From Salam Pax blog

[Kingpin]

:)

:: Friday, August 29, 2003 ::
Our house was searched by the Americans. That happened almost ten days ago. I wasn’t home, but my mother called the next day a bit freaked out.
They came at around 12 midnight they were apparently supposed to do a silent entrance and surprise the criminal Ba’athi cell that was in my parents house, unfortunately for them our front gate does a fair amount of rattling so my brother heard that and opened the door and saw a couple of soldiers climbing on our high black front gate. When the silent entrance tactic failed they resorted to shouty entrance mode. So they shouted at him telling him that he should get down on his knees, which he did. He actually was trying to help them open the door, but whatever. Seconds later around 25 soldiers are in the house my brother, father and mother are outside sitting on the ground and in their asshole-ish ways refused to answer any questions about what was happening. My father was asking them what they were looking so that he can help but as usual since you are an Iraqi addressing an American is no use since he doesn’t even acknowledge you as a human being standing in front of him. They (the Americans) have a medic with them and he seems to be the only sane person amongst them, my brother tells me they were kids all of them. Anyway so my brother and father start talking to the medic and he tells them what this is about. They have been “informed” that there are daily meetings the last five days, Sudanese people come into our house at 9am and stay till 3pm, we are a probable Ansar cell. My father is totally baffled, my brother gets it. These are not Sudanese men they are from Basra the “informer” is stupid enough to forget that there is a sizeable population in Basra who are of African origin. And it is not meetings these 2 (yes only two) guys have here, they are carpenters and they were repairing my mom’s kitchen. Way. To. Go. You have great informers.
While my family is waiting outside something strange happens, one of the soldiers comes out, empties his flask in the garden and start telling the medic to give him his, the medic shoos him away. They all think that the soldier is filling his flask with cold water from the cooler. Later it turns out that he emptied my father’s bottle of Johnny Walker’s into his flask and was probably trying to convince the medic to give him his to empty another bottle. Weird ****.
Aaaaanyway, they are looking thru my father’s papers by now and their genius translator comes to the commander of operation [Pax House Bust] and tells him he has found “suspicious documents”. They are passes to various conferences he has attended and bank cards for old closed accounts he used to have and most alarmingly for the person in charge was an invitation my father received a couple of days earlier to a meeting with General Abi Zaid to which he and others were flown to the Bakr Air Base north of Baghdad. Now the guy who was in charge starts trying to cover his ass and asks a lot of pointless questions, one of the more surreal ones was “so if one of your sons is writing for a foreign newspaper why are you still here?”. After this goes on for a while he gets the family out of the house again, closes the door and stays in there for 15 minutes. Comes out with the 20 galactic troopers and tells my father that he should inside check everything “I don’t want any complains filed later on”, my father just opens the front gate and tells him that if he wants to file a complaint he will thank you and bye-bye.


They came, freaked out my mother, pissed off my father, found nothing and left.
After refusing to get one my father finally conceded to get one of those cards that basically say you are a “collaborator”, and my mother will be spending a couple of weeks at her sister’s in Amman

[Deuterium]

Sounds like someone needs to go to CMOC. Yep war sucks.

[spier]

More in the same category:

FALLUJA, Iraq, Nov 10 (*******) - The Jawal family was one of the few in this flashpoint town who liked the Americans -- until U.S. F-16 jets dropped 500-pound bombs near their home.

"We used to have hopes of the Americans after they removed Saddam (Hussein). We thought they would deliver on their promises," said Khatoun Jawal.

"We liked them until this weekend. Why did they drop bombs near us? Some of my children were so scared they fainted."

A U.S. military source said F-16 fighter-bombers dropped three 500-pound bombs near Falluja, west of Baghdad, on Sunday after unspecified attacks on U.S. troops.

U.S. forces resumed air strikes at the weekend for the first time since the end of the war to topple Saddam, after guerrillas shot down three U.S. helicopters, killing 22 soldiers.

The Jawals and other families clustered in a score of cement hovels on the edge of Falluja, a hotbed of anti-U.S. fury, said they had heard no shooting before the jets roared overhead.

Their account underscores how the U.S. military is enraging some Iraqi civilians, instead of winning them over, as it hunts down guerrillas who have killed 151 U.S. soldiers since President George W. Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

Khaled Jawal said the family were fast asleep when they were jolted awake by thunderous bombing that scattered heavy pieces of shrapnel as close as three metres (yards) from their door.

