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Iraq-Jordan
Iraqi allies warn US over Falluja
2004-04-09
From BBC (aka the ’You are all going to DIEEE!’ network) so put on your old boots cause you are liable to step in it.
Members of Iraq’s US-appointed governing council have condemned the US military operation in Falluja after four days of bitter fighting. One member described the operation as "genocide" after doctors in the Sunni Muslim city of 300,000 reported 450 deaths and 1,000 injured this week.
No puppies or bunnies!
450 isn't a very spectacular genocide, especially when most of them were waving guns...
The fugitive leader of the country’s parallel Shia unrest has demanded the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
He's been demanding that for the past year, hasn't he?
The US has declared a truce in Falluja but fighting continued as night fell. Gunfire and mortar blasts echoed across the city west of Baghdad and a marine officer who spoke to AFP news agency on condition of anonymity predicted it would "get worse before it gets better". Another officer, Maj Pete Farnum, said his men had tried to keep the noon (0800 GMT) truce on Friday but attacks by militants had not eased. "We went into pause but the enemy kept attacking us on the western side of the city," he said. "We had to defend ourselves so we asked for permission to return to offensive operation. This was granted."
More deaders added to the "genocide." Happens every hudna, doesn't it?
However, the ferocity of the battle for the city appeared to have eased since the US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, announced the 24-hour truce to allow for peace talks. US troops are said to be allowing women and children to leave the city but are stopping men as they search for suspects in the killing and horrific mutilation of four American security guards in Falluja at the end of March.
Behold the power of film...
Ghazi Ajil al-Yawer, a Sunni Muslim member of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), said he was ready to resign if the US did not seek a peaceful solution to the crisis in Falluja.
Dont let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
"How can a superpower like the US put itself in a state of war with a small city like Falluja? This is genocide," he told AFP news agency on Friday, the first anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein.
But what the fun-loving residents of Falluja did to the contractors was ok right?
Fellow IGC member Adnan Pachachi said the Falluja offensive was "illegal and totally unacceptable" whilst Kurdish IGC member Mahmoud Uthman described US policy as counter-productive.
Not as counterproductive as the mutilations...
The Iraqi interim Human Rights Minister, Abdel Basit Turki, and a member of the Iraqi Governing Council’s rotating presidency, Iyad Allawi, both resigned on Friday without giving a reason for their decision.
Goodbye. Don't come back. Ever.
Moqtada Sadr, the radical cleric whose followers have been directing violent unrest in Shia areas since Sunday, has demanded the withdrawal of coalition troops from Iraq.
You said that before...
Speaking in a sermon read out at Friday Prayers by an aide in the town of Kufa, he said US President George W Bush could no longer point to Saddam Hussein or weapons of mass destruction as reasons to be in Iraq.
How about Mass graves? Rape Rooms? Rape Squads? Oh... those are ok with Mr. Sadr....
"You are now fighting an entire nation, from south to north, from east to west, and we advise you to withdraw from Iraq," said Mr Sadr, who is the subject of a coalition arrest warrant.
No. We are only fighting the few supporters you have left. Then we will give you your wish of dying for your cause.
President Bush has been consulting other coalition leaders by telephone, speaking to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and El Salvadoran President Francisco Flores. A senior US commander, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, said in Baghdad that operations to quell Shia unrest were going well.
Moqtada's not dead yet, though...
UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said the coalition is facing its "most serious" threat since the end of the war. The US has reported the deaths of at least 42 of its soldiers in combat since Sunday and militants are holding a number of foreign nationals hostage, including three Japanese citizens, two Palestinians and a Canadian. Russia has called on the sides in Iraq to show restraint and warned of "an impending humanitarian disaster" in Falluja.
Don't forget the part about the Brutal Iraqi Winter™...
Posted by:CrazyFool

#23  No telling what's being planned for Fallujah, but we better kill as many of the baddies as we can find now, because we're unlikely to be handed the chance again. Not even these holy-joe guys will volunteer to walk into the Marine meat-grinder again, I think. They'll switch to low-intensity again, wait out the handover, then work the new Gov't for all they can extort.
Posted by: mojo   2004-04-10 12:11:21 AM  

#22  Kirk,

We're going to install a democracy. There will be at least one election. Some of them may be starting their campaigns a litle early.
Posted by: Mr. Davis   2004-04-09 11:39:24 PM  

