We are Retaliating For Fallujah!!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
We are Retaliating For Fallujah!!!
161
Mon, 04-05-2004 - 1:42pm
I am happy to see that we are doing something!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4667031/

FALLUJAH, Iraq - Hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi troops in tanks, trucks and other vehicles surrounded the turbulent city of Fallujah on Monday ahead of a major operation against insurgents blamed for the grisly slayings of four American security contractors last week.

U.S. commanders have been vowing a massive response to pacify Fallujah, one of the most violent cities in the Sunni Triangle, the heartland of the anti-U.S. insurgency north and west of Baghdad.


(For the rest of the story, click the link above)

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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Mon, 04-05-2004 - 1:57pm
From CNN:

http://messageboards.ivillage.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=iv-ivIraq&msg=2723.56

Marines closed all roads into Fallujah Monday and engaged in firefights inside and around the city, sources there said.

One Marine was killed in the fighting, according to the Coalition Press Information Center. At least seven Iraqis were killed Monday morning in several incidents, sources in the city said.

Witnesses in Haye Al-Jolan, an area in the northern section of Fallujah, said five Iraqis were killed and 15 wounded in a firefight that began when Marines raided homes there. They said 10 homes were destroyed in the battle.

In another area, U.S. Marines fired on two vehicles -- a truck and a car -- approaching a Fallujah checkpoint Monday morning, killing two Iraqis, sources said.

The Marines are only letting cars with Fallujah license plates through the checkpoints, military sources said.

The operation may unfold slowly over several days and the Marines may not attempt to control the center of the town, military sources said.

"Our concern is precise," said Lt. James Vanzant, a Marine spokesman. "We want to get the guys we are after. We don't want to go in there with guns blazing."

Fallujah's mayor set a 7 p.m. curfew and banned demonstrations and weapons, the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps said Monday.

Marines drove into the town in Humvees with loudspeakers warning the town's 300,000 residents to stay indoors during the curfew, the coalition said.

The U.S. Consul in Baghdad said Monday the two main highways between the Iraqi capital and Jordan -- Highways 1 and 10 -- have been closed indefinitely because of military operations in the area, which includes Fallujah.

Last week, four U.S. contractors were killed in an insurgent grenade attack in Fallujah. An Iraqi mob mutilated their bodies, dragged the charred corpses from the burning vehicles and hanged at least two of them from the iron work above a Euphrates river bridge.

U.S. authorities said they will punish those responsible.

Fallujah is part of al Anbar province in the Sunni Triangle, a region north and west of Baghdad that has been a hotbed of opposition to the U.S. presence.



Renee

Avatar for goofyfoot
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 04-05-2004 - 2:09pm
You've got that right. They will now find out who's boss.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Mon, 04-05-2004 - 3:34pm
Here's some interesting amateur speculation about what's going on:

http://www.belmontclub.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_belmontclub_archive.html#108115287932211023

From preliminary reports, it seems that the enemy will fight. Marines are taking mortar fire from town and have responded with air support. This will be an extremely difficult operation, and the degree of enemy entrenchment fully justifies the Marine decision not to rush into the fray. As noted in earlier posts, the enemy will use counter-siege tactics by creating incidents elsewhere to divert the Marines.

The Marines are currently trying to evacuate the town, using leaflets, loudspeakers and taking over the airwaves. Expect a fairly extended period in which no apparent progress will be made. The progress will be positional but the stresses will built up progressively within the enemy position which will be continuously undermined. From here on in, the ability to maneuver based on information dominance will be everything. The strategic goal of the enemy will be to inflict as many casualties on Americans as possible, behind a barricade of women and children. They will succeed to some extent. The basic goal of American forces will probably be to annihilate and capture the cadre of gangs which infest Fallujah, a town which is a byword in terror even to the Iraqis.

The closest historical analogue to this engagement may be the battle fought by Blackjack Pershing a hundred years ago in Sulu -- the battle of Bud Bagsak. Although this battle is now described by Islamic rebels as a scene of martyrdom, it in fact marked the end of major resistance, from which they did not recover until the 1970s.

Analysis

The following is speculation based purely on a map exercise and historical data.

