The Iraq thread 3

[ralphwiggum 6]

EDIT:  99% of people defending wars don't really try to consider the "how would you like it" or other side of the fence problems.  Like having one of yours ripped to pieces when a SABOT hits a wall, on purpose or not.  Otherwise some people are frankly incapable of understanding what this all means to people on the other end due to a lack of exerience and sometimes intelligence.

and neither does anti-US crowd either.

Radical Shiite cleric says honest men should take power in Iraq, calls on Kuwait oust US bases.

and this guy shows his true intention. why is he evenmentioning Kuwait? that's not his country. this guy is no better than morons at whithouse.

but i don't see ppl blaming/criticizing him too.

[walker 0]

lol, i see how that can be taken, but the contect of what mine was typed in was that, my insergents are combatents, the ones Al Qaida's are after is basically democracy, there aim is to spread islamic fundamentalism and from i can gather wipe out all that has been achieved in the western world. The people who are fightin in that Mosque are exactly the same thet don't want democracy, they wanna kill westerners ie Americans, you cannot compare the actions of those Marines to those of terrorists, Al Qaida don't discriminate, We try not to but in a War, civilians will die (especially in an Urban environment) i doubt the Marines where like

"Hey lets guide in some Missiles, i hope i can kill as many civilians as possible", i know this forum is full of anti war lefties, but plz don't make out US marines as Bloodythirsty baby killers.

Hi MLF

I dont think Marines are blood thirsty baby killers.

I do think that Al Qaida has you well trained for your post is their rhetoric.

As to the the idiocy of using a HE device on a place of worship. I think the officer who made the call will be pushing a desk in the pencil requisition department as a result.

The officer's failiure to understand the strategic significance of such actions shows gross inneptitude.

OK he wants to keep his own troop casualties down but that can be done by a profesional army without using Helfire missiles.

I for one am confident that the Marines are that profesional but dickhead officers exist everywhere.

Kind Regards Walker

[bn880 5]

EDIT: 99% of people defending wars don't really try to consider the "how would you like it" or other side of the fence problems. Like having one of yours ripped to pieces when a SABOT hits a wall, on purpose or not. Otherwise some people are frankly incapable of understanding what this all means to people on the other end due to a lack of exerience and sometimes intelligence.

and neither does anti-US crowd either.

I don't know which crowd, I consider the other side, frankly I considered it for a few months before the war as well. If you look at Bals and Ran for example, Denoir too, they also consider the other side. Unfortunately for your argument, it's obvious who is making the bad decisions, and they are US commanders and some GI's...

the strategy is to _NEVER_ back off or else they will smell weakness and gain more support. However, without backing off, and actually pushing waaay too much the US forces have whipped up serious resistance even at their strong offensive policy. So, deep shit in a way if this continues against such a coalition force.

[MLF 0]

I do think that Al Qaida has you well trained for your post is their rhetoric.

As to the the idiocy of using a HE device on a place of worship. I think the officer who made the call will be pushing a desk in the pencil requisition department as a result.

The officer's failiure to understand the strategic significance of such actions shows gross inneptitude.

OK he wants to keep his own troop casualties down but that can be done by a profesional army without using Helfire missiles.

I for one am confident that the Marines are that profesional but dickhead officers exist everywhere.

Kind Regards Walker

What do you mean they have me well trained?

Also from some sources they say they hit the outer wall, with the HE devices.

[walker 0]

Hi Bn880

Backing off is not a solution.

The solution is firm considered action.

The Helfire in the Mosque was not cosidered.

The problems are a result of TBA and TBA2 trying to do peacekeeping on the Cheap.

It was something that I pointed out back in November and many of the experienced Peace Keepers on this thread said both before and after that.

TBA did not have an exit strategy.

TBA has not commited enough of the right type of troops. They need at least 5 times as many troops as are there now. They need to get out of their bunker mentality and control the towns.

What happened in Falujha last week was a result of their retreat to the bunkers and what is happening now is exactly what we predicted five months back.

