Swift Boats in Baghdad: Navy to fight upriver in Iraq

[beachmom]

I almost fell over when I read this this morning! It won't be in Swift Boats (hopefully -- they were kind of noisy), but the Navy is now going back into the brown/green river patrol business.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2218785

I mean, let's just go ahead and make the SAME DAMNED mistakes we made in Vietnam, one by one. Somebody on the thread said that this was a sneaky way to deal with troop shortages and they may have a point there.

But this is too freaking close to home. The whole operation will be out of Virginia Beach. Add to the fact that this thing won't happen for a year. Which I guess means the military has us being there in a year. Very discouraging, very discouraging.

I wanted to post this on Kos, but does anybody know if I can bring up an easy cheat sheet for block quoting, etc. like the comment posts do? I started typing and found nowhere to block quote it, and then I lost the diary fooling around looking for it. I guess that's why I never do Kos diaries.

[ginnyinWI]

1. Oh. My. God.

Just when you think you've heard it all.

I hear ya about Kos--that site frustrates me no end!

[beachmom]

2. There is a Vietnam vet with some posts commenting on the thread

I guess barely anyone made it out of his squad alive, but he did say that the Iraqi rivers are wider. Apparently, the Army has already been doing this work on boats, but maybe the Navy is going to build a bigger boat (a la Swift Boat).

Okay, maybe I will do the diary on Kos. If I do I'll post the link so you guys can maybe reco it.

[karynnj]

3. I guess another advantage is that you don't have the

thick jungle that you had in Vietnam.

[beachmom]

4. Okay, I posted a diary at dKos. Please reco!

And my diary is not great, but I just wanted to get that news out so that people knew that a new generation of Swift Boats were going to Baghdad. Here it is:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/4/10/164748/160

Let me know if you can recommend a comment. I really don't get Kos at all, and how you make it so that people can rate comments. I'm sure I'll be severely criticized for a mediocre diary (they're not supposed to be so short), but this is too important not to get out there.

[beachmom]

5. If you go to Kos for me (thanks), reco this positive Kerry post, too

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/4/10/164153/878

Oh, yeah, and my diary is a dupe which I might have to delete. Between the time I checked the diaries and I put mine up, somebody else put another one up. That site really stinks!