Falluja: Dire Results.....

zakur said:
Now that we are focusing our efforts on Fallujah, Samarra, which US military officials reported was "recaptured" and "pacified" last month, has erupted into chaos again.

It does not appear that U.S. military strategy in Iraq is doing anything to curb the insurgency. The frequency and intensity of insurgent attacks across Iraq are as high now as they have been since the fall of Saddam's regime. WTF?
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Zakur, good point, probably worthy of it's own thread (as this one's been overtaken by the Manifesto-ZN-Kodiak feud)

Two problems, as I see it. One, not enough troops. Yes, we and our allies have around 150,000 personnel involved. But take away the US Air Force, US Navy, and support personnel (who stay in the Camps or Green Zones and seldom interact with the Iraqis) and the number will drop--let's be conservative and say by 20%--so you have 120,000 folks that can actually 'police' a country the size of California and with hundreds of substantial towns and cities (I take substantial to mean over 5,000 residents). So drawing major strength for Fallujah allows for opportunities elsewhere from a foe that apparently (based the lighter-than-expected resistance in Fallujah reported to date) is still mobile and refuses to be pinned down for a battle on our terms.

Problem One would be alleviated if not for Problem Two, and that is the inability (to date) of the newly-constituted Iraqi police and Army to be able to confront a major insurgent attack BY THEMSELVES without substantial Coalition aid--note the attacks on the Police stations and while we have committed 10,000 troops to Fallujah, the Iraqis committed 2,000--and I am waiting to hear (after action) how they performed. Until there is reliable and trained Iraqi security forces that can directly combat the insurgents, we will be called in every time a city erupts.

And that will not do. It will not do at all. We need to see the Iraqis in control of their nation's security. Hopefully it is coming. But is ain't there yet. So we'll keep putting out the fires and continue to bleed.
 
Remember when Donny said?:

"There aren't going to be large numbers of civilians killed, certainly not by US forces," Mr Rumsfeld said.

"The US forces are disciplined," he said.

"They are well led. They're well-trained. They are using precision and they have rules of engagement that are appropriate to an urban environment."
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Well, it's already turned out to be bullsh!t.

Humanitarian crisis in Fallujah: Red Crescent

(Now I can already hear you GDFM's typing furiously, but before you hit the 'submit' button, wait until you see the bit I post)

There were no clear figures about how many civilians had been caught in the crossfire. As much as two-thirds of Fallujah's estimated 300,000-strong population is thought to have fled ahead of the fighting.

Lieutenant General John Sattler, the top US Marine commander, said so far 151 suspected insurgents have been captured and detained.

As far as the US marines are concerned, those who remain are the enemy.

They no longer have time to establish whether civilians might be inside houses in the Jolan neighbourhood, the hub of Fallujah's insurgency.

US marine Corporal Will Porter has had to throw caution to the wind and change tactics as diehard insurgents in Fallujah snipe from carefully chosen positions or lie in wait in barricaded cellars.

"I'm supposed to shoot into the houses before our troops go in," Cpl Porter told an AFP correspondent.

"It's extremely dangerous right now because the insurgents have nowhere to go, they are just sitting in houses waiting for us to come in."
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So, already we have one prediction which has failed to come to pass: Well-trained, well-led soldiers using rules of engagement appropriate to an urban environment. This is bound to increase the goodwill towards the occupation no end.
 
Mr Manifesto:
"So, already we have one prediction which has failed to come to pass: Well-trained, well-led soldiers using rules of engagement appropriate to an urban environment. This is bound to increase the goodwill towards the occupation no end."

BBC this morning - citizens of Fallujah are dying of starvation & thirst .
I know that they have long discarded the obligations of an occupying power under the Geneva Conventions and civilised norms but this is apalling.
Nothing happening now would not have been an item of the military planing for the assault - the most privileged nation on earth stands shamed by its actions.

Insurgents!
 
So the top Shia authority Sistani sits back in silence while Kurds help destroy a Sunni city.

Now there's a nice brew for decades of hatred and revenge.

Meanwhile Sunni anti-occupation forces - Baathist's, Salafi fundamentalists, nationalists etc - have long fled Fallujah. So the onslaught is pointless, unless collective punishment is your thing.

Oops, there goes Mosul. And hey! here come Kurdish forces to reestablish "order" there too.

Didn't the so-called al-Zarqawi tape explicitly state the goal of fomenting sectarian violence in Iraq?
 
Apparently Fallujah has been hailed as 'mission accomplished'. I think someone's pulled my leg with that one before:p I wonder how long before it all kicks off in the rest of the country. Whoops, it looks like it already has....