I rather suspect that if they dont control the situation and quick it may require not 5 times more troops but 10 times more.

Kind Regards Walker

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

Sorry I could only find the following post in german, but I might bother translating it

later. Seen that one Bals?

[...]

hmm one thing I ask myself is how he can have internet access while he is telling that the whole city was black at night (as I understand it this implies the americans have cut off electricity for retailiation reasons or it was destroyed during the fighting)

yeah, thought about that myself. However the info he gives sounds too profound and too precise to be a yoke. he knows the village, he knows the streets, he even knows the names of the families. Argument vs Counterargument!

[walker 0]

What do you mean they have me well trained?

Also from some sources they say they hit the outer wall, with the HE devices.

Hi MLF

I say it because the words you are posting are the words of Al Qaida.

Quote[/b] ]if insergents are in those places of worship, then pound ahead, show that no place is safe for those who wan't to disrupt the handover.

Your words are those of one who has become their puppet. Those are the word Al Qaida want yuou to utter. Trully sir they have converted you.

An outer wall that then killed how many?

Kind Regards Walker

[bn880 5]

Hi Bn880

Backing off is not a solution.

The solution is firm considered action.

The Helfire in the Mosque was not cosidered.

The problems are a result of TBA and TBA2 trying to do peacekeeping on the Cheap.

Oh exactly, I agree, but what I mean by pushing waay too much is shooting into crowds and things like SABOT rounds where they should not be, + this newest Mosque attack.

Peace

[MLF 0]

What do you mean they have me well trained?

Also from some sources they say they hit the outer wall, with the HE devices.

Hi MLF

I say it because the words you are posting are the words of Al Qaida.

Quote[/b] ]if insergents are in those places of worship, then pound ahead, show that no place is safe for those who wan't to disrupt the handover.

Your words are those of one who has become their puppet. Those are the word Al Qaida want yuou to utter. Trully sir they have converted you.

An outer wall that then killed how many?

Kind Regards Walker

i really dont see how me saying those who are killing troops and iraqi civilians because they dont want peace in iraq should ahve n place to hide are the words of Al Qaida, also the source says 1 or 2 killed from the HE device that hit the outer wall.

[Placebo 29]

Despite the fact the whole situation is contentious and potentially heated the discussion for quite some time now has been mature, civil and respectful and remained that way, deservedly this can go back to being pinned.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Your words are those of one who has become their puppet. Those are the word Al Qaida want yuou to utter. Trully sir they have converted you.

An outer wall that then killed how many?

Taken from yahoo (ap) link:

Quote[/b] ]

An Associated Press reporter who went to the mosque said the minaret was standing, but damaged, apparently by shrapnel. The bomb blew away part of a wall, opening an entry for the Marine assault. The reporter saw at least three cars leaving, each with a number of dead and wounded.

Quote[/b] ]

Kimmitt told CNN that from photos of the mosque he had seen, "the actual mosque structure itself" was not damaged.

He said the mosque was protected under the Geneva Conventions but the insurgents nullified that by attacking from the holy place.

WTF at Al-Sadr statement

Quote[/b] ]Al-Sadr, meanwhile, said Iraq would become "another Vietnam" for the United States.

"I call upon the American people to stand beside their brethren, the Iraqi people, who are suffering an injustice by your rulers and the occupying army...," he said in a statement issued from his office in the southern city of Najaf. "Otherwise, Iraq will be another Vietnam for America and the occupiers."

I see he heard Sen. Kennedy comment about Vietnam=Iraq crap...

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]this aint Peacekeeping

I have been to peace enforcing mission also. I have war -experience. Do you think peacekeeping means cheering the crowd all day ? I have a fragment hole in my upper back from a projectile that went through my flak vest in pieces.

I have lost comrades, friends.

Never ever again say that peacekeeping is a clean job. Keep in mind that some go in before the mass of peacekeepers arrive.

