn't really make any difference who is the best; arguing about it is just nationalistic willy-waving.

 

[peppery]

Did we ever acertain what this 'special forces' duo was up to?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Nope.

I think "no good" probably covers it.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Did we ever acertain what this 'special forces' duo was up to?

Not with any degree of reliability. According to "sources" quoted in the Times and elsewhere they were resupplying another patrol engaged in monitoring arms smuggling routes from Iran to one or more of the shia militas.

 

[Groucho]

Pilger is right to highlight the questions that the British media are refusing to ask.

Incidentally, it is not only Al Sadr's lot who have alleged that the two UK undercover soldiers were carrying explosives. An Iraqi judge has issued arrest warrants for the two soldiers. Judge Raghib Hasan accused the men of killing an Iraqi policeman and wounding another, carrying unlicensed weapons and holding false identification, said Qasim al-Sabti, the head of the lawyers syndicate in the southern city, on Saturday. Britain's Ministry of Defence said on Saturday the warrants had no legal basis. "All British troops in Iraq come under the jurisdiction of Britain," a defence spokesman said in London.

Basra authorities (the ones put in place by the UK!) had said British troops also killed two Iraqi policemen during the raid on the prison in addition to the civilians shot during the protests. Subsequently Bsra authorities have withdrawn all cooperation with the UK forces who (I understand) have had to relocate for safety outside of Basra abandoning their base, and are confined to barracks.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

So a judge issues a warrant he knows is illegal, will never be carried out and does nothing but make him look good to the public.

I'll be putting money on him running for government at the next oportunity then.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I think it's safe to say that it was a fuck up that is all too likely to get some people killed one way or another.

Why is this supposed to be in our interest again?

Something about "45 minutes" wasn't it? Oh, that's right, Blair lied didn't he?

 

[ViolentPanda]

I see it whenever this sort of thing comes up anywhere - "our team is the best in the world" - and it irritates me. Special forces wherever they come from are all composed of double-hard bastards and they don't face each other. It doesn't really make any difference who is the best; arguing about it is just nationalistic willy-waving.

The other thing that most people don't tend to bear in mind when discussing special forces (and I mean the elite units, not the highly trained "ordinary" units like the Royal Marine Commandos) is that they're not really soldiers anymore in the proper sense of the word, they're militarised assassination, intelligence and espionage/sabotage units (although they do, of course, still participate in the conventional military arena as well, when called upon), which is one of the reasons MOD don't like all these memoirs; it reveals that one of the true purposes of such units (whether the SAS or the SPETNAZ) is political.

 

[tobyjug]

And this differs from terrorism how, exactly?

Offing insurgents hiding behind civilians is not terrorism.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Offing insurgents hiding behind civilians is not terrorism.

Please, if you're going to talk about killing, don't do it in euphemism.

I expect people like pbman to spout crap about "taking down" and "offing", but that's because they are idiots.

 

[pin retaining]

which is one of the reasons MOD don't like all these memoirs; it reveals that one of the true purposes of such units (whether the SAS or the SPETNAZ) is political.

Think of the regiment as the military wing of the FO.

 

[oi2002]

Divide and conquer, with all those precedents in british history, and you call it nonsense, and that it doesn't hold water??

History is also full of precedents where occupiers simply lost control of a conquest and it sank into communal warfare. This is looking more like the chaotic last stages of the Raj or French Algeria than Clives India or Cortez in Mexico.

The conquest is rapidly being lost because of the growing chasms opening up between the various groupings in Iraq. The ideal strategic result for DC was always a unified Iraq with a friendly puppet government. Once the country is split the Shia part, which has 80% of the oil and the means to export it, inevitably will become an Iranian satillite.

What we are seeing isn't a grand scheme playing out exactly as wargamed, this is a massive cock up masterninded by deeply foolish men. The grand scheme was to create a free market economy by bombing and that went tits up 18 months ago they've been floundering desperatly for a way out ever since.

 

[fela fan]

The ideal strategic result for DC was always a unified Iraq with a friendly puppet government. Once the country is split the Shia part, which has 80% of the oil and the means to export it, inevitably will become an Iranian satillite.

What we are seeing isn't a grand scheme playing out exactly as wargamed, this is a massive cock up masterninded by deeply foolish men. The grand scheme was to create a free market economy by bombing and that went tits up 18 months ago they've been floundering desperatly for a way out ever since.