#21  I really don't understand these IGC members criticizing the U.S. for finally taking out the garbage in Falujah. If enough of these baathists and islamofascists survive, the IGC can forget about having a free, prosperous Iraq. But action A/consequence B logic is pretty rare in that part of the world.
Posted by: Kirk   2004-04-09 11:05:47 PM  

#20  Sherry - There might be a looming shortage of attacking forwards...
Posted by: .com   2004-04-09 10:30:46 PM  

#19  Just an interesting tidbit of information that gets stored back in my mind.... I heard, only once today, from Brett on Fox... during the cease fire, the dead were being buried in a soccer field in the middle of town. Over 300 of them, and all fighters.

Now, if I'm a citizen of this town, I don't think I would be letting my kin be buried in a soccer field in the middle of town.

Thinkin'.... humm... are we running out of enemy?
Posted by: Sherry   2004-04-09 10:24:08 PM  

#18  Dave D.

I don't know how old you are, but I don't plan on leaving my children, let alone grandchildren, the choice of submitting to sharia, though they may voluntarily convert anytime they want. I'd make the decision for them real soon. And I've got a daughter 20. Real Soon, y'all heah?
Posted by: Mr. Davis   2004-04-09 9:24:52 PM  

#17  We are at a key juncture in modern history. Reform of Islam, down to it's core will occur. It would be far better for it to change from within, and I support the far too few sane Islamic voices such as Irshad Manji. But, by damn, if they do not find a way to muzzle and quell the Islamists instead of being cowed by them, the West will be forced to silence the Islamists for them, and no one will be overjoyed with the aftermath.
Posted by: Craig   2004-04-09 9:24:09 PM  

#16  You heard it here first:

When all this Falluja nonsense calms down, Al-Jizz and locals will start discovering "mass graves".

I almost envy the leaders of the islamofascists; the strategic PR moves for them are too easy.
Posted by: Carl in NH   2004-04-09 9:23:53 PM  

#15  I think those three options put forth by the LGF poster Craig cited are indeed our choices: put up with incessant 9/11-style attacks from the Islamoloonies, foster a sea-change in Islamic societies which will render them non-toxic, or just kill them all.

Right now they don't have sense enough to know that their very survival depends on whether we succeed with the de-toxification experiment we're conducting in Iraq. We've got to make this work; I don't want my grandchildren to have to decide between submitting to sharia and killing a half-billion Arabs in a nuclear holocaust.

We've got to make it work- yet the entire Democratic Party is trying their damndest to make it fail, just so they can win this presidential election.

Pray for us.

Posted by: Dave D.   2004-04-09 8:57:43 PM  

#14  "How can a superpower like the US put itself in a state of war with a small city like Falluja? This is genocide," he told AFP news agency on Friday, the first anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein.

How can we? Easy, just mutilate and burn our civilians, then sit back and watch the mosques come tumbling down.

Does anyone else find it ironic in the extreme that this accusation of "genocide" exactly coincides with the first anniversary of Saddam's being deposed? Were Hussein still in power, the real "genocide" would be continuing entirely unabated.

NOTE TO TERRORISTS: If this is how you define "genocide," keep a Thesaurus handy, because you're really going to need one.
Posted by: Zenster   2004-04-09 8:55:10 PM  

#13  Thanks, guys, I always respect your words..........
Posted by: Sherry   2004-04-09 8:43:52 PM  

#12  Sherry,
While I certainly hope that the military will be able to fight this on their terms, I am not optimistic that this is the last fight. I am encouraged that FOX just reported that 60,000 people evacuated Fallujah, and please, Please, PLEASE hope that we made sure to thorougly vet them. BTW- this is appx 1/4 of that city's population.

With Syria and Iran next door, I fear that we are in for many months of intermittent insurrection. We must have the will to bear it all out to the end!

Steve DenBeste of USS Clueless posted an unoffical white paper of our gov'ts intentions and policy wrt the ME and the WOT. God save us if we are not brave enough to see this finished.

A recent poster on LGF said it quite well- we have three options; Bear with the Islamists as-is (which means that we will eventually live in dhimmitude), change them, or KILL THEM! Position one is untenable, position two is commendable- and is what GWB is attempting, position three becomes more tempting as the horrors of the Muslim world come out into the light of day.

