OT: Sticking My Head Outa The Shell

[Guest guest]

Butch,

Surely you couldn't be gaining wieght LOL.

Good luck with the rest of the uniform.

Nancy

 

Finally, I understand that a small number of U.S. Army retirees might

be

recalled to active duty. :-) Just in case the Commander-In-Chief

decides to recall me as one of those honored retirees, I been trying

on the old uniforms.

 

I want to be ready to go. :-D

 

So far .. only the socks fit. :-(

 

Y'all keep smiling, Butch http://www.AV-AT.com

 

 

=====

scents1

[Guest guest]

Yo Kathleen,

 

> > So far .. only the socks fit. :-(

>

> ROFLMAO! Poor Butch, I think a quick visit to the taylor is in order.

 

Not enough of that material around .. I went from a 32 waist when I

retired on 1 Jan 89 ... TO ... a 36 waist now. :-(

 

> AS to the rest of your note, It must be new news because I've not

> heard it yet, in fact just this morning they said nothing had been

> found in the line of WMD...and...Tariq Aziz...

 

Nothing found yet .. maybe .. they are testing again and again one area

that shows signs of nerve agents .. but it could be something else. The

issues are that the Iraqi TOP scientist .. as I write this he is on CNN

International again .. has named off all the biological agents he worked

with .. and one was the 3d most deadly in the world .. to include one

that is near and dear to some Americans .. ANTHRAX .. and he said that

even the Ministers couldn't refuse .. much less him. He is sorry for

sure but states he had no choice. He says they tried to weaponize them

and tested them for spread and effectiveness over certain areas .. and

finally determined they had to go from an aerosol to a powder to keep

the effective kill ratio. Said he lied time after time to UN Inspectors

and was certain they didn't believe him. And on and on and on.

 

Tariq Aziz .. who we all recognize for sure .. one of the big dudes in

the regime and most likely not all that bad a dude (remains to be seen)

came into coalition hands yesterday. He has come out publicly stating

that they were destroying prohibited weapons even while we were in Iraq

and .. he says he saw Saddam alive in early April!

 

> The only thing I heard about him was that he really wasn't going to be

> able to give them much new info, in fact, I thought I heard they

> weren't even looking for HIM...but then, as I've often said, my mind

> plays tricks on me and I could be wrong.

 

He was in the deck of cards .. I forget the number. But he gave himself

up .. we didn't catch him. He said his choices were to give up or hide

until we caught him .. and at his age he couldn't handle the stress.

 

> Glad to hear you are still alive, these are dangerous times where you

> are and going to get much hotter in the coming months...

 

Thanks .. in fact, Turkey is sorta tight right now. Lots of warnings

from the Turkish authorities and the Embassy. Seems a number of bad

guys are known to have crossed into Turkey .. mission to put Americans

under snakes. Butts are puckering in some circles .. I've tightened my

own security a bit .. but it was relatively tight before. I think there

is a possibility that they might get through to someone .. they are too

dedicated to totally fail.

 

Also .. seems like the US Military has ideas that are not necessarily

shared by the Executive Branch and the State Department. Big headlines

here is that the American Generals want to pull ALL American forces out

of Turkey. That upset the Turks .. and that plus the other errors the

AK Party has made lately is making them look bad .. I think they will

fail now .. not saying they haven't already .. in my eyes they have.

 

And .. I think the Department of Defense will get what they want!!

 

Spent a couple of hours at the pub last night .. was to meet a lady and

we were going out for fish .. she was fashionably late so I stayed a bit

longer than planned. ;-p Point is .. the removal of US Forces was the

main topic of discussion. Turk position is that one slight from friends

is not sufficient to do such a thing. My position was that for 40 plus

years we had manned Turkey .. spend hundreds of millions of dollars to

upgrade Incirlik AB, Balgat Air Station, Manzarili US Army Base, and

Pirinclik Army Base .. plus others. Finally, we returned to the Turks

the latter three .. and Incirlik was declared a NATO Base .. no US flag

flew there .. we were tenants .. but also the ones with the money for

operations.