Quote[/b] ]Despite the fact the whole situation is contentious and potentially heated the discussion for quite some time now has been mature, civil and respectful and remained that way, deservedly this can go back to being pinned.

Yippie ! I just wanted to suggest that today

Anyway:

Two more US soldiers killed in Iraq

Quote[/b] ]US, BRITISH AND OTHER TROOPS KILLED:

COMBAT/ATTACKS

United States

442 (327)

Britain

20 (12)

Other nations

38 (38)

NON-COMBAT

United States

190 (161)

Britain

38 (13)

Other nations

6 (6)

IRAQIS KILLED:

MILITARY

4,895 to 6,370#

CIVILIANS

Between 8,827 and 10,677*

Quote[/b] ]In Falluja, a stronghold of Sadr supporters, a Cobra helicopter gunship led the attack by firing a missile at the mosque and then an aircraft dropped a laser-guided precision bomb, Colonel Byrne said.

Residents confirmed that the Abdulaziz al-Samarai mosque was hit along with the building of the Islamic Scholars Association.

Colonel Byrne said the marines had carried out the raid as precisely as they could because there were people living nearby.

US forces have claimed that the rebels, who are fiercely opposed to the US-led occupation, are using mosques to fire on marines and to hide weapons.

Earlier, all the Falluja mosques had called for a jihad, or holy war, against the coalition forces amid intense bombardments and aircraft overflights.

The insurgents claimed in a communique to have shot down three US helicopters, destroyed two jeeps and two armoured vehicles. They also boasted that they were still in control of the city and had put US forces to flight.

A top aide to Sadr claimed that his supporters had captured a number of coalition soldiers during fighting across a large swathe of the country.

"Some tribes have captured some occupation forces on the streets," Qays al-Khazali told a news conference in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf. He gave no further details.

Colonel Byrne said the marines advancing from the south had reached the centre of Fallujah amid fierce fighting on the third day of Operation Vigilant Resolve to flush out the insurgents who butchered four US contractors in the town last week.

"The marines are now at the centre of the city," he said. It was not immediately clear if marines advancing from the north had also reached the town centre.

Another marine officer, who did not wish to be identified, said that five marines were slightly wounded by shrapnel and one was shot in the arm in a separate attack.

The officer said a helicopter gunship had shot and killed one insurgent who fired a rocket-propelled grenade on marines. The body of an insurgent who was killed yesterday was still lying on the ground of a street in the south of the town.

During the past year, the coalition has focused its Iraq campaign on wiping out Sunni insurgents led by Saddam remnants.

But last weekend an eruption of Shiite anger across the south confronted it with bloody battles for control of vital centres which the Americans had believed backed the occupation.

"In the central and southern regions of Iraq the coalition and Iraqi security forces are conducting operations to destroy the Mehdi Army," General Kimmitt said. "If Moqtada al-Sadr wants to calm the situation . . . he can turn himself in to a local Iraqi police station and he can face justice."

Likening Sadr and his supporters to the Taliban in Afghanistan, he warned: "All the Iraqi people understand this - it all comes down to extremism versus moderation."

Polish troops also struck a blow against Sadr yesterday when they killed the head of his office in the holy Shiite city of Kerbala. An Iraqi police spokesman, Rahman Mashawi, told Reuters that Murtada al-Mussawi died during fighting in the centre of the city.

About 30 coalition soldiers and more than 130 Iraqis have died since Sunday. The US needs to quell the violence if it is to keep to its planned June 30 return of Iraqi sovereignty to Iraqis.

But an all-out assault on the majority Shiites could risk causing even greater public anger which, in turn, would paralyse Iraqi politics and the US reconstruction program.

[Bernadotte 0]

Has anyone seen any public opinion polls where Iraqi citizens were asked what it is that they want?

Do a majority of Iraqis want the US to be occupying their nation at this time?

[bn880 5]

Do you think we can get an objective poll? Seriously, I doubt it, it's a war zone, people worry about their lives, so I am doubtful you can get an honest result.