I have often stated that I have the utmost respect for those who respect me. IMHO the Islamists show nothing but disdain, to say the least, for any but the most reactionary of the Muslim world. In their view, we must either submit to their perversion of Islam or die. I will join the long history of liberty in our great country- give me liberty or give me death. I will fully support blasting these bastards to their 72 raisins until they quit screaming for my death.


Posted by: Craig   2004-04-09 8:40:23 PM  

#11  I sure hope that's the case. There's an awful lot of caterwauling about negotiations, though. Way too much for my taste.
Posted by: Fred   2004-04-09 8:34:05 PM  

#10  >I really worry that we're being far too gentle

Yes, it's probably best to strike a balance between Cruelty And Clemency. Since there are reports that all Fallujan men of military age are been denied passage out of Fallajah, I'd say that a lesson in cruelty is being prepared.
Posted by: Lux   2004-04-09 8:28:10 PM  

#9  "No dumb, well meaning bastard, has ever won a war dying for his country; He lets the other dumb bastard die for his country!"
Ohh Patton...where are you!!!
Posted by: smn   2004-04-09 8:27:32 PM  

#8  I don't know; none of us do. I think you may be reading more into that remark than is warranted, Sherry.

I hope not, God knows; but so much of what we're hearing these days strikes me as symptomatic of leadership which has gone timid, and which has allowed itself to focus too much on nation building and not enough on destruction of the enemy.

We conduct ourselves according to the high standards of our western civilization, perhaps to impress the population with our decency and good intent; but in their frame of reference, they don't know how to interpret our behavior as anything other than some sort of weird timidity.

I really worry that we're being far too gentle over their, and as a direct result many more people will die--theirs as well as ours--than would be the case and went utterly medieval on these Fallujah gangsters.
Posted by: Dave D.   2004-04-09 8:07:35 PM  

#7  Sherry, this doesn't quite respond to your question, but Wretchard at Belmont Club says:

"The pitiful accounts of the battle of Fallujah should put paid to the silly press suggestions that the US military is "overwhelmed". The problem is that the terrifying combat efficiency of the Marines may in fact lead to the literal extermination of enemy forces. US authorities, with a longer term end game in mind, are balancing the political outcomes of letting the Marines continue, even in their restrained mode, and taking more US casualties from holding back. When the media learns the full extent of enemy casualties in Fallujah, Kut, Ramadi, Saddam city and elsewhere, the image of the US military will be switched from "hapless" to "bullying" in a millisecond."

I really like that phrase "terrifying combat efficiency of the Marines."
Posted by: Matt   2004-04-09 8:05:29 PM  

#6  From that Marine's letter that has been circulating around the Internet these last few days

Things have been busy here. You know I can't say much about it. However, I do know two things. One, POTUS has given us the green light to do whatever we needed to do to win this thing so we have that going for us. Two, and my opinion only, this battle is going to have far reaching effects on not only the war here in Iraq but in the overall war on terrorism.

Having no military background, I read this as meaning Bush has told them to take the gloves off, and go win this thing. To me, this is the last "fight" that has to happen, and it is occurring on our terms.

Any thoughts?
Posted by: Sherry   2004-04-09 7:29:28 PM  

#5  "This ain't Rock and Roll, This is Genocide"

opening line - David Bowie; Diamond Dogs (live)

smells like teen spirit plagiarism
Posted by: Frank G   2004-04-09 7:14:24 PM  

#4  WTF is up with "peace talks"?
Posted by: growler   2004-04-09 7:05:59 PM  

#3  "This is genocide"

No you witless moron- genocide would be the West having it's fill of all the decades of ME bullshit and finally nuking it into smooth, smoking glass. Which is sounding like the better option by the hour.
Posted by: Craig   2004-04-09 7:02:25 PM  

#2  You are now fighting an entire nation, from south to north, from east to west,

I don't know about the northern part of Iraq. You know, where the Kurds are.

Russia has called on the sides in Iraq to show restraint and warned of "an impending humanitarian disaster" in Falluja.

This was the Russian version of a Saturday Night Live skit.
Posted by: Rafael   2004-04-09 6:56:30 PM  

#1  "Russia has called on the sides in Iraq to show restraint and warned of "an impending humanitarian disaster" in Falluja."

No, Vlad, that would be Grozny you're thinking of. This is Fallujah.
Posted by: Matt   2004-04-09 6:53:25 PM  

00:00