The Incredible Shrinking Coalition of the Willing
Now now, we shouldn’t be making fun of George W. Bush’s Coalition of the Willing that keeps on shrinking and shrinking. It was in the pool!
At its peak in 2004, the Coalition of the Willing consisted of 25,000 troops from 32 countries. Now it’s shrunk down to 11,000 troops from 26 countries. As Mark Russell once quipped, “and Bulgaria baked a casserole.”
Britain has 5,000 troops in Iraq, but that number will be reduced to 2,500 this spring. Sixteen nations in the “coalition” have fewer than 100 troops in Iraq. Latvia has 3; Slovakia 2; Singapore one.
The numbers don’t even tell the whole story. Most of the non-American troops in Iraq are in the southern part of the country — controlled by Shiites — which has had much less violence than Baghdad and the Sunni regions of western Iraq.
And a lot of the remaining foreign armies are playing a diminishing role. Kazakhstan has 29 soldiers in Iraq, but none of them have even left their base in nearly 3 years. Their main mission is to dispose of explosives. But when the first — and last — Kazakh soldier was killed by an explosive 3 years ago, the Kazakh government ordered their soldiers to remain on the base.
How about that — the dictator of a “primitive” country is trying to keep his soldiers out of harm’s way. Get a clue, Dumbya.
cross-posted at Bring It On!
Labels: Coalition of the Willing, Kazakh soldiers, Kazakhstan
posted by Tom Harper @ 2:28 PM
10 Comments:
There are more Blackwater troops (Bush's private militia) in Iraq than there are Coalition of the Willing) which shows what blackimailing, threatening and bribery has accomplished for Bush.
Larry: No doubt Blackwater is playing one of the largest roles in Iraq. But it's better PR if Bush can make it sound like we have lots of allies helping us over there. The rest of the world sees through the smoke and mirrors; maybe Americans will too at some point.
I think about the mess over in Iraq and cringe. Think of all those children who only know life being a war? Awful.
We can only imagine.
America had better open their eyes Tom and realize that we are supporting this war with two Militaries.
We pour our money into the equipment and under pay our service members in Iraq.
We turn right around and pay this private ban of troops more money for their service than what is called reasonable compared to our troops.
Bush has to do this because as you say, this multi force has and will continue to dwindle until there is only American forces and the private forces of George Bush.
Anna: Yup, it's awful. Something our leaders don't think about when they're treating the world as their personal chess board.
Let's Talk: I hope Americans will open their eyes to this. I think there's more discontent and anger toward Iraqmire, but there still seem to be millions of gullible people who still stand behind Bush no matter what he does. God only knows why.
I don't think Dumbya is capable of getting a clue, but like the rest of you, I do hope the public will wise up. SOON.
I just can't bang my head against the wall anymore about W and Iraq.
I have plaster all over the house..
BTW, nice Seinfeld reference. :)
Hey, didn't Fiji send like five people to join or something? maybe they were going around, collecting everyone's dry cleaning once a week.
Even if I were supporting this war (which I'm not and never have), it would make me think long and hard about it when I saw everyone else bailing out. It's easy to call everyone "chickens" when you yourself never leave the safety of your living room. As Don Henley sang, "Armchair warriors often fail/ we've been poisoned by these fairy tales."
You know, my father was a Vietnam vet (173rd Airborne, 1968-69), and he was a Republican when he died nearly 11 years ago, but I really think he'd be disappointed in what's going on now.
Such a joke. To think for 4 years+ BushCo has been passing of the idea of a 'coalition' in Iraq with countries contributing a hundred soldiers and a few pennies in financial support.
It's total bullshit.
It was always propaganda bullshit and remains propaganda bullshit.
A true coalition would have seen tens of thousands of troops from 32 countries. Which would have meant 300,000+ troops from other countries along with 150,000 U.S. troops and we just might have been able to stablize Iraq.
But everyone knew the invasion of Iraq was bullshit from the start and the only reason they joined Bush's 'coalition' was for the favors in return, typically cold hard American tax payer cash.
Hell, during Desert Storm, as I recall the U.S. didn't even fucking pay for it. Other countries picked up the tab...back when we had respect around the world and some political clout.
The whole situation is SNAFU
Candace: Yup, he's about as clueless as they get. Our only hope is for the public to get a clue one of these days or months.
Mike: Careful, too much headbanging will do that. Glad you liked the Seinfeld reference.
Mile High Pixie: I wouldn’t doubt if Fiji had a few soldiers there. I guess every little bit helps. I can't imagine how anyone could still be in favor of this war, with what we know now about Bush/Cheney lying to get us in there. Most of my family is Republican. Most of them have turned against Iraqmire and think Bush is totally inept, but they're still Republican.
PoliShifter: I think this “coalition of the willing” was just a PR stunt from the getgo, even before it started shrinking. Bush wanted to make it sound like we had a bunch of allies, but I think more people are seeing through all the bullshit.
It’ll be a long time before we regain the international status we used to have before Bushstain took over. SNAFU is right.
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