Psychologically there can be few things more devastating than the sight of the population abandoning the hard core Anti-coalition forces to their fate. This would have enormous political symbolism and be extremely humiliating for the enemy. The Jihadi likes to imagine that his chattel wife will continue to wash his underpants and cook for him, whenever she is not serving as his human shield. The departure of noncombatants would also deprive the enemy of his main military advantage. Innocent flesh and blood, not concrete and steel, are what the Anti-coalition forces are relying on for safety. Therefore the enemy can be expected to exert all his power to keep the general population under his control.

Yet he must do this while keeping the Marines out. The ten mile perimeter of Fallujah is too large an area to continuously defend and if the energy required to police the population is added to the burden of the defenders, it will clearly be stretched. The overextension of the defense is the principal weakness of the enemy position in Fallujah. Historically, cities have been defended from strongpoints backed by a mobile reserve, simply because they are too large to cover in continuous line. Even the placement of IEDs and mines must be selective. It is doubtful whether the Anti-coalition forces, however well provided, have enough explosives to surround Fallujah with a continuous belt of mines. That would "tie up" their entire inventory of explosive and be just as great a danger to themselves in any mobile scenario.

For these reasons, the Chechens who defended Grozny relied upon a semi-mobile defense, in which teams of men with mixed arms, typically RPG shooters backed by automatic rifles and machineguns, guarded key approaches. To enhance their mobility, the Chechens dug connecting tunnels between buildings and under streets. They feigned retreat before mounted Russian forces, then subjected them to simultaneous fires from basement, ground and upper stories, volleying them with RPGs. The defenders of Fallujah would have read the Chechen playbook.

The first sign that the Marines are planning to turn the tables on them comes from the fact that they have wired in the escape routes from town at a standoff distance. This puts the Anti-coalition forces on the permanent defensive. The Marines will probably exploit the uncoverable yardage of Fallujah to feint from several directions, essentially forcing the defense to continuously run around within the perimeter. They can feint continuously, especially during the hours of darkness. Anyone who has experienced running around nighttime streets knows that unit cohesion will gradually evaporate and bits of equipment will be mislaid. And then there may be long-range fire from American assets. Because the Marines have the initiative, they can enforce a rest plan while Anti-coalition forces cannot. A semi-mobile Grozny style defense will probably not work in Fallujah; it will wear out against a cunning, fencing Marine Corps. At some point, the enemy will feel the need to pull into a continuously defended, but shrunken perimeter.

This will provide the Marines with continuous opportunities to gain better firing positions or even infiltrate parts of Fallujah. Before long the enemy will be forced to slacken his grip on the civilians and further consolidate to improve his position. At some point civilians will start leaving Fallujah for processing areas. The Marines can jam enemy comms to stymie coordination, and once a civilian exodus begins Coalition radio can broadcast messages in the name of the defenders asking civilians to leave. The enemy must work hard to keep his human shields in place and therefore it must be expected that he might fire on civilians in an desperate effort to keep them under control. These challenges will be met, though not without lives lost.

Yet the defenders will be operating on a steadily diminishing energy budget: less and less sleep, ammo and equipment. Because the Marines hold the initiative, they can drain the defensive energies to a monstrous degree by precipitating one crisis after the other to which the enemy must respond or concede. Gradually, the Marines will infiltrate Fallujah until the enemy is paralyzed. More than likely the press will interpret these indirect tactics as proof that Americans are afraid to advance or declare that the Marines have been pinned down. Never mind. The job at hand is to win an overwhelming victory at the lowest cost whatever its impact may be on the ratings. It is war, not entertainment.

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Mon, 04-05-2004 - 6:56pm

And what do you think that this will accomplish?


iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Mon, 04-05-2004 - 8:01pm
How on earth did you come to the conclusion that we are attempting to change the way the Baathists and Islamofaschistgs in Fallujah FEEL about us or trying to win their respect? How bizarre!

The murderers, mutilators, and foreign terrorists are going to be killed or arrested, so that the city is no longer a safe haven for those inflicting violence on other areas of Iraq, it is no longer one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq for our troops, and so that ordinary citizens who want safety and stability in their city, even if they don't particularly care for the coalition, can get on with their lives.