Jim Bowen
 
I wonder if we'll find out how many civillians got killed as a result of the artillery pounding, air strikes, and 'shoot-first-ask-questions-never' door-to-door searches.
 
Amusingly, this appeared in AlJazzera today:

What's happening now requires a clear statement that condemns all the crimes committed in this city," al-Dhari said. "No other place has witnessed such crimes."
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While referring to Faluja specifically, it underscores the rather selective outrage at "crime" that characterizes the hypocracy of Islamic clerics.
 
Ed said:
While referring to Faluja specifically, it underscores the rather selective outrage at "crime" that characterizes the hypocracy of Islamic clerics.
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As well as a few tunnel-visioned JREF posters:


"Body parts everywhere" in Fallujah.

http://iafrica.com/news/worldnews/389225.htm

Yeah, but just think - those body parts are gonna have freedom next January.
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I wonder if we'll find out how many civillians got killed as a result of the artillery pounding, air strikes, and 'shoot-first-ask-questions-never' door-to-door searches.
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Funny how a few thousand Baathist and foreign terrorists holding an entire city hostage through torture and beheadings draws not a peep of outrage from some people. Oh, that's right - they're "freedom fighters". I'm sure that life in Iraq under those "freedom fighters" would be just peachy-king.
 
I can see I'm going to have to explain this one slowly to all the morons

WildCat said:

Funny how a few thousand Baathist and foreign terrorists holding an entire city hostage through torture and beheadings draws not a peep of outrage from some people. Oh, that's right - they're "freedom fighters". I'm sure that life in Iraq under those "freedom fighters" would be just peachy-king.
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Okay, sit down WildCat. Now, look at me. >snap! snap!< LOOK AT ME!

Good, now pay close attention, because this is important.

The terrorist actions in Iraq are not in dispute. No-one is saying that the beheadings are great, that bombing civilians is cool because it's Muslim fundamentalists doing it, blah-blah. That's why some of us don't pipe up when these atrocities happen. There isn't any point, unless you happen to like the sound of your own voice.

The actions by the US military, on the other hand, are in dispute. Hotly so. That's why those of us who are against the US military's actions in Iraq feel the need to speak with every atrocity that they commit.

I hope you can assimilate this information a little better than certain other fools on this forum. But, if not, keep posting anyway. We can all use the laughs.
 
demon said:
Mr Manifesto:
"So, already we have one prediction which has failed to come to pass: Well-trained, well-led soldiers using rules of engagement appropriate to an urban environment. This is bound to increase the goodwill towards the occupation no end."

BBC this morning - citizens of Fallujah are dying of starvation & thirst .
I know that they have long discarded the obligations of an occupying power under the Geneva Conventions and civilised norms but this is apalling.
Nothing happening now would not have been an item of the military planing for the assault - the most privileged nation on earth stands shamed by its actions.

Insurgents!
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Boo Hoo.

Perhaps now the people who love death enough to hang the smoking remains of Americans from a bridge while the crowds danced will think twice before doing so again....if they remain alive that is.

Arab terrorists have enjoyed relative impugnity by hiding behind the skirts of their women and children. That this tactic results in dead women and children is not the coalition's fault.

The Japanese hid themselves in caves and mountain redoubts after being overwhelmed by US forces in the Phillipines. Over 200,000 soldiers held out for 4 months. From these redoubts they sent sabateurs to attack US occupational troops. But the Arab, he has an even better redoubt....his own population centers where he blends in between terrorism missions. No more will this be tolerated. Civilian deaths are not only the fault of, but the goal of these monsters.

The major modern innovation of the Arab Way of War has been its radical new conception of defense in depth. The concept made its debut in Algeria; it was subsequently refined in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Checnya and the West Bank. Unlike Ushijima's Shuri Line with its tunnels in rock, the Arab redoubt was founded on establishing an underground of terror in the civilian populace. From the anonymity of crowds, they could emerge to attack the enemy from the rear as the Imperial Japanese Army once had done from tunnels. Faced with superior United States forces, this 21st century War Plan Orange was the natural choice of the Arab strategists. By denying the United States proof of its WMDs and grinding them down through occupation warfare -- the one mode of combat at which they excelled, they had a reasonable hope of holding America until a politician willing to treat with them was elected into office. There was no need for despair because, as James Lileks put it, "hope is on the way" -- a reference to the eventual actions of the antiwar Left. In Iraq the ultimate blitzkrieg force met the ultimate protracted war army and the protracted war army awaited events confidently.