[brgnorway 0]

Do you think we can get an objective poll?  Seriously, I doubt it, it's a war zone, people worry about their lives, so I am doubtful you can get an honest result.

I wouldn't be surprized to learn that the poll result was fiddled with by the republicans

[MLF 0]

Quote[/b] ]this aint Peacekeeping

I have been to peace enforcing mission also. I have war -experience. Do you think peacekeeping means cheering the crowd all day ? I have a fragment hole in my upper back from a projectile that went through my flak vest in pieces.

I have lost comrades, friends.

Never ever again say that peacekeeping is a clean job. Keep in mind that some go in before the mass of peacekeepers arrive.

Hey i never said that peacekeeping was easy or clean, but this is certainly different from any conflict seen in the balkans.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]seen in the balkans

I have only been for one mission to the balkans.

The rest is Africa and south america with a grain of Russia.

Draw your conclusions.

[MLF 0]

But this aint about what you have see, im just saying that i doubt any conflict in recent times is in anyway like the ones the Marines are facing right now. if im wrong please tell me, as im not up to date with all global conflicts.

[Balschoiw 0]

There´s nothing special about it. You have militias on one side and soldiers on the other. That´s a pretty common situation. If I think of Afghanistan it´s in fact a pretty easy situation when it comes to threat estimation. You face no heavily equipped enemies but armed civillians.

What conflicts with the proper way to deal such situations is the given order to protect your own men because of political reasons. That means don´t risk anything if you can avoid it. That´s why those buildings were bombed, not cleared.

The difference I see is that we had a mission to disarm or disable enemy capacities without killing civillians as that would have ment our sudden death a lot of times. The US forces don´t see that goal. They claim to free a country by killing it´s inhabitants. That´s what it looks like for average Iraqui Joe. And that´s what he reacts upon.

[quicksand 0]

Quote[/b] ]Radical Shiite cleric says honest men should take power in Iraq, calls on Kuwait oust US bases.

and this guy shows his true intention. why is he evenmentioning Kuwait? that's not his country. this guy is no better than morons at whithouse.

but i don't see ppl blaming/criticizing him too.

Well do you actually think he is serious?It`s the same thing as when US gave Saddam and his sons 24 h to get out of Iraq. Nobody expected them to do so.

Another fact is that Al-Sadr actually wants to win this war.To do so after the occupation ends he needs support for other countries so it`s obvious why he mentions them.

Quote[/b] ]Has anyone seen any public opinion polls where Iraqi citizens were asked what it is that they want?

Do a majority of Iraqis want the US to be occupying their nation at this time?

And who could make the poll?How could the organisation travel through the country to ask people questions?If they`ll try to do so they will probably end with a bullet in their heads.

If you want polls watch the daily protests everywhere,daily clashes,they all have the same message:"Get the hell out of our country".

[quicksand 0]

Quote[/b] ]More than 200 Iraqis, including women and children, have been injured in the past 24 hours"

American forces initially said those killed in Wednesday's attack on the mosque were fighters taking refuge.

But a marine officer was later forced to admit that US forces had failed to find any bodies.

"When we hit that building I thought we had killed all the bad guys, but when we went in they didn't find any bad guys in the building," Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne told reporters.

The bomb hit the minaret of the mosque and ploughed a hole through the building, shattering windows and leaving the mosque badly damaged.

Is it clear now?The poor marines thought they killed bad guy but they didn`t kill bad guy just 50 civillians praying for a better life and a stop to this madness.

Quote[/b] ]Instead, he speculated the insurgents may have fled after a Cobra helicopter gunship fired a Hellfire missile at the mosque, and before an aircraft dropped a laser-guided bomb.

Isn`t this great?They think of this possibility after bombing indiscriminatly the mosque to stone age.