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Mon, 04-05-2004 - 8:24pm
This may be the beginning of our worst nightmare, because we closed down a Sadr's newspaper. Notice how well the US trained police reacted--a very Islamic attitude.

<>

Here's the whole excerpt:

Sadr, a wannabe rival to the more moderate Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, raised his rhetoric over the weekend after one of his top aides was arrested Saturday in connection with the murder last year of a pro-American cleric. The U.S. also shut down Sadr's newspaper last week, saying it had been inciting violence.

The papers have differing accounts about whether the attacks were planned, though there's no question that Sadr ordered his people into the streets. The NYT's John Burns calls the attacks "carefully orchestrated" and says they were part of a "coordinated Shiite militia uprising." Sadr called for supporters to "terrorize your enemy," and Burns says that within hours thousands of demonstrators in at least four cities had begun battling troops. But the Post says that Sadr didn't make that statement until hours after the clashes started. Citing journalists at the scene in Najaf, it also suggests that coalition troops there fired first—as Sadr's men were marching on a base. A U.S. spokesman said troops only returned fire.

It's also hard to tell whether the fighting is dying down. The NYT emphasizes that, as of last night, the U.S. was sending in reinforcements to take back Sadr City and other spots. But the Post says many militiamen went home on Sadr's orders. The paper says that rather than risk all-out war, the fighting might be Sadr's way of giving the U.S. a shot across the bow.

Whatever the specifics of the fighting and who started it, everybody sees it as a likely turning point. As the Times' Burns puts it, "In effect, the militia attacks confronted the American military command with what has been its worst nightmare as it has struggled to pacify Iraq: the spread of an insurgency that has stretched a force of 130,000 American troops from the minority Sunni population to the majority Shiites." According to an editorial in last week's Post, U.S. troop levels are "dropping by 20 percent."

In a statement made through an aide, Ayatollah Sistani, who is considered to have far more support than Sadr, called on Sadr's supporters to "remain calm, to keep a cool head and allow the problem to be resolved through negotiation." He also reportedly said the "demonstrators' demands are legitimate."

http://slate.msn.com/id/2098215/



iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Mon, 04-05-2004 - 8:50pm
Yes I do think we can force them to respect us. I don't think we'll be seeing any more dead bodies being dragged through the streets in the future, or for at least as long as Bush is in charge. You can count on that.
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-27-2003
Mon, 04-05-2004 - 9:32pm
How in the world do you force anyone to respect you???????? As long as Bush is in charge is indeed a scary thought. If Bush had a little fore thought on things we would never be in this mess and that is exactly what it is. He thought he could muscle his way through Iraq with no after thought on what to do then. Force them to respect us a lot of good that will do.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Mon, 04-05-2004 - 9:36pm


America must answer last week's barbarity in Fallujah.

BY MARK BOWDEN

national correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly

author of "Black Hawk Down" (Penguin, 2000)

Monday, April 5, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004911

The picture is haunting. The bodies of the dead dangle overhead, twisted and grotesque, while the living frolic beneath them, posing for the camera. The joy and laughter on the faces of the celebrants is unmistakably genuine. These are people exulting in hate, glorying in their own cruelty.

It was taken on Aug. 7, 1930, and it shows the bodies of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, two black men falsely accused of rape who were beaten, tortured, mutilated and then strung up by a mob in Marion, Indiana. The picture is remarkably similar to the ones we saw last week from Fallujah, or those we saw nearly 11 years ago from Mogadishu. Mobs reduce human nature to its lowest common denominator, whether American, Iraqi or Somali. They are savage and ugly, but they are not irrational.

On Oct. 4, 1993, mobs of outraged Somalis dragged the bodies of American soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu, mutilating and dismembering them. The initial U.N. intervention nine months earlier had been welcomed by most in the war-torn, starving city, but the subsequent efforts at nation-building had gradually worn out the mission's welcome. Efforts by the U.S. to target the most belligerent local warlord, Mohammed Farah Aidid, had prompted several bloody incursions into the city, and had transformed the humanitarian intervention into outright war. In the battle that had just ended that morning, many hundreds of Somalis had been killed or wounded. The dead American soldiers were dragged from the site of a downed Black Hawk helicopter in neighborhoods sympathetic to Aidid.

