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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by Last Conformist
Not to blacken LOTM's day or anything, but Little Raven posted this on CFC, attributed to Andrew Sullivan:
quote:
No Iraqi army or national guard unit fought in Al Fallujah, sources close to the Interim Iraqi Government (IIG) say. Iraqi national guard units reportedly have refused to attack guerrilla positions; their commanders have been unable to make soldiers move forward and some officers are siding with the troops. Only the Iraqi army's special forces unit, which is mostly Kurdish, helped search for hidden guerrillas behind U.S. Marine lines outside the city. Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers have deserted to bases around Al Fallujah, the sources added. |
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So basically we killed some of their guys, but compensated them by giving them some of our Iraqi National Guards? Well, if the deserters serve the insurgency as well as they served the interim government then this could be seen as some sort of victory.
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Pax
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quote:
Originally posted by Patroklos
You know back in the day citizens didn't do this "melt back into the populaion" thing, because armies would kill the population.
Se what happens when you give them an inch. |
Spirit of 1776!
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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
This is way off topic, so ignore it if you want. But at the time of William's invasion, the English were fighting off Viking rule IIRC. After William's conquest, the Viking assaults on England seemed to cease. If this is correct, did this have anything to do with the fact that William was a Norman, who themselves were decendents of Vikings. |
Actually didn't Harold decisively defeat a Viking invasion a matter of a few weeks before succumbing to William? By 1066 the Vikings were definitely on their way out, for even as the last raiding parties were being driven out of northern England in the aforementioned year of our lord a plague of Christian missionaries was ravaging the homelands of the brave seafarers. Soon fierce warriors would be humiliatingly transformed into mere fishermen and goatherders.
I learned a fascinatingly useless fact the other day. It appears that when William invaded England he brought allies form Brittany with him. In fact half of William's troops may have been Celts from Brittany. The irony here is that these folks had left the British Isles a few centuries earlier to escape from the Angles and Saxons, and yet there they were in 1066 getting a little sweet revenge upon their former oppressors. Ain't history grand?
Last edited by Dr Strangelove on 10-11-2004 at 08:12
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:19
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PAX, I quote from Hitchens:
"The blood-maddened thugs in Iraq, who would rather bring down the roof on a suffering people than allow them to vote, pictured prettily as "insurgents" or even, by Michael Moore, as the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers. If this is liberal secularism, I'll take a modest, God-fearing, deer-hunting Baptist from Kentucky every time, as long as he didn't want to impose his principles on me (which our Constitution forbids him to do)."
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Cruddy
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
Cruddy, I think it is you who have to stop listening to the very biased leftist apologists for extreme religious fundamentalism. See Chris Hitchens on the left's fascination with the Islamic extremists:
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...703#post3422703 |
Who says I listen to them? Or believe them?
I just appreciate some people have a different point of view which is totally valid from their perspective.
I just wonder about the perspective portrayed in the brown tongue media;-
"They're not insurgents, they're terrorists". Propaganda. If they were terrorists they wouldn't be involved in a stand up fight with US Marines - they'd carefully slink away to backstab another day.
"We are liberating Iraq" - not what Wolfowicz said.
"We will stay until the job's done" - we will stay until we've sucked every last drop of black gold.
I supported the war to get rid of Saddam. He's gone. So why is the US building 14 massive permanent military bases there.
All my words, not just some poxy link.
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Pax
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
PAX, I quote from Hitchens:
"The blood-maddened thugs in Iraq, who would rather bring down the roof on a suffering people than allow them to vote, pictured prettily as "insurgents" or even, by Michael Moore, as the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers. If this is liberal secularism, I'll take a modest, God-fearing, deer-hunting Baptist from Kentucky every time, as long as he didn't want to impose his principles on me (which our Constitution forbids him to do)." |
This/Your point of view hypocritical in the least. At one point you profess your right to not have someone else's principles imposed on you while at the same time justifying imposing your principals on someone else.
"blood-maddened thugs" In order to prove your point about the Iraqi opposition you must first use logic to prove they are "blood-maddened thugs". Saying that the "blood-maddened thugs" would rather bring down the roof on a suffering people than allow them to vote is not proof. I'm sure that Hitchens is not a mind reader and we don't need mind readers. The "terrorists" have already made their positions known. They feel that the government is a. not legitimate and b. a puppet of the U.S. I wish that you would use something other than empty rhetoric and start making valid points.