Shortly after declaring major combat operations over, the US must have realized, like Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner in Okinawa, that it had come up to the approaches of the Arab Shuri Line. Fortunately, not everything had gone according to the enemy's plan. Like MacArthur in Luzon, they had underestimated the speed of their opponent's advance. They enemy had probably not counted on OIF reaching Baghdad in 3 weeks. Their withdrawal into the redoubt, although substantial was still incomplete. But most importantly, they had not reckoned on the American ability to generate local forces against them, something the Israelis had never achieved. This took the shape of an interim Iraqi government in which Kurds and Shi'ites were major participants. They must have watched with mounting alarm as Iraqi security forces were raised against them. They had forgotten, too, that just as they had developed their tactics in Lebanon, the Americans were able to leverage Israeli tactics that were invented to counter them.
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LINK

Between the US election,...and the Iraqi elections, there is a window in which these terrorists will be severely attrited. It has been estimated that the insurgents can keep up the current level of attacks in other cities for another 3 weeks....but not beyond. Their level of losses of both men and equipment is not sustainable. By the time of the Iraqi elections these insurgents will be but blind leaderless remnants thrashing about to little effect.

-z
 
Re: I can see I'm going to have to explain this one slowly to all the morons

Mr Manifesto said:
Okay, sit down WildCat. Now, look at me. >snap! snap!< LOOK AT ME!

Good, now pay close attention, because this is important.

I hope you can assimilate this information a little better than certain other fools on this forum. But, if not, keep posting anyway. We can all use the laughs.
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First off, it's "alleged atrocity".

Secondly, I find myself in a pickle since I was against going into Iraq in the first place and don't want our troops there now. I also don't want the US to play any part in anything anywhere. I see no percentage in it. That said, we are, in fact, in stupid Iraq. It seems to me that not going into places like Faluja is the height of irresponsibility. Bugging out is irresponsible. We have to play out this particular hand. Leaving Faluja, or Iraq for that matter, in the control of monsters is not open to discussion. The way that they operate is to create situations where civilians get hurt. Sad but true. There is no alternative.

We have watched (at least I have) terrible unplesentness eminating from the middle east for 50 years. We have negotiated, bribed, propped up very bad people and so on during that time to no, repeat, no avail. (By "we" I include all countries).
Perhaps Bush is right, perhaps force is a way of breaking the logjam. We won't know for some time, decades maybe, but what has been going on certainly has not worked.

In any event, my observation stands about the perfidy of Islam on moral issues.
 
:D I love to hear you appeasers rattle on - desperate for a coalition defeat just so you can vindicate your pov, hungry for bad news, eager to take the worst interpretation ....
 
Patrick said:
:D I love to hear you appeasers rattle on - desperate for a coalition defeat just so you can vindicate your pov, hungry for bad news, eager to take the worst interpretation ....
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You talking to me, pilgrim?
 
There are idiots, damn idiots, and then there's Patrick

Patrick said:
:D I love to hear you appeasers rattle on - desperate for a coalition defeat just so you can vindicate your pov, hungry for bad news, eager to take the worst interpretation ....
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You ought to read the posts first before you reply. It won't make you sound any smarter, but at least you'll be keeping up with the topic.
 
OOT

/rant

I just know that when I saw the bloodied grizzled face of a 20 Yr. old American kid, butt hanging out of his mouth like some weird modern take on John Wayne, I went back in my mind to the movie platoon. I downloaded Barber's adagio for strings and thought about the wounds from Nam which have never healed and in fact occupied a space greater then it's merit for the past year and a half in the presidential election. I thought now as then what a goddamned waste and realized that the 100 Yd. stare will never leave that kid no matter how old he gets.


/rant off
 
You ought to read the posts first before you reply. It won't make you sound any smarter, but at least you'll be keeping up with the topic.

Yadda yadda yadda ... the same old appeaser mush served up with slight variations.
 
TillEulenspiegel said:
.... I thought now as then what a goddamned waste and realized that the 100 Yd. stare will never leave that kid no matter how old he gets.

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Too bad you choose to ignore the fact that you -- sfaik -- are enjoying life and freedom in US, talking trash like this as you often seem to, only courtesy of the fact that a lot a good men have given their lives (and others have acquired that 100 yd stare).
 
I address You with more courtesy then You deserve. I'm an army brat, dad a full bird , brother head of the Honor guard in Ft.Hood during Nam , relatives involved if WW1,WW2 , Korea, too numerous to mention. The old man had malaria which he had bouts of thru his life, my uncle had no stomach , being skewered by a German bayonet, other uncle had "phantom limb" syndrome after having his leg amputated. Don't you dare presume lecture me about sacrifice , liberty and freedom, you jackass.

The war in Iraq is an illusion of a stupidly formed fundamental outlook by the Bush administration which is costing us worthy men and women and incalculable amounts of money.
 
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