Lynching is deliberate. It is opportunistic rather than purely spontaneous, and it has a clear intent: to insult, to challenge and to frighten the enemy, and to excite and enlist allies. The mutilation and public display of bodies follows a distinct pattern. The victims are members of a despised Other, who are held in such contempt that they are considered less than human. Respectful treatment of the dead is the norm in all societies, and a tenet of all religions. Publicly flouting such basic dignities is a communal expression of hatred designed to insult and frighten. Display of the mutilated remains must be as public as possible. In Fallujah they were strung high from a bridge. In Mogadishu, where there were no central squares or bridges, the bodies were dragged through the streets for hours. The crowd, no matter how enraged, welcomes the camera--Paul Watson, a white Canadian journalist, moved unharmed with his through the angry mobs in Mogadishu on Oct. 4, 1993. The idea is to spread the image. Cameras guarantee the insult will be heard, seen and felt. The insult and fear are spread across continents.

The other message at a lynching isn't as obvious. It is also an appeal. It is a demonstration of potency designed to sway and embolden those who are sympathetic but fearful. It says, Look what we can get away with! Look what we can do! The sheer horror asserts the determination of the rebel faction, and underlines the seriousness of the choice it demands from its own community. It draws a line in the sand; it is a particularly graphic way of saying, You are either for us or against us. With the potential for further such atrocities afoot, critics of the rebels are frightened into silence and acquiescence.

It is a mistake to conclude that those committing such acts represent a majority of the community. Just the opposite is true. Lynching is most often an effort to frighten and sway a more sensible, decent mainstream. In Marion it was the Ku Klux Klan, in Mogadishu it was Aidid loyalists, in Fallujah it is either diehard Saddamites or Islamo-fascists.

The worst answer the U.S. can make to such a message--which is precisely what we did in Mogadishu--is back down. By most indications, Aidid's supporters were decimated and demoralized the day after the Battle of Mogadishu. Some, appalled by the indecency of their countrymen, were certain the U.S. would violently respond to such an insult and challenge. They contacted U.N. authorities offering to negotiate, or simply packed their things and fled. These are the ones who miscalculated. Instead the U.S. did nothing, effectively abandoning the field to Aidid and his henchmen. Somalia today remains a nation struggling in anarchy, and the America-haters around the world learned what they thought was a essential truth about the United States: Kill a few Americans and the most powerful nation on Earth will run away. This, in a nutshell, is the strategy of Osama bin Laden.

Many Americans despise the effort under way in Iraq. They opposed overthrowing Saddam Hussein by force, and disbelieved the rationale offered by President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair. There may well be a heavy political price to pay for the mistakes and exaggerations; President Bush faces a referendum in just seven months. But however that election turns out, and however imperfectly we have arrived at this point, the facts on the ground in Iraq remain. Saddam is gone and Iraq, thanks to U.S. intervention, is struggling toward a new kind of future. Its successful transformation into a peaceful, democratic state is in everyone's interest except Saddam's extended family and the Islamo-fascists. It's time for opponents of the war to get real. Pictures like those we saw from Fallujah last week should horrify us, but they should also anger us and strengthen our resolve. The response should not be to back away from the task, but to redouble our efforts.





Which means recognizing that the gory carnival on the streets of Fallujah is not evidence of the mission's futility, nor is it something to chalk up to foreign barbarity. It was deliberate and it must be answered deliberately. The lynching of African-Americans would have ended decades earlier if authorities had rounded up and punished those participating in crimes like the one in Marion. Somalia would be a vastly different place today if the U.S. and U.N. had not backed away in horror from the shocking display in Mogadishu.

The rebels in Iraq who ambushed those American security workers in Fallujah ought to be hunted down and brought to justice, but they are not the only ones responsible. The public celebration that followed was licensed and encouraged by whatever leadership exists in Fallujah. Whether religious or secular, its insult, warning, and challenge has been broadcast around the world. It must be answered. The photographic evidence should be used to help round up those who committed these atrocities, and those who tacitly or overtly encouraged it. A suitable punishment might be some weeks of unearthing the victims of Saddam Hussein's mass graves.



Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Mon, 04-05-2004 - 10:38pm

You do realize that in that area of Iraq, the overwhelming majority hate us and want us gone now, don't you?


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