Falluja operation underway

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Tripledoc
Actually Communism and Islam have a lot in common. For instance the islamic organisation Hizb-ut-tahir argues for state control of all resources, and end to "democracy", and a universal order. Here I speak of democracy as in protective democracy which views people as hardly anything more than animals, and uses all means at the disposal to uphold private property for the powerful, while expropriating it from others.

I thought you were smarter than this Tripledoc. Control of resources is not an end of communism. It is a means.

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by Kidicious
I thought you were smarter than this Tripledoc.

Smart is derogatory word in my book.

[Kidlicious]

I have no time for trolls today.

[Tripledoc]

Discussing the means and ends of communism as to state or society is just futile.

It is a theoretical discussion based on conjecture.

Fact is, like it or not, communism has not ever reached its final conclusion. But it can secure rapid economic growth, a fairer distribution of available resources, and increased literacy. Mortality rates are however the same, or are worsened.

[problem_child]

Re: Falluja operation underway

Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous
CNN is reporting that the military has begun its operations to take back the city of Falluja from insurgents.

Yesterday, Iraqi commandos seized a hospital in the city after three days of heavy bombing from American planes.

Good luck to the soldiers.

Good luck to the civilians.

[Ramo]

lotm:

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.

True, but doesn't it say something about the gravity of Fallujah where Sunni Arab politicians would lose credibility with their constituents if they stay in the gov't?

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.

Absolutely. Reconstruction is key, it always has been. Unfortunately, I haven't seen much hopeful from either us or the Allawi gov't in that respect.

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.

You mean, having the Arab states broker some sort of power sharing agreement between Sunni and Shia Arabs? Why would the Shia agree to that, since they have Iran to back them up?

I think the election process is deeply flawed, and I don't think it's right to say that the Sunnis are resisting only to prevent the Shia from being proportionally represented in the gov't. I mean, you've got the ballots that are rigged in favor of the exile parties, and the martial law, especially in the Sunni areas, basically preventing any campaigning during the entire runup for the election.

I'm worried about the sectarian divisions this thing is creating. I read an interesting point the other day: will Fallujah be a precedent for crushing Kurdish nationalists a la Saddam?

Also, there have been some seriously conflicting reports on what's happening Fallujah, like this Beeb article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3999899.stm

What's going on?

[Tripledoc]

Falluja's defiance of a new empire

It is Bush and Blair, not the Iraqi resistance, who fear free elections

Sami Ramadani
Wednesday November 10, 2004
The Guardian

George Bush and Tony Blair have apparently concluded that they can crush the Iraqi people's will to resist occupation and legitimise a puppet regime next January by occupying Falluja. Maybe they imagine they can emulate the British forces that terrorised Iraqi Kurdistan in the 1920s by obliterating recalcitrant villages.
The US generals will no doubt deliver Falluja to Bush and Blair after bombarding its neighbourhoods with artillery and rockets. But they are doomed to deliver neither the Fallujans nor the people of Iraq. Perhaps they are unaware that Fallujans defied Saddam's rule during his last years in power. Falluja - known as the city of a thousand mosques - attracted Saddam's wrath in 1998 when its imams refused to hail the tyrant in their Friday sermons. Many were imprisoned, and the city punished as a result.

But the generals certainly do know how resistance began in Falluja. On April 28 2003 US soldiers opened fire on parents and children demonstrating against the continued military occupation of their primary school - killing 18 of them in cold blood and injuring about 60 others. Until the killing of those demonstrators, not a single bullet had been fired at US soldiers in Falluja or any of the cities north of Baghdad. But, remorselessly, little-known Falluja became a world-renowned centre of defiance, where a poor and poorly armed people has courageously faced the military wing of the new empire.

The way Falluja's 300,000 people reacted to the April 28 massacre has made them a prime target for savage bombardment and conquest. Najaf was bombed into a ceasefire in August. Samarra was conquered in September. Sadr City in Baghdad was bombarded and negotiated into temporary silence in October. Now they want to crush the symbol of Falluja, to teach the rest of Iraq a bloody lesson. Another pyrrhic victory is likely to be added to an already long list.