HYSTERIA AS BOMBS EXPLODE

"It was so loud. The children were hysterical," he said.

A neighbour, Maha, fainted. "I was terrified. They took me to the hospital to calm me down," she said, pulling up her sleeve to show part of an intravenous drip still taped on.

Like many Iraqis, the Jawals were happy when the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam in April. American promises of democracy and freedom were soothing after years of iron-fisted rule.

Saddam is gone but life has not improved for the Jawals, who live in squalor amid old tyres and a cannibalised military truck. With no running water, the villagers drink and bathe in a dirty well. Mangy dogs sniff through dry scrubland nearby.

The father of the family has not been able to work for years because he lost the use of an arm when Saddam sent him and hundreds of thousands of others to the war front with Iran in the 1980s.

The parents and eight children can only afford chicken once a week and other meat once a month.

Standing beside a bomb crater one metre (three feet) deep and three metres (nine feet) wide, about 70 metres (yards) from their hovel, Khaled screamed at his mother for mentioning how the family had once liked the Americans.

"Be quiet. Bush is a dog who is a son of a dog," he said.

Nearby a six-year-old held up a twisted piece of shrapnel as big as his forearm. Minutes later gunfire erupted. It could have been locals, but the Jawals said it had to be Americans.

[WARPIG]

That sucks. Hate the idea that we have to go into houses like that to try and gather intel. US soldiers aren't the most polite people you will meet but I would imagine that a similar incident originating from say a Fedayeen group would have been much more uncomfortable.
As a US soldier and Military Policeman I want to apologize for the inconvenience. Hopefully the intel will get more accurate and incidents like this won't be necessary.

[usa320]

instead of sending in normal infantry groups we need to get HUMINT teams to go into Iraq posing as foreign fighters, get them on the inside of whats going on, then collect our intel from that.

[Seoulstriker]

we should have rung the door bell first and politely ask who is in the house. if there is someone in the house, we would ask politely to have a talk with the people in the house. if the owners say no, then we have to go back to camp and cry about it. :roll:

trust everything you read in blogs.

[ßå$tĮТHÏ¿ð]

Its a valid tactic and could have happened to anyone. Although there intel on the house was quite shotty...
I said it before in a different post that the bombings outside of Falluja were a psy-ops tactic. Dropping a 500lb bomb anywere close to a city will rattle everyone's house and cause panic. Which is what psy-ops is all about.

[StarvingStudent47]

I wager this was written by a pimple-faced nineteen-year-old at the University of Vermont who has a Che Guevara poster on his dorm room wall.

[exoninja]

climbing over fences, blah blah blah, they (US soldiers) HAD to do it. The writer of the blog has to understand this.

What, you want them to ring the doorbell or something first? Any half-brainer will know this is a suicide tactic. Not literally of course.

[Flagg]

instead of sending in normal infantry groups we need to get HUMINT teams to go into Iraq posing as foreign fighters, get them on the inside of whats going on, then collect our intel from that.

I believe a recent thread covered this....specifically problems with the training/use of US tactical HUMINT teams.

I did, however, catch an article stating SAS/SBS personnel are going to be used in a capacity you are suggesting:

http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/international.cfm?id=1222722003

[Erik]

What were those guys thinking? Doing a silent raid on fedayeen camp? They should've used basic tactics, grenades in, automatic fire and enter the apartment. In case of some resistance they could have called gunships. No complaints filed after that :bash:

[martinexsquaddie]

Erik I hope to god you never end up making command decisions. Lets go slot the Baghdad Blogger thats a smart Move rofl.
raids have to be done on intelligence recieved but they need to be handled with a bit of smarts. If nothings found it means putting a compo cheque in the post even if you know the guys a player :( .
arabs have there pride and plenty of guns lieing around pissing a culture off that thinks suicide attack is a reasonable idea not a good way to go.
Winning hearts and minds is not grabbing the balls and there hearts and minds will follow that rarely works. A badly organised raid and a pissed off grunt getting a bit of "revenge" is the best recruiting Tool the resistance can hope for :(

[MolliG]

I wager this was written by a pimple-faced nineteen-year-old at the University of Vermont who has a Che Guevara poster on his dorm room wall.

No, he is 'real'. He was on Newsnight last night, and his Mother was (she was saying how scary the US soldiers were upclose with all their gear on etc, and how they arrested the men who were installing her new kitchen for some reason). Showed him buying loads of beer and spirits before the shops closed for Ramadan (the shop where he usually stocks up on drinked got RPG'd). Then he had an argument/discussion with one of his mates about foreign money coming in and how the Iraqis, well, weren't allowed to actually re-build stuff themselves, and the like.

