He forgot Poland!

i rely on facts, you rely on assumptions. That is where we are different.

 

Actually you rely on sheer denial. You asked for evidence that countries were bribed and then said promising them money in advance doesn't count. You also pretended the US was compensating for Turkey's expected military expenditures when that wasn't true.

You also just got through telling us that the US % contribution of troops is the same in Gulf War 1 and 2. You said that "america had 135k, Britain had a high of 40k". I thought that was curious wording. A little research shows that the US had a peak of 250,000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq). So you measure the UK at the peak and the US a figure 100,000 below the peak? So you can get the % you want? You complain about spin and pat yourself on the back for "relying on facts" but I think you will find very few people see it that way.

 

This shall be easy, thank for continuing to pick turkey, it makes this much easier.

It costs turkey a lot of money to let the US use military bases, so us offsetting their costs is bribing?

Again, were we bribed during hte first gulf war since other nations compensated us while we did most of the fighting? Were we?

i am relying on bbc facts

United States
The US has around 135,000 troops in Iraq. Along with Iraqi security forces, they are responsible for all of the north and west of the country, and much of the centre, including Baghdad.

Troop deployments are down from a high of about 150,000 during the war.

The Pentagon planned to reduce the number of American troops to about 110,000 by mid-2004.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3628959.stm

So lets see, how did i calculate my numbers

I took the 40k from Britain, i took the 150k from america, i disregarded everyone else and i added them together giving me 190

i then did 150/190 and i got 78%, so i lowballed it and said 75%..this is without italy/australia etc...

If the BBC facts are wrong, dont shoot me, but perhaps its my mitsake for relying on the BBC.


But again, even this is getting way off hand(my fault, this time).

Prove, with facts, that we bribed anyone. I dont care what your opinion or your assessment of our coalition is, nor do i care what sera's is, nor do i care what lickerish's is..i only care for the facts. It's that simple. Opinions mean shit, facts mean eveything.

edit: btw, with turkey, WE USED THEIR BASES to help launch th war in the first gulf war. Us paying them to use their bases is bribing and not compensation? you're making stretch armstrong look bad here.

 

I thank you for your figures, but that's correct about if you want to use the highs you have to do the same for the rest, including us.

How much money does it cost another country for us to put a base there? We pay for everything. And the compensation we're talking about is not for the the bases in their land, it's for their support.


You havnt answered me, why would we give another country money to do something we could do ourselves?

To me, that's just to gain another "coalition force" so they can say more countries helped, even though we're just paying them right back for everything.

 

You are continuing to be dishonest and continue hoping that I am not actually reading your links. Maybe you are used to debating the lazy.

Your very own BBC story link cites these examples of the costs to Turkey

It doesn't mention your fantasy ten billion dollar cost of landing planes at their airports and driving trucks down their roads. I don't even need to provide my own evidence, all I need to do is re-quote out what YOU have already shown, which flatly contradicts what you are now saying.

You are also continuing to (deliberately?) mix up the invasion force with the occupation force, which was smaller. I have assumed that you deliberately used the word "peak" in describing the UK force (which peaked at invasion) in the first post so that technically you could claim you got the facts right even while your calculation is merely proof of the garbage in garbage out principle. If not, why did you feel the need to point out that that the UK troops were "peak" unless you knew that the US troops were not? Blaming the BBC isn't going to help you.

Finally, your demand that I produce proof is purely rhetorical. Obvisously, if offering money contingent on joining the coalition to cover costs which would not be incurred regardless of coalition participation is not bribery, you are essentially asking me to produce a letter from Colin Powell stating that he bribed Turkey. Who do you think you are fooling here?

 

I did use the high's, i used the high provided by bbc. If there is a differenec between bbc and wikpedia, thats not my fault, but i tend to believe the BBC over the latter..if its proven wrong, i'll concede i relied on faulty information.