 

Told'em that in all that time .. the USA gave Turkey total support ..

against the Greeks when they were wrong, against Armenian claims of

genicide that even most Armenian scholars don't accept, against the EU

when they screwed with (still are) Turkey, with NATO and against France,

Germany and Belgium when they refused defensive weapons for Turkey, and

when the Turks went into Northern Iraq many times to deal with terrorist

PKK members .. put the finger on PKK Markist-Lenist Terrorist leader

Abdullah (Apo) Ocalan .. in Kenya, and arranged with the Kenyan gummit

for Turkish Special Forces to arrive and put the habeus grabbus on his

sorry butt .. and on and on if we wanna talk about money. Granted, the

Turks lost big money by supporting us during the 1st Gulf War .. but so

did everyone else who participated.

 

Then finally .. when we made our FIRST request for support that was not

sanctioned by NATO or the UN (now proven to be WRONG, WRONG, WRONG) the

Turkish government said NO. For this reason .. says I .. the American

military wants to pull out. One cannot make war plans based on MAYBE

being able to use a base. We have Time Phased Force Deployment Lists

and everything must work like a Swiss watch. War plans are too precise

to play Lotto or mumbly peg. And like it or not, this is the beginning

of WW IV .. it began on 11 September .. its possible that in the future

there will be a need for other actions in this part of the world .. if

this is the case, military planners need guarantees .. not maybes .. and

the present totally unpredictable Turkish gummit might say NO again so

we have no choice but to go someplace else .. where they will say YES!

 

America is gonna una$$ Germany too .. but that's an old plan cause the

threat to West Germany no longer exists; even they forget that we stood

the line twixt them and East Germany for 45 plus years. ;-( And we're

una$$ing Saudi Arabia too .. that is not surprising to me and I think it

is mayhaps a bit late in fact. The Saudi Royal Family supports the bad

guys .. long they've done this. Saudis are generally Wahabi Moslems and

there is no more fanatic group than they .. followed by the Shiites we

see acting up in Southern Iraq now .. they are Iranian supported as the

Iranians are Shiite. Turks are Sunni Moslem .. but the majority of them

are social Moslems .. like the social Christians in small town USA.

 

Rumsfeld was right .. Never have so many been so wrong about so much!!

But they will not admit it openly .. even now the French are maneuvering

to avoid being isolated in Europe .. but its too late for them. Germany

is tolerated to some degree .. though Schoeder might well go under in a

short period of time. Russia .. we had no illusions about Russia so we

can get back together with them .. and they are busting butt to regain

relations with the USA right now. But France stepped too far over the

line .. they will pay .. its a norm in international relations to expect

this. Nobody is playing bad guy or vengeful bully .. its long been a

norm to demand some form of payment and it normally comes via ignoring a

country .. isolating them from decision making processes. Personally, I

hope we find that the French violated NATO rules on providing sensitive

classified information to a Non-NATO member .. I really hope we can.

 

> My opinion only - which we all know has the value of a plug nickle ;-)

 

Not true .. not any moreso than mine. It is now and has long been way

past the opinion stage. The die was cast long ago .. there was NO WAY

IN HELL the President of the United States and the Prime Ministers of

Britain and Australia would have taken a wild-butt gamble .. and there

is no way a dove like Colin Powell would have moved to the hawkish stage

unless it was a sure bet .. no gamble. For sure we saw lotsa rhetoric

as for WHY we needed to go .. and mayhaps some of the reasons were more

credible than others. But all in all, finding Abu Abbas, finding the

link between Saddam and al Queda .. finding that the scientists had been

lying to the UN wimp inspectors .. and bringing down the regime of a mad

man like Saddam are more than sufficient reasons. In fact, double what

I need to feel good about it. We saw and see that evolution was not the

answer. And we saw and see that the Iraqis saw the UN Inspectors as a

bunch of friggin clowns.

 

> Cheers!

> Kathleen Petrides

> The Woobey Queen

> Woobey Tip:

> http://www.woobeyworld.com

 

And to you .. and y'all keep smiling. :-)

 

Butch http://www.AV-AT.com