:)

[spier]

More:

Iraqi arrested for criticising U.S
Tue 11 November, 2003 10:46

BAGHDAD (*******) - American soldiers handcuffed and firmly wrapped masking tape around an Iraqi man's mouth after they arrested him for speaking out against occupation troops.

Asked why the man had been arrested and put into the back of a Humvee vehicle on Tahrir Square, the commanding officer told ******* at the scene on Tuesday: "This man has been detained for making anti-coalition statements."

He refused to say what the man said.

A U.S. military spokesman said he had no immediate information on the incident.

U.S. politicians and military commanders often say they toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein so that Iraqis can enjoy free speech and democracy after years of iron-fisted rule.

Another U.S. soldier swore at Iraqis as he ordered them to move back. School teachers and young students looked on.

The troops had earlier closed off the sprawling square with barbed wire to search for home-made bombs, which along with rocket-propelled grenades have killed 153 American soldiers since major combat was declared over on May 1.
http://www.*******.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=401926&section=news rofl

[front]

"This man has been detained for making anti-coalition statements."

!!!

StarvingStudent47 Posted "I wager this was written by a pimple-faced nineteen-year-old at the University of Vermont who has a Che Guevara poster on his dorm room wall."

Salaam Pax is currently the Iraqi columnist for the Guardian newspaper.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/blogger/0,13814,1018987,00.html

His reports are twice monthly and are worth reading:

"While talking to a very eloquent taxi driver the other day, he started accusing the media of not giving a chance to someone like Al-Sistani [one of the two leading Shia clerics] to show another, non-militant, side of Hawza [the influential college of Shia theologians in Najaf]. He was telling me of a Friday prayer khutba in which the imam told them to cooperate with the Americans. They did get rid of Saddam and they should be given a chance to prove their good will. "

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,969950,00.html

cheers

front

[spier]

More:
Dreamers and idiots

Britain and the US did everything to avoid a peaceful solution in Iraq and Afghanistan

Those who would take us to war must first shut down the public imagination. They must convince us that there is no other means of preventing invasion, or conquering terrorism, or even defending human rights. When information is scarce, imagination is easy to control. As intelligence gathering and diplomacy are conducted in secret, we seldom discover - until it is too late - how plausible the alternatives may be.

So those of us who called for peace before the wars with Iraq and Afghanistan were mocked as effeminate dreamers. The intelligence our governments released suggested that Saddam Hussein and the Taliban were immune to diplomacy or negotiation. Faced with such enemies, what would we do, the hawks asked? And our responses felt timid beside the clanking rigours of war. To the columnist David Aaronovitch, we were "indulging... in a cosmic whinge". To the Daily Telegraph, we had become "Osama bin Laden's useful idiots".

Had the options been as limited as the western warlords and their bards suggested, this might have been true. But, as many of us suspected at the time, we were lied to. Most of the lies are now familiar: there appear to have been no weapons of mass destruction and no evidence to suggest that, as President Bush claimed in March, Saddam had "trained and financed... al-Qaida". Bush and Blair, as their courtship of the president of Uzbekistan reveals, appear to possess no genuine concern for the human rights of foreigners.

But a further, and even graver, set of lies is only now beginning to come to light. Even if all the claims Bush and Blair made about their enemies and their motives had been true, and all their objectives had been legal and just, there may still have been no need to go to war. For, as we discovered last week, Saddam proposed to give Bush and Blair almost everything they wanted before a shot had been fired. Our governments appear both to have withheld this information from the public and to have lied to us about the possibilities for diplomacy.

Over the four months before the coalition forces invaded Iraq, Saddam's government made a series of increasingly desperate offers to the United States. In December, the Iraqi intelligence services approached Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former head of counter-terrorism, with an offer to prove that Iraq was not linked to the September 11 attacks, and to permit several thousand US troops to enter the country to look for weapons of mass destruction. If the object was regime change, then Saddam, the agents claimed, was prepared to submit himself to internationally monitored elections within two years. According to Mr Cannistraro, these proposals reached the White House, but were "turned down by the president and vice-president".

