Calif Bill wrote:
"basskisser" wrote in message
ups.com...

Calif Bill wrote:
http://www.news.navy.mil/search/disp...story_id=25737

What does this have to do with recreational boats? You are just baiting
for a fight, and Chuck will be on you shortly!


In the sal****er, we boat around miltary ships. There are even rules about
them. So why are you trying to start a fight? Bad day?

Nope, great day! Start a fight? You mean by trashing a perfectly good
post by saying something about getting beat up as a kid?
I'm just trying to get you to stay on topic, as the overlord Chuck has
requested. This is RECREATIONAL boats. Using your silly analogy, then
ANYTHING can be on topic.
Watch:

While I was fishing on my boat, I ran across an article:

Military admits failure in Baghdad

Saturday October 21, 2006
By Rupert Cornwell


WASHINGTON - As President George W. Bush for the first time drew
parallels between Iraq and Vietnam, US commanders publicly admitted
yesterday that the two-month joint US-Iraqi drive to end the violence
in Baghdad had to all intents and purposes failed.

The grim assessment, by the US military spokesman Major General William
Caldwell, came as at least 38 Iraqis were killed in bombings in the
north of the country, and the Pentagon announced that the death toll
for the month had reached 73.

October is shaping up as the deadliest for US troops in almost two
years as the overall death toll since the March 2003 invasion
approaches 2800.

The Baghdad security effort, announced amid much fanfare in August,
"did not meet our overall expectations" and the latest surge in
violence, over Ramadan, had been "disheartening", Major General
Caldwell said. Violence across the country had risen by at least 20 per
cent in the first three weeks of the holy month compared to the
previous three weeks.

He said security measures were now being "re-focused". The top US
commander in Iraq, General George Casey, was expected to present a
revised plan within weeks.

Caldwell explicitly linked the bloodshed with the impending US mid-term
elections, in which Bush's Republicans are facing major losses.

The same point was made by the President, who is under intensifying
pressure, from several senior Republicans as well as Democrats, to
change his strategy in Iraq. It "could be right," Bush acknowledged in
an interview with ABC News, that the violence in Iraq was the
equivalent of the 1968 Tet Offensive mounted by the North Vietnamese
that helped turn US public opinion against the Vietnam War.

"There's certainly a stepped-up level of violence," the President said,
"and we're heading into an election."

Yesterday the White House was playing down the remarks, stressing that
Bush did not mean to imply that a similar turning point in the Iraq war
had arrived. "We don't think there's been a flip-over point," Tony
Snow, the President's spokesman, told reporters. "From ... the
standpoint of this Administration, we're going to continue pursuing
victory aggressively."

Nonetheless the allusion to the Tet Offensive was a real departure for
Bush, who hitherto has refused to accept any similarities between Iraq
and the war in Vietnam, which lasted eight years and took more than
50,000 American lives.

It was also an indication of how an ever more unpopular war has become
an albatross around Republican candidates' necks in their struggle to
retain control of Congress at the November 7 election.

An unprecedented 35 per cent of registered voters plan to cast their
ballot to express opposition to Bush, against 18 per cent who said they
would vote to support the President