Ladies and gentleman the mighty USMC  

[ralphwiggum 6]

I don't know which crowd, I consider the other side, frankly I considered it for a few months before the war as well.  If you look at Bals and Ran for example, Denoir too, they also consider the other side.  Unfortunately for your argument, it's obvious who is making the bad decisions, and they are US commanders and some GI's...

usually consider them to be not open minded

it is also obvious that the insurgents are not interested in well beings of Iraqis and is willing to use them to their advantage. however, many forget to blame such insurgents as much as they blame US troops.

[ralphwiggum 6]

Quote[/b] ]More than 200 Iraqis, including women and children, have been injured in the past 24 hours"

American forces initially said those killed in Wednesday's attack on the mosque were fighters taking refuge.

But a marine officer was later forced to admit that US forces had failed to find any bodies.

"When we hit that building I thought we had killed all the bad guys, but when we went in they didn't find any bad guys in the building," Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne told reporters.

The bomb hit the minaret of the mosque and ploughed a hole through the building, shattering windows and leaving the mosque badly damaged.

Is it clear now?The poor marines thought they killed bad guy but they didn`t kill bad guy just 50 civillians praying for a better life and a stop to this madness.

Quote[/b] ]Instead, he speculated the insurgents may have fled after a Cobra helicopter gunship fired a Hellfire missile at the mosque, and before an aircraft dropped a laser-guided bomb.

Isn`t this great?They think of this possibility after bombing indiscriminatly the mosque to stone age.

Ladies and gentleman I give you the mighty USMC  

link to source would be nice.

anyways

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/07/fallujah.strike/

Quote[/b] ]The wall is a few hundred yards from any structure, the source said, and the mosque building was not damaged.

Muslims consider all of a mosque's compound as the mosque because worshippers gather on the grounds if the structure is full.

Insurgents "firing from the mosque blatantly misused a protected symbol by conducting offensive military operations from a place of worship," the source said.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/07/iraq.main/index.html

Quote[/b] ]Rumsfeld: Troops' return home may be delayed

"What we're witnessing today in Iraq is a power play between those who favor terrorism and a return to oppression, and those determined to have freedom and self-government," Rumsfeld told reporters at a Pentagon news conference.

"We are facing a test of will, and we will meet that test," he said. "This is an important moment in Iraq's history. The future of the Iraqi people is certainly at stake.

"So the stakes are high. They're high for Iraq, they're high for the region, and indeed they're high for the world."

Rumsfeld vowed that the United States, coalition and Iraqi security forces were "taking the battle to the terrorists."

U.S. Marines carrying photographs were "systematically" going through Fallujah and had captured at least nine militants wanted in last week's killing and mutilation of U.S. civilian security contractors, Rumsfeld said.

Marine 1st Lt. Wade Zirkle said the militants "fight like cowards and fight amongst families," whom the coalition forces try to protect as they target the terrorists.

Rumsfeld also said more U.S. troops were in Iraq now because of a "major troop rotation" under way. He said some troops scheduled to leave may have to stay longer.

"We will likely be managing the pace of the redeployments to allow those seasoned troops with experience and relationships with the local populations to see the current situation through," he said.

good going Rumsfeld. what a well thought out plan you had for this part of war.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Isn`t this great?They think of this possibility after bombing indiscriminatly the mosque to stone age.

An Associated Press reporter who went to the mosque said the minaret was standing, but damaged, apparently by shrapnel. The bomb blew away part of a wall (outer compound), opening an entry for the Marine assault. The reporter saw at least three cars leaving, each with a number of dead and wounded.

What about this "mosque incident":

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....cid=716

Quote[/b] ]

During fighting elsewhere in Fallujah, U.S. forces seized a second place of prayer, the al-Muadidi mosque. A Marine climbed the minaret and fired on guerrilla gunmen, witnesses said. Insurgents fired back, hitting the minaret with rocket-propelled grenades and causing it to partially collapse, the AP reporter said.

[quicksand 0]

If I would link the source you would ban me for sure this time  

The link has some pictures that show the brutallity of this war so I can`t post it on this forum.

Also know that CNN doesn`t have any corespondant in Fallujah so what they report is what they hear from US officials.