By February, Saddam's negotiators were offering almost everything the US government could wish for: free access to the FBI to look for weapons of mass destruction wherever it wanted, support for the US position on Israel and Palestine, even rights over Iraq's oil. Among the people they contacted was Richard Perle, the security adviser who for years had been urging a war with Iraq. He passed their offers to the CIA. Last week he told the New York Times that the CIA had replied: "Tell them that we will see them in Baghdad".

Saddam Hussein, in other words, appears to have done everything possible to find a diplomatic alternative to the impending war, and the US government appears to have done everything necessary to prevent one. This is the opposite to what we were told by George Bush and Tony Blair. On March 6, 13 days before the war began, Bush said to journalists: "I want to remind you that it's his choice to make as to whether or not we go to war. It's Saddam's choice. He's the person that can make the choice of war and peace. Thus far, he's made the wrong choice."

Ten days later, Blair told a press conference: "We have provided the right diplomatic way through this, which is to lay down a clear ultimatum to Saddam: cooperate or face disarmament by force... all the way through we have tried to provide a diplomatic solution." On March 17, Bush claimed that "should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war". All these statements are false.

The same thing happened before the war with Afghanistan. On September 20 2001, the Taliban offered to hand Osama bin Laden to a neutral Islamic country for trial if the US presented them with evidence that he was responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington. The US rejected the offer. On October 1, six days before the bombing began, they repeated it, and their representative in Pakistan told reporters: "We are ready for negotiations. It is up to the other side to agree or not. Only negotiation will solve our problems." Bush was asked about this offer at a press conference the following day. He replied: "There's no negotiations. There's no calendar. We'll act on [sic] our time."

On the same day, Tony Blair, in his speech to the Labour party conference, ridiculed the idea that we could "look for a diplomatic solution". "There is no diplomacy with Bin Laden or the Taliban regime... I say to the Taliban: surrender the terrorists; or surrender power. It's your choice." Well, they had just tried to exercise that choice, but George Bush had rejected it.

Of course, neither Bush nor Blair had any reason to trust the Taliban or Saddam - these people were, after all, negotiating under duress. But neither did they have any need to trust them. In both cases they could have presented their opponents with a deadline for meeting the concessions they had offered. Nor could the allies argue that the offers were not worth considering because they were inadequate: both the Taliban and Saddam were attempting to open negotiations, not to close them - there appeared to be plenty of scope for bargaining. In other words, peaceful resolutions were rejected before they were attempted. What this means is that even if all the other legal tests for these wars had been met (they had not), both would still have been waged in defiance of international law. The charter of the United Nations specifies that "the parties to any dispute...shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation".

None of this matters to the enthusiasts for war. That these conflicts were unjust and illegal, that they killed or maimed tens of thousands of civilians, is irrelevant, as long as their aims were met. So the hawks should ponder this. Had a peaceful resolution of these disputes been attempted, Bin Laden might now be in custody, Iraq might be a pliant and largely peaceful nation finding its own way to democracy, and the prevailing sentiment within the Muslim world might be sympathy for the United States, rather than anger and resentment.

Now who are the dreamers and the useful idiots, and who the pragmatists? http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1082250,00.html

This is getting too easy..

[front]

"Bush and Blair, as their courtship of the president of Uzbekistan reveals, appear to possess no genuine concern for the human rights of foreigners."

They possess no genuine concern for the human rights of their own citizens so why make the distinction.

It is too easy. :-)

cheers

front

[Fioraon]

Great book. Extreme bias which explains a lot about why some Iraqi's think they dislike the American Forces and our leaders. Great book.

[Durandal]

So wait, let me get this straight. This was a blog?


Ahhh the internet, where everything is truth.

Come on folks. No one was killed. People got scared, it was a war zone.

During Halloween, the local police (6 cruisers) were in front of my house, with pistols drawn, and a friend of mine was on the ground face down and hands out. He was part of our DEA team as was unfortunate enough to have been seen by a passing motorist, who freaked, called the police and responded, appropriately I suppose.

Keep in mind the the house has a 40 foot spider web, black lights, smnoke machine, luminarias, and a couple pumkins out.

It was aparty of about 60 people, all of whom were in the line of fire if the cops had lost their cool.

I was lectured on letting a friend wear a facsimile of a MP5SD. I tried to explain that this was a halloween party and it was a part of a costume. It was not our fault a civilian overreacted and that we would make sure it would not, ever happened again.

The police officer then told us that our friend would be arrested because the cops were called, lectured us some more, and then hauled him off tot he justice center.

We paid his bond, got him out, and he had all charges dropped by the judge.