So, the fact that the war would have cost turkey 10 billion dollars and we offered 5bn to help them means simply we were gaining their support? of course! so we could use their bases, which required us to help offset their costs. Any country who goes to war has to weigh the costs of the war, 10 billion dollars is a lot of money(especially to a country the size of turkey), the us offering 5 bn to use their bases helps ease the burden.

christ, you make it sound like bush is sneaking around whispering in the ears of world leaders and is like "pssst, i'll give you a billion dollars." Were we bribed in the first gulf war? No one has answered this


We would pay turkey money so we could use their bases. While we didnt need to use the bases in turkey, they would have helped us greatly. Why is that hard to understand?

And yes of course we'll give economic incentives to those who help us and not to those who are against us, duh, everyone in the world does that. Bribes? bit of a stretch.

the irony is, we are talking about turkey, who rejected the US money. So, lets move onto another country.

What bribes were given to other countries? Who did we coerce(this one i really want to know!)?

edit: does no one else find it funny that kerry has never said who was coerced or who was bribed? He just speaks in vague generalities, which is then used by people here, who unwittingly dont even bother to ask "who was bribed, who was coerced?"

 

so far, Bush has been right about very little. This is because he is a fuckwad. Thank God it's only a few weeks until the election. I can't wait to boot has ass out of office.

Great article in the new Newsweek about how Bush has surrounded himself by yes-men and in so doing, can't handle even the slightest criticism.

 

OMG, are you that stupid? I really can't believe you are going on this long.

A "coalition of the bribed and coerced " means our coalition is nothing but countries that had to be paid to fight, or basically forced to fight becuase they rely on the US already (Marshall Islands). Which is exactly everything you have been describing. No one ever said they were holding secret undergroud meetings and stuff

 

I honestly had higher hopes for you. Do you not understand what using hteir bases entail? It is FAR more than 'landing planes and using trucks. All of southern turkey gets clogged up because we are there and of course the economic downturn caused by this and losing the iraqi market. i was misleading? How, where did i ever say it cost them 10 billion dollars for us to 'fly planes and drive trucks?' You are the one being dishonest in taking my words so horrifically wrong. I'm kinda confused here, are you saying we werent offering money to use their bases? Are you saying that we were paying just purely for their support so our 'crappy coaliton' could become a 'grand coalition' bcause we have turkeys support? Seriously, what do you think the money we offered was for? Use of their bases to launch a northern offensive or not?

http://www.theturkishtimes.com/archive/02/10_01/f_report.html

that is an excellent link by a turkish newspaper on the costs of the first war and the costs of what this war would cost them.

As for the BBC numbers

i take "150,000 troops DURING THE WAR" to mean... surprisingly enough, "DURING THE WAR"..not the occupation that followed THE WAR...now i said peak for the UK because their numbers are 1/4 of what they were...the US i posted was 15k less than the high that was posted..however, when i calculated hte % of troops, i used the high.

so i still stand by my statement, and if hte BBC was wrong, then i'm wrong.

Again, where were my numbers faulty...150k peak during the war...40k peak during the british...150/190 = 78%...so where exactly am i trying to be deceitful?

i'm sorry, but with your logic, everytime someone is paid with money, they are bribed, that is ludacris. I guess japan/kuwait/saudi arabia/german bribed the other 29 nations to fight the first gulf war. Heck, i guess we bribe everyone, for everything. You're rigt, i'm wrong.

How silly could i be, if we pay to use someone elses bases, it has to be bribing, and not working out a deal to USE THOSE BASES!'

edit: again, turkey rejected the money, so this is purely acadmic masturbation. So, when someone wants to put forth a list of bribed nations and a list of coerced nations, with some form of tangible proof, please, let me know. Also, send it to john kerry so he actually says which nations we bribed instead of speaking in such vagueness

 

well it seems bbc was wrong...and therefore i was wrong with those numbers

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/2003_invasion_of_Iraq


250k american troops...50k others...=83% american troops used.

if you calculate the 50k kuridish militia that were used...it drops the average down to 71% american troops used.

so somewhere between 71% and 83% of the troops used were american, imo, more towards the 83%.

