Author: cheryl » Fri Jun 17, 2005 12:25 am
<<The Americans actually tried to claim that they were shot at form the halls of residents... to the Presdient of the University....Of course he did not buy that BS... >>
well, kurdistani, that makes two of us, then, because i did not buy it either and i'll tell you why.
firstly, which helicopter gunships should have been flying around hewlêr? helicopter gunships stationed at hewlêr. but these did not come from us forces at hewlêr. they did not come from mûsil, the next closest place.
i am betting that they came from baghdad--i might add that i'm not the only one who suspects that--and if that is true, which i believe it is, then they weren't flying around for a joyride. they were there on a mission. i was in the us military and i know for a fact that you cannot just take out a vehicle without a reason, much less can you fly a gunship around without a reason.
in addition, why would students at salahuddin university be shooting at us gunships? what reason would kurdish students have for doing that? especially since, if i remember correctly, they were in the process of studying for exams.
if the students had, in fact, been shooting at the gunships, don't you think that people on the ground would have found out that they had been doing that? would they have approved? i don't think they would have and news of the students being up to no good would have eventually leaked out by some third party. let's say that the students in question may have been ansarî, but that information would have lead to arrests, i'm sure, leading to a denunciation of ansarî activity by the kurdish authorities.
so, i did not believe this lie, that students of the university were shooting at the gunships, when it first came out and i do not believe it now.
Nistiman, you are correct about colin powell. if you remember, he was also the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff (the highest us military officer) during the gulf war, and i believed at the time that he was engaging in appeasement by not pressing for the logical termination of that war--the overthrow of saddam hussein. i also believe that he had the last word in deciding whether or not us forces would lend support to the uprising. of course, the us military did not because it could not, as a result of orders from a higher authority (at least colin powell, whether on his own or as per his advice to gwb1). i think that this went against all the better gut instincts of general schwartzkopt, too.
it really worked out that powell was the perfect man for the state department because he was a natural appeaser and a definite status quo man. certainly, i think that the opinions of the gulf states encouraged the maintenance of the same status quo.
i will pm you a source.
Emmunah, i don't know about cia and state being at each others' throats for three years, but i do know that state and defense have absolutely no love lost between them and they have been at each others' throats since the conclusion of operation iraqi freedom.