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War updates

Allied forces have captured Umm Qasr, Iraq’s only major seaport.

Iraq has fired a few missles at allied forces; some were destroyed by our Patriot defense missles, and some simply landed / crashed without causing any damage.  The missles may have been of the shorter-range Al Samoud 2 (formerly known as Ababil 100) type, or longer-range scud missles.  Scuds are illegal for Iraq to possess because they greatly exceed range limits imposed on them after the first Gulf war -- scuds can range about 300 or 400 miles depending on the variant.  And UN inspectors recently determined that Iraq’s Al Samoud 2 missles also exceed the 150km (~92 mile) limit; Iraq subsequently destroyed some of these missles.

"Three or four" oil fields in southern Iraq have been set ablaze.

There are more than 40 nations supporting the US in this "unilateral" war, more than those who supported us in the first Gulf war.  Because France has no practical strengths, it has been not only lying, but yelling its lies loudly, hoping that the world will buy into it if they just repeat the lie loud enough and long enough.  Sadly some people have bought into their propaganda.  The truth is that just because France, Russia, Germany, China, Iraq, and North Korea are against this war, that doesn’t change the fact that the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Australia, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Czech Republic, Kuwait, Italy, Portugal, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Japan, New Zealand, and bunches of other countries are supporting the war.  The bottom line: don’t believe the hype.

Posted by Anthony on Mar 20, 2003 | 1 reply
Filed under: General

Comments:

01. Mar 24, 2003 at 8:57pm by Anthony:

Since this post seems to be getting a lot of hits, I wanted to provide some documentation of those 40+ nations who support us.

First, it was the "Gang of 10" and the "Gang of 8" who came out against France and Germany:

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s determination to internationalize the crisis with Iraq began in earnest in August 2002 when he persuaded President George W. Bush to go to the Unite Nations to urge for a new Security Council resolution to disarm Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. It is a measure of his success that in the wake of his dramatic and persuasive U.N. speech on Feb. 5 about Iraqi non-compliance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, 10 of the new European democracies -- the "Gang of 10" -- came out with a statement supporting U.S. policy and the need to consider the use of force against Iraq.

All 10 countries -- Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia -- until recently lived under the tyranny of communism and appreciate their new freedoms.

Their statement followed a remarkable opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal and other newspapers on Jan. 30 by a "Gang of Eight" -- Britain, Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Portugal. Seven prime ministers and the president of the Czech Republic endorsed the U.S. approach to Iraq arguing that it was vital to preserve the unity of the trans-Atlantic relationship and stand up to Saddam.
...
The fact that 18 European democracies have essentially "ganged up" against Germany and France says a great deal about current European politics.

Then the White House posted this list of coalition members:

Afghanistan
Albania
Australia
Azerbaijan
Bulgaria
Colombia
Costa Rica
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Georgia
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
Italy
Japan
Kuwait
Latvia
Lithuania
Macedonia
Marshall Islands
Micronesia
Mongolia
Netherlands
Nicaragua
Palau
Panama
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Rwanda
Singapore
Slovakia
Solomon Islands
South Korea
Spain
Turkey
Uganda
United Kingdom
United States
Uzbekistan

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