Nah, don't know. I can't subscribe yet again to some kind of cock-up theory. With so many other past american ventures onto foreign soil, it all follows the pattern. Destruction. A cynic might suggest that the more bombed a place is, the more money that will flow the way of american companies contracted to rebuild the country.

What's happening in iraq is no accident. Loads of urban posters predicted exactly what would happen, and yes, it has happened like that. You think the americans involved in planning this war couldn't see what we could see? With so many previous actions to act as a guide in what will happen.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

A cynic might suggest that the more bombed a place is, the more money that will flow the way of american companies contracted to rebuild the country.

What's happening in iraq is no accident. Loads of urban posters predicted exactly what would happen, and yes, it has happened like that. You think the americans involved in planning this war couldn't see what we could see? With so many previous actions to act as a guide in what will happen.

Then "A cynic" (whoever he is) would be an idiot.

As to the prophetic nature of urban, there's several thousand posters, a phrase involving throwing shit at walls comes to mind.

 

[fela fan]

Then "A cynic" (whoever he is) would be an idiot.

As to the prophetic nature of urban, there's several thousand posters, a phrase involving throwing shit at walls comes to mind.

With respect man, you weren't around pre-iraq war days. What's happened was massively predicted on these boards.

Why would the cynic be an idiot?

 

[oi2002]

...You think the americans involved in planning this war couldn't see what we could see? With so many previous actions to act as a guide in what will happen.

Speculation aside what you are suggesting is contradicted by a fair ammount of evidence.

Rather than a ingeneous plan working like clockwork the occupation has been a series of reactive policy flip-flops, there are various memos and think tank reports floating about that indicate DC barely considered the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad. As someone recently said the Pentagon seems to be like a dog that chases cars completely without an idea what to do if it caught one.

Tommy Franks was meant to be drawing down troops within 100 days according to his book. It's likely that the M1As were then to drive on to Tehran. It never made any sense strategically to remove Saddam and neither destroy or make peace with the Mullahs.

Rummie said Iraq was to be like the liberation of Italy in WWII, forgetting that while the advancing Shermans were often greeted with flowers Italy came very near to full blown civil war. There was no need to make security a priority, flat rates of tax and privatisation was all that was needed for a freemarket democracy to bloom.

According to various US security wonks the Iraq occupation is a major strategic handicap to DC at the moment. As it is they've practically handed the Shi'a South and with it 80% of the oil to parties loyal to a greatly emboldened Tehran. Now having realised the great depth of their error DC might torch the useless conquest just to deny it to their principle enemy in the ME. Fermenting unrest in Iraq they still occupy to thwart Iran would be a truly bizarre strategy, I think it very unlikely, but stranger things have happened.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Is there an argument to say that they'd try to fuck it up so badly as to be useless to Iran, purely out of spite, or as part of some longer term strategy to make it someone elses (highly expensive and morally destructive) problem?

 

[laptop]

Is there an argument to say that they'd try to fuck it up so badly as to be useless to Iran, purely out of spite, or as part of some longer term strategy to make it someone elses (highly expensive and morally destructive) problem?

"Hmmm. How can we turn this into China's Vietnam?"

[/KISSINGER]

 

[Bernie Gunther]

"Hmmm. How can we turn this into China's Vietnam?"

[/KISSINGER]

Yeah, that's kind of what I had in mind. We know for sure that they had that in mind with Afghanistan and Russia, not least because of Zbignew Brezhinsky's book about all that stuff. Now they've fucked up whatever they were initially trying to do in Iraq (which I'm pretty sure wasn't what they ended up doing, due to incompetence and stupidity), and in effect handed most of the good bits to Iran on a plate, it'd certainly make a kind of awful sense for them to try to turn it into Iran's Vietnam or Afghanistan or Lebanon etc, rather than continuting to own that problem.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

With respect man, you weren't around pre-iraq war days. What's happened was massively predicted on these boards.

Why would the cynic be an idiot?

Because you make more money when you don't have your people being targeted by terrorists, kindappers and most of all, when you don't have to worry about the state "nationalising" your assets.

Mr Cynic is in this case, an idiot.

 

[oi2002]

Is there an argument to say that they'd try to fuck it up so badly as to be useless to Iran, purely out of spite, or as part of some longer term strategy to make it someone elses (highly expensive and morally destructive) problem?