P.S. I notice that you do the same thing to democrats!!!
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Pax
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Ned,
I just want you to understand that it's important for the U.S. to be successful in Iraq. One of the first ways we can do that is to assess and evaluate the enemy fairly.
We have to know his goals in order to win. A blanket assessment that insurgents are "terrorists" or "blood-maddened thugs" or "rats" as I've heard them referred to makes us weaker. It makes us underestimate his abilities and his support. That was also a mistake made in vietnam.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:19
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quote:
Originally posted by Ramo
http://www.news.com.au/common/story...255E401,00.html
The Iraqi Islamic Party has just pulled out of the Allawi gov't (over Fallujah). They were the faction of Sunni Arabs that supported the occupation (as opposed to the more popular Association of Muslim Scholars).
Yawir may come next.
Basically, Sunni Arabs are out of the government.
And they're nearly certain to boycott the election. |
This may be a wise decision for them, politically now. To let the assault on Fallujah happen, after theyd spoken so loudly against it, without then following up would leave them without credibility with their Sunni Arab constituents, most of whom oppose the Fallujah action. Allawi and Negroponte certainly took this into account when making the decision to go in.
The next step, once the battle in Fallujah is done (which it isnt) will be physical and economic reconstruction in Fallujah, as well as political reconciliation with moderate Sunni Arabs.
I note that the Iraqi FM has made an unexpected visit to Saudi Arabia today. Given the close connections between KSA and the Iraqi Sunni Arabs this may be quite significant.
Ultimately the Sunni Arabs have to face the reality of their minority status in Iraq, and determine whether they really have more to gain than lose with an election boycott. Since they are certainly counting on regional support to offset their minority status, the role of regional sunni arab powers will matter.
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Pax
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So in effect you're saying that the Allawi is more concerned about pleasing the U.S. than sunni's in his government. Now he faces a situation, in which the sunnis are withdrawing their support from the government which could potentially lead to a drastic escalation in the conflict. In other words the Battle for Fallujah is a losing battle. Is that what you're saying?
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:19
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quote:
Originally posted by Last Conformist
Not to blacken LOTM's day or anything, but Little Raven posted this on CFC, attributed to Andrew Sullivan:
quote:
No Iraqi army or national guard unit fought in Al Fallujah, sources close to the Interim Iraqi Government (IIG) say. Iraqi national guard units reportedly have refused to attack guerrilla positions; their commanders have been unable to make soldiers move forward and some officers are siding with the troops. Only the Iraqi army's special forces unit, which is mostly Kurdish, helped search for hidden guerrillas behind U.S. Marine lines outside the city. Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers have deserted to bases around Al Fallujah, the sources added. |
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There was at least one battalion of Iraqi forces that largely refused to go in - this was reported on NPR a couple of days ago, and i think i mentioned it already. The unit that took the hospital on day one was a commando unit that was heavily Kurdish, but not entirely so, as Sully implies (Sully's been in a deep funk the last week, and its showing ) In the operation SUBSEQUENT to the first day Iraqi forces have played significant roles, being assigned the tasks of assaulting mosques and other sensitive targets. Several Iraqi Battalions have been involved.
The actions of at least one were documented by reports in the New York Times.
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Pax
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quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
What Im saying
1. Asserting the governments control over all parts of Iraq, and denying the insurgency a valuable sanctuary was more important than retaining the Iraqi Islamic Party in the govt at this time.
2. He clearly does not think that this withdrawl is as much a threat of escalation as allowing the insurgents to retain control of Fallujah would have been.
3. Whether the Battle for Fallujah is a winning battle is impossible to ascertain at the moment, as even the military side of the battle is not complete, much less the economic reconstruction and political maneuvering which will follow. Not to mention the follow up battles in the places to which those insurgents who have gotten away have fled to - apparently Ramadi, perhaps also Latifiyah and Mosul. |
I don't want to put words in your mouth.
I would like to know who do you think is most likely to help the Iraqi's have a stable government. The U.S. or other Iraqi's?
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10-11-2004 03:59
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