You do not hear me blaming the man for keeping me down and how awful the United States is.

No one was hurt, no one was arrested and locked up.

Grow up.

I am sure we can find more horrible things to whine about, especially on blogs.

Edit: You know, The Guardian is like a liberal Fox News. Biased as he11 with an agenda.

[end Guinness and Jaegermeister induced rant]

[Royal]

Britain has now reassigned all its special forces in Iraq from helping to hunt for weapons of mass destruction to targeting resistance leaders and protecting key coalition installations.

Oh yeah?


On Tuesday, the Ministry of Defence announced that an SBS trooper, Corporal Ian Plank, was killed in combat alongside US special forces in central Iraq.

No it didn't. It confirmed that Cpl Ian Plank, a Royal Marine, was killed.


Defence sources say the US has been pressing Britain since early summer to commit a brigade of troops to the Baghdad sector but London had resisted the move, fearing heavy casualties and "over stretch" problems for the hard-pressed British Army.

In its place the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, offered President George Bush teams of special forces troops that would mount an undercover campaign in co-operation with the US Delta Force and SEAL special forces.

SF of course have no overstretch problems, and had all gone home anyway :cantbeli:


"The American army is not very good at gathering human intelligence and wanted our special forces to move around in areas still loyal to the former regime where US troops could not penetrate without being seen," a British military source said.

Ah, those British invisibility cloaks. Thank you Harry Potter!


British special forces had originally been deployed to Iraq in the summer to work alongside the Iraq Survey Group, which was sent to hunt down Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

Having sat in pubs in Hereford and Poole while the **** hit the fan and then buggered off to Ibiza then minute Dubya had proclaimed it all over :cantbeli:


They were spotted several times in Baghdad leading night raids on the homes of Iraqi weapons scientists and military officers. Prisoners were led away in hoods to the large US compound, where they were interrogated by Arab-speaking SAS officers.

SAS officers of course having nothing better to do and the JFIT are sitting on their arses scratching their balls...


"Iraq is getting like Northern Ireland or the Balkans for the special forces," said one British officer. "They know they have plenty of work there for a long time to come."

No **** Sherlock...

[Flagg]

Royal,

I'm surprised you found that many errors in the article.....as you are "in the know" is this common for a single article to be so far off the mark?

Or is this particular publication more a tabloid than a reputable news source?

[Royal]

I saw the same article in an English tabloid yesterday, so I guess it was syndicated. No it's not at all unusual for the UK press to spout ****e about SF/Int Ops.

The name SAS sells papers, so they get 'blamed' for any non-conventional Op. To be fair the less well known units are quite happy about it, as they can stay in the shadows.

As a general rule the UK press know bog all about current Ops, and as the MoD never comment on SF matters, it's at best informed guesswork by journalists and some former soldiers.

BTW did anyone see Mark Urban on Newsnight (BBC2) last night? At least he was asking sensible questions, if not necessarily drawing the right conclusions from the answers...

[CX20]

The one thing that sticks out more than anything about the majority of articles and links previously posted in this thread are that they are from The Guardian newspaper in the UK. For anyone who isn't familiar with The Guardian, it is a far left anti-American, anti-military/police, anti-Establishment, anti-corporate and anti-just about everything that they don't agree with, which is funny as it is supposed to a liberal newspaper. The Guardian is generally the favourite read of students, self-loathing people, protestors, anti-Americans, anarchists, civil rights people, artists, trendies and "I told you so!" moral-highground types. In the UK, these people are known as "Guardianistas" thanks to a tabloid journalist who is fed up with their exploits. You can't turn a page in The Guardian without being confronted by page-sized charity appeals featuring huge pictures of children with sad eyes - the whole set up is designed to appeal to the need to satisfy it's readers own feelings of self-loathing.

So in other words, I'm inclined to take it's articles with an EEC salt mountain sized pinch of salt. The Guardian looks for any excuse to bash the Amercians, and from my own experience their readers are either too gullible or consumed by their own anti-American hatred to look beyond what is printed on it's pages.

[front]

"For anyone who isn't familiar with The Guardian, it is a far left anti-American, anti-military/police, anti-Establishment, anti-corporate and anti-just about everything that they don't agree with, which is funny as it is supposed to a liberal newspaper."

Hahahaha. That's very funny. Thanks for clearing that up the CX20. Of course the rest of the British press is pro-American, pro-military/police, pro-Establishment, pro-corporate and pro-just about everything they agree with.

