From: briand@anasaz (Brian Douglass)
Newsgroups: alt.desert-storm,talk.politics.misc,misc.headlines
Subject: Re: Bush Secretly Aided Saddam Until August 1990
Date: 15 Apr 92 07:46:27 GMT
Organization: Anasazi, Inc.  Phoenix, Az

In article <1992Apr13.084317.16946@lin.foa.se> eriks@lin.foa.se (Erik Svensson FOA2) writes:
>brian@coombs.anu.edu.au (Brian Ross) writes:
>>	You know, I really do wish you'd stop believing the propaganda put
>>out by your government Brian.  

I really wish you'd stop regurgitating the crap that someone's feeding you.

>>Iraq was _not_ by any stretch of the imagination the "4th largest army in 
>>the world".  

How much do you want a bet?  A free ticket to Australia?  

>>It was in fact about 6th.
>>The world's ranking (by pure numbers in uniform)in 1990 went:
>
>>	1)	China
>>	2)	USSR
>>	3)	USA
>>	4)	India
>>	5)	Iran
>>	6)	Iraq
>>(Source: The World's Military Balance, 1990, SPRI, Stockholm).

Where are your numbers?  How many personnel?  This is nothing more than
slimly goose droppings.  You give the analysis with no methodology, and no
raw data to support it.  This is such a hack technique at propgandising its
pitiful.

>Hmm, I seriously doubt this. The US Army has a standing strength of about 
>700 000 (slightly less, really) and this number is decreasing. At the time
>(1990) it was somewhere around 800 000-. It will propably be correct if 
>you looked at total armed forces. From The Military Balance 90-91
>
>	1, China
>	2, USSR
>	3, India/Vietnam
>	5, Iraq
>	6, North Korea
>	7, USA
>
>Please note that this is standing ARMY strength, i.e. no Air Force, Navy or
>Marines. Looking at this list one can easily reach the conclusion that size
>doesn't matter.

Not quite Mr Svennson.  Brian, I suggest you go check with your G2 people, 
either that or get some new glasses,  because you can't read a chart.  Here's 
a real analysis for you, one that you can easily look up and verify.  All 
personnel numbers are in thousands.  

						tank
country        army  navy  af  tot_per	tanks	rank  composite	overall rank

USSR           2888  410  1180  4478   61500	1	1+1=2		1
China          2300  260   470  3030    8000	3	2+3=4		2
United States   761  785   571  2117   15440	2	3+2=5		3
India          1100   52   110  1262    3150	12	4+12=16		6
Korea, North   1000   41    70  1111    3500	10	5+10=15		5
********************************************************************************
Yes we have a winner
Iraq            955    5    40  1000    5500	4 	6+4=10		4
********************************************************************************
Vietnam         900   40    12   952    1950	18	7+18=25		8
Korea, South    650   60    40   750    1550	22	8+22=30		9
Turkey          525   55    67   647    3714	9	9+9=18		7
Pakistan        500   20    30   550    1850	21	10+21=31	10
Germany                     		5045	5
Israel                      		4288	6
Syria                       		4000	7
Czechoslovakia              		3995	8

Sources: International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, _The
Military Balance 1990-1991_, _Stategic Survey 1989-90_.  All numbers are for
June 1990.

I've listed the top 10 countries in Personnel, and then the top ten in tanks.
The composite score is obvious.  Note that Iraq was 4th in tanks, 5th in
personnel, giving it the distinction of 4th largest army in the world.
Ross, your vaunted Iran that you had in 5th place? was 18th in manpower, 40th 
in tanks for a composite of 48! North, South Korea and Vietnam beat that.  At 
least Mr. Svennson got all the players right, though the orders are wrong.  I 
think Mr. Svennson accidently used the 91-92 figures, though I haven't
checked them yet.

Ross, you weren't even in the F*&^(*)( ballpark!  Iran!?  Germany and
France have larger armies than they do!  Get a clue mister!  Is this the 
caliber of people in the Australian Defense Forces?!  No wonder they didn't
want to show up at Desert Shield and Desert Storm.  It's far cry from the
days when the Aussies were the first to show up with the US, whether we
were right or wrong, we knew we could count on them.  Even before the Brits!
Where have all the Australian men gone?  (I guess that's why my Australian
girlfriend in Perth wants out there ASAP!).  Next time you want to go off
spouting your own propaganda with made up numbers, you better make damn sure 
of your them.  Cause if they're even the slightest bit wrong and you're 
slinging them about as gospel to support your own agenda, I'll chew your face 
off with the real stuff.  The Commies tried to get away with that shit for 40 
years, and they didn't.  Neither will you.

>>	By the time Desert Storm began, the Iraqi forces were in fact out
>>numbered by Coalition (some 350,000 Iraqis compared to 450,000 Coalition
>>ground forces).
>
>This might very well be true. However, you should keep in mind that it's 
>(relatively) easy to count formations (divisions and such) while it's hard
>to count people. Saddam sent home some of his soldiers but kept the formations
>in the field under strength. So, at full strength the Iraqies had just about
>as much as the  Coalition said they had. 

Exacto Mundo!

On top of that, Iraq had mobile reserves spread about Iraq (~500,000) of
various grades (from poor to Republican Guard), that if Iraq had had more
resolve, could have been thrown in to the meat grinder.  The Coalition had
none.  But then of course that would have meant meeting up with the French
6th Light Armor Division or the US 101st.  Neither a pleasant idea to the
Iraqis.