 

again, prove that countries were bribed and coerced.

Compensation is far from being bribed.

Seriously, why has john kerry not named a single bried or coerced country? And yet no one else here has with any proof
.

On what basis do you accuse th e marshall islands of being bribed? Canada is highly dependent on the US and had no problem telling us to fuck off.

Assumpetions != facts.

edit: lets look a bit further at themain fighters...britain, did we bribe them? Australia, did we bribe them? Poland, did we bribe them? Italy, did we bribe them? Czech republic, did we bribe them?

You point ot the marshall islands, a country to my knowledge, that has no troops in iraq, but we bribed them to fight, so you say.

edit: as i said in my escond post(i believe) in this thread, you have absolutely zero tact.

 

Megara, not to sound like a dick, but you can try and prove your point without being an asshole to her.

Peace and Love,
Dan

 

Uh, newsflash, they WERE bribed and coerced. Not to mention they were in COMPLETE VIOLATION of the democratic will of their peoples. There was almost universal opposition to this illegal invasion/occupation/war crime, and those nations who participated should receive international sanctions for participating in such a blatantly illegal action. As it is, those leaders who supported it will probably just be booted out of office by their citizens, like the Spanish PM was. And rightly so.

Oh, and Poland has said they will leave Iraq too. http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1072

 

i'll say the same thing i said to the others.

Facts please, not opinions.

 

Why would we pay another country to do something we couldve done ourselves? Megara, that is my question.

The whole point of having help is to take burden off US. Not them. No one forced Turkey to commit 10Billion. If we're just going to pay them back then we might as well not do it in the first place.

 

Using turkish bases would have helped us immensely, as it did during the gulf war. We wouldnt have had to rely on our aircraft carriers. We could have launched a northern invasion.

You seem to have a hard time accepting that their bases would have been benefitial to us.

Why do you think we were trying to secure turkeys help? turkey wouldnt have made our coalition more legitimate, it helps in the war aspect.

 

lol, im not talking about the bases. the base is a seperate issue. obviously we provide some sort of retribution for keeping our bases in different countries to thier governments.

i am refering to their war contribution. naturally, a turkish base would be of great help, but thats not the point. so basically the turkish park in the "coalition" is that we have a base there?

 

the most crucial part. The same with qatar and other places that let us use bases.

 

Thanks for the link, I was looking for that.

 

Megara, you have provided absolutely no evidence that none of these countries were bribed or coerced. Nothing. Nada. Instead you rely on your infinite ability to flippantly reject any evidence provided that the US did try to bribe countries. Which is boring the shit out of me.

You continue to hope that we aren't reading your links, which contradict your arguments. Your first BBC link didn't mention a single dollar in expenses related to participating in the coalition, but you pretended it did anyway. Then you posted a link to the Turkish Times. Once again, anyone who actually reads the link well see that it mentions no costs which would result from participating in the coalition, but plenty of costs that would result from the war due to its geographic proximity. You continue to be contradicted by your own links, even as you waste bandwith complimenting yourself for relying on facts.

George Bush calls them a member of the coalition, not me, so you should be explaining how that makes sense. Your arguments are becoming more and more incoherent.

What's hard to understand is how exactly you think that proves your point instead of mine.

Just a few posts ago you were criticising us for being unable to believe that countries help us out of principle. Now your saying we give them economic incentives to help us. Are you now determined to rely on semantics?

Why should we answer a bullshit rhetorical question? The fact that I don't think the US was bribed proves what - that no country that receives money to do something is getting bribed? No, so stick to the original question rather than try to sidetrack us.

So you used a UK figure four times higher than the low, and a US figure about 10% above the low - and therefore your calculations were honest?