There's the catch. We have to leave sometime, and what we are doing now is barely working. We have to get this country to an election, get it's freakin' army up and running, its police trained, and then leave as soon as humanly possible. Staying is just fueling the insurgency to levels that eventually might just be impossible to control. If we get the country set up, they are just going to have to make it on their own. The longer we are there, the stronger this resistance gets, the more organized it may get, and when we leave it may just mean an attempt at civil war. That isn't a civil war for us to fight. Would it be sweet irony that it would be a civil war we helped to create? Or is irony the wrong word here?
I'll just add that while I have advocated this action, for some stupid reason or another, in the past I now feel that Falluja is the beginning of the end of our occupation of Iraq. The repercusions may lead us to one serious fork in the road, no false dichotomy here. A) The insurgents show no sign of losing strength or influence in Iraq, we plow forward to the elections, spend the first half of 2005 prepping the Iraqi armed forces and then we're outta there. B)Bush keeps on not listening to anyone other than Karl Rove and God, decides to keep on fighting the good fight. The middle eastern region begins to teeter ever more dangerously on the edge of a true catastrophe.
A vietnamese general during that war said just recently was they were going to withdraw because of high loses but decided to ride it out because of what they saw happening in the USA. They thought we would pull out because of the negative US public oppionion, and they were right. Now who de thank of losing in vietnam? Our own protesters. That is the real reason why we lost in vietnam.
Perhaps we shouldn't have been there either. I'm having fun with the line the Admin gives to the media of how we're controlling this farce and keeping the terrorists (Including OSB) "On the run" What?....Of course it doesn't make sense...!!!..
This is great stuff! Someone give this man a positive rep. I'd do it myself but my dog ate my homework.
On another note have you done before the season starts any hurdling mixed with sprints and hurdling? That didn't help any players with their first step explosive speed? Just wondering.
That general did say that so he was lying then? We did not show the enemy that we had the will to stay the cource.
Every time people talking about winning or losing wars, I think about Woody Allen's comment in Love & Death, "what do we win?"
The real reason we lost in Vietnam is because George Bush didn't go there. He would have totally kicked gook ass.
You mean we REALLY lost in Vietnam because he didn't report for duty and pass a drug test......Now that does make me mad...!
Forces find 'slaughterhouses' in Fallujah Great headline.......Right after this one "Three members of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's family were kidnapped" http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-11-10-fallujah-usat_x.htm?csp=24&RM_Exclude=Juno
Re: Forces find 'slaughterhouses' in Fallujah I can't get excited about either sorry. So they found a room where they executed some peopls so what? So they kidnapped 2 or 3 of the head cheeses cousins again so what.
And Bush W still was elected President and re-elected president for 4 MORE years imagine that? Now don't cry too much.
Also goes with how can someone be a liverpool fan?Where you in the crowd with juventus played liverpool in 1986 or 85? That was a good match especially when the crowd was trying to kill each other. Then the jerkoff official continues to play the game after 39 "fans" were murdered.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1110/p01s02-woiq.html?s=ent http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1110/p01s03-usmi.html?s=ent
HISTORY** The region has been inhabited for many millennia and there is evidence that it was inhabited in Babylonian times. The origin of the town's name is in some doubt, but one theory is that its Syriac name, Pallugtha, is derived from the word division. The modern town of Fallujah was founded in the 4th century on or near the site of an earlier city called Misiche, where the Roman Emperor Gordian III had been killed in the Battle of Misiche in 244. It was a small and rather unimportant town for most of its history. It was overshadowed by the city of Al-Anbar to the north which served as a place of learning in the region and under the Abbasid Caliphate for a time became the capital of the large empire. With the decline of the Abbasids, the region declined; Al-Anbar was abandoned and fell into ruin. Under the Ottoman Empire Fallujah was a little more than a minor stop on one of the country's main roads across the desert west from Baghdad. In 1947 the town had only about 10,000 inhabitants. It grew rapidly into a city after Iraqi independence with the influx of oil wealth into the country. Its position on one of the main roads out of Baghdad made it of central import. HOW WE GOT TO THIS POINT Fallujah was one of the most peaceful areas of the country just after the fall of Saddam. There was very little looting and the new mayor of the city — Taha Bidaywi, selected by local tribal leaders — was staunchly pro-American. When the U.S. Army entered the town in April 2003, they positioned themselves at the vacated Ba'ath Party headquarters — an action that erased some goodwill, especially when many in the city had been hoping the U.S. Army would stay outside of the relatively calm city. A Fallujah Protection Force composed of local Iraqis was set up by the U.S.