>>	Funny, it appeared to me going by reading of what was going on it
>>was in fact the USSR which was attempting to avoid a confrontation with the
>>US "that would destroy the planet."  If you want to go back and examine each
>>of the major "brushfire wars" between 1945 and 1980 (Reagan's assumption to
>>power), and look at how they ended, it was usually the USSR which forced the
>>beligerents to the negotiating table, not the US.
>
>This is true in a way. It was a political strategy to influence the voters in
>the West to accede to USSR demands by giving an image of impending WW III.
>It's far easier to understand the Soviets actions if you view them as a kind
>of Burkina-Faso with nuclear weapons and paranoia. They most likely knew that
>their equipment was (is) crap and had to use other means to reach their goals.

Once again, Mr. Svennson gets it right.  A destroyed West was not what the
USSR wanted.  Rather, a capitulated West, that accedes to their hegemony.
The view in the USSR was that the West was weak, no taste for war,
conventional or nuclear.  This was especially the case after the Vietnam
war.  The prevailing doctrine was that the US wanted it's sphere of
influence--North and South America--they wanted theirs--Europe.  The first
step in their plan was a NATO pledge of no first-use of nuclear weapons.
After that, given their numerical superiority in arms, they felt they could
dictate the surender of Western Europe.  The question became, is one
willing to die on his feet, or live on his knees?  Reading western
newspapers and watching television, the feeling was we would rather live
on our knees.  We had too much to lose in a war, especially a nuclear one
where the propaganda said everyone would lose (which isn't true, but that's
another thread).

Breznev and his cronies were nothing but gansters, murderers and theives
bent on creating the last European Empire.  Only because of the leadership
and determination of the US and all her Allies across the globe, did the
Soviet Union lose.  I'll point you to a letter from Marshall Ogorkov to
Breznev, circa 1978, in which he states that the US and her Allies would
begin fielding a new generation of weapons in the 80's unprecendented in
their lethality and sophistication.  The lethality of these weapons would
negate their numerical superiority on the conventional battle-field, making
victory in doubt.  The sophistication of the weapons would be such that
given the USSR's industrial base at the time, they could not hope to keep
pace with the West in research, development, manufacture or espionage.
That by 1984, The West would match and then exceed the USSR in all weapons
systems, with no hope of ever catching up again.  In other words, the
trillions of Rubles that Breznev had been spending since the 60s, would 
become worthless.  No, the USSR was never interested in "negotiating" except
where it benefitted them.

[deleted stuff about race to moon, boring]

>>	Not really.  Both used Iraq for similar purposes.  The difference was
>>that Iraq had to pay in hard, cold cash, to the USSR.  The US gave them 
>>things instead.
>
>What do you mean with things?
>The US never delivered any arms to Iraq, mainly because most of the Iraqi 
>equipment is of French or Soviet origin and can't use US equipment.

And it was the Soviet Union that signed a treaty of alliance with Iraq in
1972 on economic, political, and military affairs, especially getting
supplied Soviet weapons through Soviet Military credits.  (They owe the
FUSSR money too).  In general, the Soviets were the ones that "gave" them
things, though on credit.  Virtually anything that was exported from the
US, they had to pay cash.  All of this was handled by businessmen (remember,
it was IRAN we gave stuff too, in exchange for hostages) looking to make a
buck.  The only thing the US government did is give a stamp of approval for 
export.

---The growl turns into a tone---
Tell me, Ross, do you get, like, misty eyed when someone says the names Lenin,
Marx, Che Guevara?  Because you're total blindness to the realities of the
world reminds me of Communist sloganeering.  Facts mean nothing, and it is
quite acceptable to manipulate the truth to support your agenda (which seems
like exactly what you did with your ranking of the world's armies
(Iran?!)).  Get real!  Communism is dead (it just hasn't slithered into the
grave yet), especially the Soviet kind which was nothing more than an
abomination of the original Marx babblings (when has an economist been
right on anything!).  

Ross, when it came to the stuggle between the USSR and the West, a friend from
Beirut said it best:  "The US is a white dog, the USSR a black dog.  But
when the dog bites you, what difference does its color make?"  Most of what
you critize the US for having done, we probably have done to some degree.
But you seem to take relish in expanding it to apocolyptic proproptions,
way beyond reality, and then completely leave the old USSR out of it.  Are
you like some old deep cover agent that got left behind?  And dream of the
good days before the _Spike_ when no one noticed the dribble you slather is
but disinformation?  I hate to be so harsh on someone, especially in
public, but you're joke.

>>--
>>Brian Ross__________________________________________________________________
>>	"If it is dangerous to suppose that government is always right, it
>>will sooner or later be awkward for public administration if most people
>>suppose that it is always wrong."______________________________J.K.Galbraith
>
>--
>Erik Svensson			Research Officer
>Guided Weapons Division		National Defense Research Establishment (FOA)
>Stockholm			Sweden
>
>net.address: 	eriks@fenix.lin.foa.se
>
>&& This .sig is protected by SIGinfectant(tm). Look for the &&, a sure sign of
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-- 
"You want to know what's scary?  The Third World has 12 new members and
some of them are nuclear armed!"  Former US intelligence officer.

Brian Douglass			briand%anasaz.UUCP@asuvax.eas.asu.edu
				602-870-3330 X657
Newsgroups: alt.desert-storm