jmasly@mainz-emh2.army.mil (John Masly) (03/07/91)
From: John Masly <jmasly@mainz-emh2.army.mil> >From: amr@ecn.purdue.edu (Amr J. Mahmoud) >There are reports from the Iraqi embassy in Jordan giving a few estimates on >Allied casualties before the ground war started...... Sorry if my response seems like flames to some of you (maybe it is?), but I had to respond to this posting. Quoting 'reports' from the indicated source certainly does not lend credibility to the 'facts' reported. Amr should be aware that neither the Iraqis nor the Jordanians are exactly 'neutral, reliable' sources as far as information about Desert Storm is concerned. Consider the situation in Jordan, and the Jordanian actions over the past few weeks. Jordan is a relatively weak country, from a military point of view. Jordan could not stand up to Iraq, or the coalition, in any war. Early on in the current operations, Jordan tried to act as the peace maker of the region. Soon after the shooting started, Jordan came out on the Iraqi side. Why the switch? Well, there seems to be two good reasons. First, Jordan does not want to become the '20th province' of Iraq. If Iraq won the war, Jordan did not want the most powerfull military force in the area to have some reason to pick a fight with them. Second, whether Iraq won or lost, Jordan came out on the side of the Palestinian popular 'hero'. Sadam is viewed by the Palestinians as the only person actively fighting for their cause. With the number of Plaestinians living in Jordan, it would have been political (and maybe actual) suicide *NOT* to support the peoples 'hero' in the current colflict. Therefore any information being passed through the Jordanians is probably not being questioned as to its factual basis, if it keeps the resident Palestinians happy. [mod.note: The above is more political than I would like, but it is calm, rational, and directed to the task of explaining Jordan's bias in such reports, so I decided to let it slide. - Bill ] As for the validity of the Iraqi reports, Amr should listen to Bagdad radio. Despite the actual fact that most of the Iraqi military equipment in the KTO was destroyed; tens of thousands of Iraqi POWs were taken; Kuwait was taken back; coalition troops are in control of southern Iraq; and military targets through out the country were bombed with impunity, Bagdad radio is *STILL* reporting a 'glorious victory' for Iraq. Pardom me for saying it...but it sounds like bulls--t to me. >I also have this reliable true story comming from Jordan. Apparently, a >Jordanian nurse was working in a Saudi hospital when she said she discovered >about 400 dead American soldiers all put in freezers...... If this story is 'reliable' and 'true', it should be no trouble for Amr to provide the name and location of this nurse to one of the western news agencies. I'm sure that they would just *love* to follow up on a story as potentially sensational as the one he describes. BTW, being about 6000 miles from the action, what is Amr's source for all this reliable information? Sorry for the vehemence, but I think that the original posting should have gone to mil.dreams or maybe mil.propaganda. --------------------------------------------------------------------- John R. Masly, Mainz Army Depot, Germany APO NY 09185 ---------------------------------------------------------------------