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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Spiffor
And this is what I wanted to believe, until recently. The rebellion is changing it, and the American forces are changing their dealings with the population, at least in the pockets of resistance, or the potential ones.
When there was isolated pressure from Saddam loyalists and foreign fighters, things were very different from this time, where nationalist and anti-occupation feelings are even gaining the Shi'ites, where the resistance to the US is becoming a nationalist one rather than a Saddamite one. And where pockets are in outright violent rebellion.
Today's situation is completely different than yesterday's. And I strongly doubt your boys and your generals were prepared to it when the war started. I don't think they are prepared to it now either. |
The US forces expected an urban battle in Baghdad, in April 2003. The surprise was that the Fedayeen Saddam faded away, and that battle did not take place. Our boys and generals have trained extensively for urban warfare, the USMC especially, IIUC. Whats happening in Fallujah is very much what they expected at SOME point, and what they are trained for.
There will still be civilian casualties. It has NOT proven possible to evacuate the entire civilian population, and the last insurgent redoubts are in the most densely populated parts of the city. GEpap cites 600 civilian dead. I saw a citation from the Iraqi ministry of health of half that - the higher number was from a local physician. Thats still a tragedy. But its NOT incompatible with the USMC making greater efforts to avoid civilian deaths than any army fighting in urban coniditions in history. The coalition forces have repeatedly accepted ceasefires, and allowed Iraqis a chance to negotiate, to avoid having to fight in Fallujah. The insurgents have repeatedly violated the ceasefires. I hope that Fallujah will be resolved without further fighting, but if that is impossible, i rely on the USMC to fight with honor.
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Yef
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quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
From Jihad Unspun, An anti-US website
"One of the American agents was a female physician from Baghdad who had been sent by the puppet so-called ministry of health, ostensibly to help local doctors treat the wounded. But the local people grew suspicious of her because of her intentionally bad work. She was investigated for two days and finally confessed to her crime and revealed the outlines of the enemy plan to battle the Resistance from within. Accounts were settled with her as with the other spies."
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Poor woman. I don't want to think of all the things they did to her before killing her.
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Chemical Ollie
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Bored of this board
Jan 2002
time: 06:35
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Written for Aftonbladet by Urban Hamid. Translated by me.
http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/nyhet...,469668,00.html
quote:
The images that cause outrage
USA’s ferocious attacks strenghtens resistance.
Bagdhad
USA’s ferocious attacks on the slum quarters of Falluja last night will not quell the resistance. Quite the reverse. Now, thousands of Iraqis will get a personal motive to seek revenge on the occupation forces. The Americans say that they mainly strike against foreign terrorists in Falluja. But there aren’t simply that number of foreigners in town. When I was there myself, I saw large numbers of armed men. Most of them were known by the inhabitants and came from the area. It’s their friends and relatives who now die in the American attacks. Bagdhad inhabitants are chocked over the brutality of the attacks.
- This has gone too far, this war is unhumane, said several people I have spoken to.
The TV images that are pumped by the Arabic channels can be seen everywhere. They inflict outrage in people who would normally not care at all. Not only Iraqis, but all Arabs can see – more or less live – how their muslim brothers are killed by the occupation forces. They see the images and make their own conclusions on who are really the terrorists. Many people tend to forget how proud Iraqis are. The resistance is not about getting Saddam back. It’s all about – resistance.
Additionaly, the rivalising Sunni and Shia Muslim factions are beginning to unite. Falluja, that is subject to ferocious American attacks, is dominated by Sunni. Meanwhile, when the bombs started to fall over Falluja, 60 Shias who fell victim to the fighting in Najaf were buried.
When I was kidnapped outside Falluja on the 8th of April, I tried to give a cigarette lighter with a picture of Saddam to one of the kidnappers. He was outraged.
- Do you think I support Saddam? I don’t want your lighter. We are all against Saddam. We want the Americans gone.
The Iraqis have seen how Palestinians live under the Israeli occupation. The are frightened to end up in the same situation. A shejk I talked with today said:
- The Americans did not come to liberate us from Saddam. They came to steal our oil and support the slaughter of our Palestinian brothers.
The attacks on Falluja will hardly make him or other Iraqis to change their minds.
Urban Hamid
Published 28 April 2004
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:35
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quote:
Originally posted by East Street Trader
Invasions are just altogether too foul. |
Violence is foul.
I am reminded of a quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who said that violence, not war should be contrasted with peace, since millions of his fellows were murdered while the Soviet Union was at peace. Political violence in Iraq didnt start in March 2003. It was going full blast, with all its foulness, through the entire Baathist era. Hopefully the events in Fallujah will bring it to an end. If it turns out, as GePap and others predict, that the coalition will fail, and that Iraq will end up with another brutal dictatorship or with ethnic civil war, then the US will certainly see this as a mistake. But FOR NOW our effort MUST be focused on avoiding that result, and until then we cannot judge if it was a mistake or not.
In any case there are no other states on our list for regime change by force, apart from a more blatant casus belli. Iraq is and always was sui generis.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Oncle Boris
The campaign must have been unsuccesful, because I sincerely never heard of anything like thousands of deaths at Jenin. |
the only number i could find was a claim of 500, not thousands. Sorry.