-led Coalition to defend the town against a rising insurgency. On the evening of April 28, 2003, a crowd of 200 people defied the Coalition curfew and gathered outside a local school to protest the presence of U.S. Coalition forces in the city. This developed into an altercation with U.S. troops in the city in which 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by U.S. gunfire. The Iraqis claimed that they were simply peaceful protesters, the Americans asserted that they were fired upon first and were simply returning fire. There were no coalition casualties in the incident. Opposition to the coalition presence in the city has steadiliy increased over time. Fallujah has become one of the most dangerous areas for coalition military troops during the occupation of Iraq. Since the occupation began, over sixty Americans have died in Fallujah — more than any city except Baghdad. Approximately one year after the invasion, the city's Iraqi police and civil defense forces were unable to establish law and order. Insurgents launched attacks on police stations in the city. In a highly publicized attack on March 31, 2004, four security contractors from the U.S. company Blackwater USA were dragged from their vehicle and killed. Their bodies were then mutilated and burned. A crowd of militants and townsfolk, estimated to number over a thousand, beat and dragged the burnt corpses behind automobiles, then hanged the dismembered remains from the girders of Fallujah's bridge over the Euphrates River. These acts were videotaped by journalists and broadcast worldwide. In response to the killing of the four Americans, the U.S. military surrounded the city and attempted to capture the individuals responsible and any others in the region who may be involved in insurgency or terrorist activities. The attempt by coalition forces to regain control of Fallujah, Operation Vigilant Resolve, led to about 40 U.S. Marine deaths and at least 470 Iraqi deaths in the fighting. *1 The occupying force on April 9 allowed more than 70,000 women, children and elderly residents to leave the besieged city, reportedly also allowing males of military age to leave. On April 10, the U.S. military declared a unilateral truce to allow for humanitarian supplies to enter Fallujah. U.S. troops pulled back to the outskirts of the city; local leaders reciprocated the ceasefire, although lower-level intense fighting on both sides continued. An Iraqi mediation team entered the city in an attempt to set up negotiations between the U.S. and local leaders, but as of April 12 had not been successful. The resistance forces capitalized on this 'ceasefire' to conduct the most aggressive counter-offensive of the cordon. Additionally, numerous weapons were found hidden in the humanitarian supply trucks that were attempting to enter the city. *2 The ceasefire followed a wave of insurgency across southern Iraq, which included the capture of two American soldiers, seven contract employees of Kellogg, Brown and Root, and more than 50 other workers in Iraq. Several of the prisoners were released within days of their capture, while the majority were executed. The U.S. occupation forces claimed to seek a negotiated settlement but promised to restart its offensive to retake the city if one is not reached. Military commanders said their goal in the siege was to capture those responsible for the numerous deaths of American and Iraqi security personnel. As the siege continued, even though U.S. Marines were under a unilateral ceasefire, insurgents continued to conduct hit-and-run attacks on U.S. Marine positions. At the beginning of May, 2004, U.S. troops announced a ceasefire. The U.S. was handing control of the city over to a former Iraqi general with an Iraqi brigade, acknowledging that many of the people under control of the general were insurgents themselves. The general, Major General Muhammed Latif, replaced an U.S. choice, Muhammed Saleh, who was discovered to have been involved in the earlier atrocities against Kurds during the Iran-Iraq war. Latif's militia wore Iraqi military uniforms from Saddam Hussein's era and stated that the United States army needs to leave the country. Inside the city, mosques proclaimed the victory of the insurgents over the United States. Celebratory banners appeared around the city, and the fighters paraded through the town on trucks. Iraqi governing council member Ahmed Chalabi, after a bombing that killed fellow IGC member Izzadine Saleem, blamed the U.S. military's decisions in Fallujah for the attack, stating "The garage is open and car bombs are coming repeatedly." *3 Fallujah, according to reporters who have visited, has since become a sort of Islamist mini-state, with Sharia law enforced by the mujahedin. *4 Throughout the summer and fall of 2004, the U.S. military conducted sporadic airstrikes on Fallujah, often on residential areas. U.S. forces claimed that these were targeted, intelligence-based strikes against houses used by the group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an insurgency leader linked to al-Qaida. Civilians were also killed in these attacks. Fallujah city administrators maintain that Fallujah does not have, nor ever held any insurgents; only civilians.*5 In October and early November, 2004, the U.S. military prepared for a major offensive against the rebel stronghold with stepped up daily aerial attacks using precision-guided munitions against alleged militant "safe houses," restaurants and meeting places in the city. U.S. Marines also engaged in firefights on a daily and nightly basis along the perimeter of the city. There were again conflicting reports of civilian casualties. On November 7, 2004, the Iraq interim government declared a 60 day state of emergency in preparation for the assault, as insurgents carried out several car bomb attacks in the Fallujah area which killed Iraqi army and police, U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. The next day Prime Minister Iyad Allawi publicly authorized an offensive in Fallujah and Ramadi to "liberate the people" and "clean Fallujah from the terrorists". U.S. Marines and allied Iraqi soldiers stormed into Fallujah's western outskirts, secured two bridges across the Euphrates, seized a hospital on the outskirts of the city and arrested about 50 men in the hospital. About half the arrested men were later released. A hospital doctor reported that 15 Iraqis were killed and 20 wounded during the overnight incursions. The US armed forces have designated the offensive as Operation Phantom Fury. On November 8, 2004, a force of over 10,000 U.S. and 2000 Iraqi troops began a concentrated assault on Fallujah with air strikes, artillery, armor, and infantry. ** Wikipedia and other sources
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42125-2004Nov11.html "U.S. troops hunted rebels in the battered Iraqi city of Fallujah on Thursday, but rebels hit back with an armed rampage in Mosul and a powerful car bomb that killed 17 people in a crowded Baghdad street." "The Fallujah assault has provoked an upsurge in violence elsewhere in Iraq, as happened in April during an earlier failed U.S. attempt to subdue the country's most rebellious city." No comment necessary.
There was a report of Sarin gas being found in Falluja. I can't find any addition reports... so I don't know what to make of it.