Talk:Polish involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq

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What's wrong with the link to You forgot Poland? Why is it being removed? Halibutt 04:33, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

Dla mnie to troche za glupie by linkowalo ze strony o czyms tak powaznyn jak inwazja i okupacja Iraku. To tak jak stworzyc strone o kawalach o francuskiej armii podczas 2ws i wstawic link w artykule o armi fr. --Witkacy 05:42, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

In my opinion its not the right place for such silly meme or joke (whatever it is) article link - nor the Iraq War neither the occupation of Iraq is or was funny. Its like to create an article with jokes about the French Army during the WW2 and put a link on the French Army article :)--Witkacy 07:45, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Not a joke. Perhaps there is a way to make that clear, such as US Presidential debate: You forgot Poland. This is not meant to be disrespectful to Poland, and it is definitely an important aspect of the topic. I feel the article is incomplete without it (comments below). Cleduc 08:48, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

I added it, so obviously I think it should be there. I wound up on the page randomly, and the first thing I thought was, hey! "You forgot Poland!" -- probably the most memorable thing, worldwide, about Poland's contribution in the Iraq war. Cleduc 07:19, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

"probably the most memorable thing, worldwide..." America is not the whole world.. :)--Witkacy 08:46, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Recognize that the US is not the whole world, as I do not live there. A great deal of press and commentary was generated by Bush's comment, which to many illustrated US diplomatic failure to win broad-based support for the Iraq war. Cleduc 08:53, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I believe that the more this article is interlinked, the better. Whether a joke, a bushism or a serious topic seems quite irrelevant to me. What counts is that the whole "You forgot Poland" thingie was one of the best-publicised aspects of the Polish contribution to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Just as I can't think of the You forgot Poland article not linking here, I can't think of this article not mentioning the Bush-Kerry debate over Poland.

Perhaps as a compromise solution we could simply add a debate part to the current article. There, we could explain both the Polish political context of the war in Iraq and the US debate. How about that? This article is a stub so far anyway and any expansion would only do it good in my oppinion. Halibutt 11:21, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

BTW, I contacted the Press Office of the Multinational Division, asking whether they would be so kind as to allow us to use some of their pictures. Halibutt 11:30, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Poor expression

This article is exceptionally poorly written. In 2003, controversy erupted between Poland and France when Polish forces found French Roland surface-to-air missiles that they pretended to have been manufactured in 2003. Who pretended what? What the hell? Colonel Mustard 00:21, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I fixed it up a bit. However, this needs to be better explained, so I've removed it to here:

(it is known that these were involved in direct fighting with the Iraqi army) (of the Polish commandos) Colonel Mustard 00:31, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] $3.8 billion aid

I removed this unreferenced claim; we have two sources for the aid being at least one order of magnitude smaller.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:54, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I also thought the $3.1 billion number was ridiculous, but I checked the US government source, and it seems to hold up. I'd love to know where exactly that money is going! Perhaps the number includes services provided to the Polish army while stationed in Iraq. You mentioned you have two sources, but you actually linked to the same article twice in a row. Did you accidentally paste the wrong link? I'm very interested in seeing your other source --Jonovision 01:43, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

This number really is ridiculous, and the way the description is phrased is unacceptable. Until solid references are provided, I have removed it. The sequence of numbers in the spreadsheet file strains credulity. These numbers might reflect paying for some of the cost of keeping and transporting Polish units to Iraq, but this is obviously not equivalent to military aid to Poland. Thus if Israel or Egypt gets a billion dollars from the US in military aid, this means lots of shiny new guns and planes for Israel and Eqypt to make them stronger militarily. But if the US airlifts a Polish brigade to Iraq, bills the cost of this at $1 billion and files that cost under "military aid to Poland", this does not increase the military capability of the Polish army at all and thus cannot be considered military aid in the common sense this term is understood. At any rate, we don't have any data more recent than 2003, so using the present tense is dubious. If Poland really did become the second recipient of US military aid after Israel, I am sure there would have been some media reports of it, but I have not seen any. Balcer 16:45, 1 December 2006 (UTC)