"The PLO's WAFA press service took advantage of Israel's refusal to allow the media in to Jenin, declaring that the number of killed Palestinians was 500; they said that bodies were piling up in the streets and spread the word that Israel was refusing to bury them.
Organizations such as Physicians for Human Rights and Amnesty International took the PLO at its word and joined the chorus of groups that alleged that Israel had conducted some kind of mass execution - without verifying facts from any objective source. The allegation of "massacre" was reported as FACT by the foreign media.
For two weeks, media outlets throughout the world devoted huge amounts of ink to unverified tales of conspiracies, rapes, executions, mass murders, and mutilations."
Ok, so they only exaggerated the civilian death toll by tenfold. And they only attributed it to mass executions, and other atrocities instead of the consequence of guerillas firing from civilian occupied buildings.
I will assume the same thing is going on wrt to Fallujah, till proven otherwise.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:35
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quote:
Originally posted by East Street Trader
If your country is ever invaded DinoDoc, and you have the courage to resist, you will have my respect. If those you resist outgun you - as they inevitably will - and you try to resist as these men are by attempting to go toe to toe with the invader, you will also get my sympathy. |
I my country is ever ruled by someone like Saddam Hussein, and he organizes groups of thugs like the Fedayeen Saddam, and some outside country invades and overthrows the regime, and tries to restore democracy, and a bunch of SOBs fights that effort, whether in the name of the old regime or in the name of some religious dictatorship, I will do my utmost to oppose said SOB's, and if YOU should choose to "respect" the thugs, I will spit in your face.
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Oncle Boris
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Once in a brown moon
Aug 2001
time: 00:35
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quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
I my country is ever ruled by someone like Saddam Hussein, and he organizes groups of thugs like the Fedayeen Saddam, and some outside country invades and overthrows the regime, and tries to restore democracy, and a bunch of SOBs fights that effort, whether in the name of the old regime or in the name of some religious dictatorship, I will do my utmost to oppose said SOB's, and if YOU should choose to "respect" the thugs, I will spit in your face. |
Again you miss the point. If you were born in Iraq, chances are you would't care much about democracy. Religious people born in Texas become Christians, and if the same person was born in Tibet he would just become buddhist.
The issue is one of colonialism and clash of ideologies, not one based on the intrinsic value of the morale of one side and the other.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:35
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from Iraq the Model, an Iraqi blogger
quote:
Today I was reading Al-Sabah newspaper and one title caught my attention “a local armed group confronts Al-Sadr militia” I must admit that I felt relieved at first. At last, some Iraqi civilians took it upon themselves to fight the terrorists. But after a minute of thinking, this question came to my mind; is this what we want to see, Iraqi civilians carry arms to fight the thugs?
The armed group in question distributed a leaflet in which they threaten all those outlaws and terrorists who bring instability and disturb the safety of the city, saying that they will be eliminated.
And on the ground, there were some clashes between this group and Al-Sadr militia in which some men from "Mahdi army" were killed and some others wounded. This clarifies some important points which are-as written in the leaflet-“enough is enough, we should stand up for the challenge”.
Let us first try to take a closer look at what these news mean. When local people (definitely Sheát) rise against what was considered to be a powerful, somewhat holly and a 'largely' supported extremist, this proves that all the crap said about a revolution being in the air has no base at all. it means that either the people of Najaf are not fascinated with the idea of revolting against the coalition and are ready to cooperate with them, or that the people of Najaf saw that what Sadr militia was doing is not a true revolt against the Americans, but rather it was terrorizing Iraqis, looting and releasing their brother criminals from prisons to help them gain control over the huge amounts of money that comes to the wholly mosque (we are talking about REAL money here), all with the Iranian clerics acting behind the scene. That's why the people of Najaf couldn't stand their atrocities anymore and decided to face them with all the risk such a decision carries.
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East Street Trader
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London, United Kingdom
Jun 2000
time: 05:35
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quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
So do you not respect the great majority of Iraqis, who want the Coalition troops to stay longer, and who hate and fear the insurgents? |
I do not know why you say that, LotM. I have had the great good fortune never to be visited by war and I have sympathy for every Iraqi on that score - they have hardly been free of it for two decades.
Your belief that any Iraqi hates and fears the insurgents is based on imagination or wishful thinking, none of them have said as much.
They hate and fear the turmoil in their country which is a different thing.
I would agree, however, with the proposition that if the US/UK just pull out there will be a power vaccuum and that will lead to a protracted period of disorder while a power struggle takes place.
If the open resistance spreads to all the other cities then that may start seeming like the lesser evil. But for now I would regard it as leaving the Iraqis of whom you speak in the lurch so I would not support it. And I agree that there is some small measure of comfort from knowing that attempts simply to keep the peace - if the occupying forces can somehow limit their actions to that object - are valued by Iraqis.
The proposition that removing Saddam Hussein for the benefit of the Iraqi people would be a good idea was never advanced before all this started. Raising it now is, I am afraid, just a lame excuse. It is a collateral benefit that happens to have flowed from events. As the main benefit which was sought has turned out to be no benefit at all it is the only good thing which has inured.
The cost is busy demonstrating that the opinion previously universally held that, by itself, it is not something which should be done is absolutely correct.
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28-04-2004 21:14
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