Vengeful spite rather than the rational calculations of realpolitik often seems to be the real policy motivator in DC. That's particularly true of this administration.

But what appears to be a massive US policy failure is almost certainly just that. DC now has very limited options and has been a hostage to fortune in Iraq for at least a year. Damage limitaton is what they'll be thinking about and I suspect all strategies will focus on the GOP avoiding as much blame as possible rather than clever geopolitical scheming. That means a major drawdown next year regardless of the consequences in Iraq.

A hurried backing out of an Iraq that's falling into chaos anyway would mean by default the Sunni rebellion becomes Tehran's problem and it would be a their strategic deficit for at least a few years of diligent brutality. It's argument that was being made recently as a classic divide and conquer strategy to deal with revolutionary Islam.

This would be an incredibly reckless strategy and would be opposed by very powerful US oil interests who have a vested interest in the stability of the Gulf Kingships. But all other plans having failed a short sighted DC desparate for damage limitation measures might take the gamble.

 

[laptop]

it'd certainly make a kind of awful sense for them to try to turn it into Iran's Vietnam or Afghanistan or Lebanon etc, rather than continuting to own that problem.

Which means the logical thing for them to do is to resume support for the Ba'ath, once most of their grunts are withdrawn and a Shia-dominated Iran-friendly government "needs" to be worn down by the insurgency.

And, for that matter, "al-Quaeda in Iraq".

As the distasteful price of containing the greater threat that is Iraq, of course.

 

[cemertyone]

So where are these photos your SAS dad has then, IRA man ?

Did they teach you to write like that at the Staff College i wonder?. I mean i know the level of education for the average soldier is equal to that of the average 11 year old but even you surpass that. What you saying stranger????

 

[pin retaining]

Did they teach you to write like that at the Staff College i wonder?. I mean i know the level of education for the average soldier is equal to that of the average 11 year old but even you surpass that. What you saying stranger????

But where are the photos ??? Of course you're the resident wannabe IRA man, so not much chance of the truth out of you.

PS Thanks for the threatening PM, my 1st PM here, how nice.

 

[cemertyone]

But where are the photos ??? Of course you're the resident wannabe IRA man, so not much chance of the truth out of you.

PS Thanks for the threatening PM, my 1st PM here, how nice.

First off dick head could you explain what you mean by this photo lark and i might even goosh hazard a reply..Secondly, i did not threaten you..please post up the p.m i sent you as i got nothing to fear from that and yours in reply was not to nice either.But i don`t usually go crying to the boards when i recieve pm`s. and i would have imagined such a big tough boy soldier like you wouldn`t be to offened by a few little words either.
Additionally, its customary here to actually let the other posters reading the thread to get some inclination of what it is you speak off. Now maybe your prose is fine for your SUN reading mates in the barracks but many here left the " Dick and Dom " reading school long ago..

oh p.s. i`m off now little Mr/Miss pin...we are all going to the pub where we will sing rebel songs al night and tell each other stories from the old country...

 

[Jazzz]

Were they British?

There's a theory that they weren't.

You have two SAS undercover agents, disguised as Mehdi army, roaming around Basra, during a religious festival, with a car wired as a massive car bomb. They were stopped at a checkpoint, and if they were really SAS, all they needed to do was show an ID.

Something happened, and they decided to try an escape. They killed two policeman, were involved in a firefight, and captured.

If these were two SAS commandos, and on a undercover mission, why did they panic? The story is that they approached a checkpoint, were stopped, and suddenly there was a shootout.

These two needed to be rescued before they could be made to talk.

http://judicial-inc.biz/Basra_IDF.htm

Here's a look at what they had in the car

 

[pin retaining]

There's a theory that they weren't.


http://judicial-inc.biz/Basra_IDF.htm

Here's a look at what they had in the car

Looks like they were 2 Vehicle mechanics if thats what they had in the boot.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

That's assuming sooo many things.

ID? What if they were there to investigate the police.

Who else carries around that sort of stuff?

Where are these sophisticated detonators?

Where are the photos of the car rigged as a bomb?

Why did the British army raid a jail to rescue them?

Where are the wings!!!??

 

[likesfish]

don't look like there's any explosives in that picture.
rumour control around basra is that israel is running around planting bombs to start a civil war theres no proof of this niether is there any proof that the sas are roaming the streets eating babies
but please crack on i've nearly finished knitting a new tin foil hat