I had thought the job of the press was to question the status quo... but NO! The job of the press according to yourself is to goosestep in line with no questions raised.

Spare us from your rants will you?

cheers

front

[CX20]

If you re-read what I wrote, you'll see that I was defining the bias behind the article, which in the case of The Guardian is clear to see. I believe in an unbiased media, but The Guardian has proven its motives and in the past and continues to do so.


I had thought the job of the press was to question the status quo... but NO! The job of the press according to yourself is to goosestep in line with no questions raised.


Just the kind of emotional, ill-thought out tirade I would have expected from someone with no grasp of logic or reasoning - rather predictable though. Do you have a problem with me outlining bias in media reporting? Am I wrong to question the press, yet it is ok for them to question the status quo? Or should I just goosestep in line and believe everything the media tells me instead of questioning their reasoning and bias behind the reporting? Have you ever read Private Eye?

Although that was a nice little attempt to brand me a facist there, with the "goosestep in line" bit. Typical - insert little hidden insults instead of openly having the guts to say it.


Spare us from your rants will you? Ah, the old smug standby finishing line again. I was stating fact - your post was a combination of smug spite and immaturity, and proved my overall point in my previous post quite well.

[martinexsquaddie]

hmm it may be left of centre
But it is the paper MI5 advertises in :)
Soo either MI5 been taken over by leftie liberals
or they think torygraph readers are too dim Tabloid readers are thick as **** and the times is owned by murdoch .
CX20 read the mail by any chance
Guardian reader and pround of it

[spier]

No it didn't. It confirmed that Cpl Ian Plank, a Royal Marine, was killed.

Royal Marine Ian Plank last week became the first special forces operative acknowledged to have been killed in post-Saddam Iraq. Corporal Plank was said to have been with the Special Boat Service on a manhunt operation when he came under fire last Friday.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&edition=us&q=+Ian+Plank+sbs&btnG=Search+News
SF of course have no overstretch problems, and had all gone home anywayThey are far easier to deploy than a few Chellenger 2's, and a few SF units deployed don't exactly overstretch the capacity of the British army. Certainly not to the same degree as a full brigade.
Ah, those British invisibility cloaks. Thank you Harry Potter!Heard something about the British intending to use Ghurkas, they'll certainly blend in better than your average Brit.
SAS officers of course having nothing better to do and the JFIT are sitting on their arses scratching their balls...Well that certainly convinced me..

CX20, what the hell is a "facist"? :roll:

[Red]

i personally get my news from the BBC or any independent paper.The Guardian can be a good read at times

[Royal]

No it didn't. It confirmed that Cpl Ian Plank, a Royal Marine, was killed.

Royal Marine Ian Plank last week became the first special forces operative acknowledged to have been killed in post-Saddam Iraq. Corporal Plank was said to have been with the Special Boat Service on a manhunt operation when he came under fire last Friday.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&edition=us&q=+Ian+Plank+sbs&btnG=Search+News

So Google is now the beall and endall in confirmation. The MoD never confirm details of SF Ops. They have not confirmed Cpl Plank's unit.



SF of course have no overstretch problems, and had all gone home anywayThey are far easier to deploy than a few Chellenger 2's, and a few SF units deployed don't exactly overstretch the capacity of the British army. Certainly not to the same degree as a full brigade.

A few SF units. A few in english means three or more. There are three units under the umbrella of DSF. They are currently deployed in four major Theatres of Operation (not including team, training and exchange jobs). Armoured and Armoured Infantry units are deployed in one. Yes they're overstretched.



Ah, those British invisibility cloaks. Thank you Harry Potter!Heard something about the British intending to use Ghurkas, they'll certainly blend in better than your average Brit.

Racism doesn't become you. Actually historically the Fijijans work exceptionally in the middle east. As any Gurkha will freely admit Fijijans heights are also closer to the norm in the middle east.



SAS officers of course having nothing better to do and the JFIT are sitting on their arses scratching their balls...Well that certainly convinced me..

SF Officers do a two to three year tour. A language learned to SLP 3 (the minimum professional level for an interrogator) takes a minimum of nine months, and usually closer to eighteen. You do the math :cantbeli:

[CX20]

Martin - wrong, wrong and wrong again mate! As I've said before in other threads, I'm an Independent reader. Only slightly left of centre but more factual and unbiased than The Grauniad, which IMHO comes second place to The Mail as the worst paper out there. :D