Blair once again misled parliament this week by branding the resistance in Falluja as Zarqawi-style terrorists out to destroy the prospects for democracy. It was he and Bush who last year rejected the calls for early free and fair elections from those who rejected the occupation, including Ayatollah Sistani, Moqtada al-Sadr, the resistance and the widely supported Iraqi National Foundation Congress. Bush and Blair are terrified of the Iraqi people voting for anti-occupation leaders. They will accept nothing short of the legitimisation, through sham elections supervised by the occupation authorities, of an Allawi-style puppet regime.

More than 100,000 Iraqis are estimated to have been been killed since the US-led invasion; the country's infrastructure has all but been destroyed; people are exposed to the danger of US and British depleted-uranium shells; hospitals have been reduced to impotence in the face of mounting injuries and disease; the centre of Najaf and entire neighbourhoods of several cities have been razed. How much more should the Iraqi people be subjected to for Bush and Blair to have their "democratically" chosen puppets installed in Baghdad?

These are war crimes of Saddamist proportions, and there is evidently more to come. Bush's latest pronouncements and Blair's declaration of a "second war" have made clear that the occupation governments are ready to kill (as "collateral damage", no doubt) even more Iraqis to enforce a pro-US order. Without a shred of evidence, Bush, Blair and Ayad Allawi's quisling regime shamelessly declare that they are only pursuing the Jordanian kidnapper Zarqawi and other "foreign terrorists". The people of Falluja, their leaders, negotiators and resistance fighters have always denounced Zarqawi and argued that such gangs have been encouraged to undermine the resistance.

The occupation forces have now reverted to their initial ploy of attacking cities north of Baghdad, while reaching ceasefires with some Baghdad districts and southern cities. Presumably, they see this as an effective divide-and-rule tactic, but it is likely to prove as futile as the rest of their plans for post-invasion Iraq. It is, in reality, merely a battle postponed. Iraq's history, reaffirmed by events since the US-led occupation, shows that its people's unity is stronger than differences based on religion, sect, ethnicity or national identity. That was demonstrated on Sunday when a senior Kurdish officer with the token US-commanded Iraqi force besieging Falluja deserted within half an hour of being shown the plans to occupy the city.

The US and British governments could do worse than digest the old Chinese proverb: "They lift a stone to drop it on their own feet." For they might have occupied Iraq and succeeded in lifting some of its heavy stones, but the stones will inevitably come crashing down on their feet.

Sami Ramadani was a political refugee from Saddam Hussein's regime and is a senior lecturer at London Metropolitan University

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Its not all that surprising Sava. Bahrain has a large Shiite minority. Apparently its not only Iraqi Shiites who have figured out that the Fallujah "freedom fighters" are really fighting for a Sunni Arab version of apartheid. Shiites around the region are figuring it out.

Unfortunately for the notion that Iraq might then become a beacon to the rest of the Arab world, Shia Arabs are a minority.

[problem_child]

Originally posted by Tripledoc
Falluja's defiance of a new empire

It is Bush and Blair, not the Iraqi resistance, who fear free elections

Sami Ramadani
Wednesday November 10, 2004
The Guardian

George Bush and Tony Blair have apparently concluded that they can crush the Iraqi people's will to resist occupation and legitimise a puppet regime next January by occupying Falluja. Maybe they imagine they can emulate the British forces that terrorised Iraqi Kurdistan in the 1920s by obliterating recalcitrant villages.
The US generals will no doubt deliver Falluja to Bush and Blair after bombarding its neighbourhoods with artillery and rockets. But they are doomed to deliver neither the Fallujans nor the people of Iraq. Perhaps they are unaware that Fallujans defied Saddam's rule during his last years in power. Falluja - known as the city of a thousand mosques - attracted Saddam's wrath in 1998 when its imams refused to hail the tyrant in their Friday sermons. Many were imprisoned, and the city punished as a result.

But the generals certainly do know how resistance began in Falluja. On April 28 2003 US soldiers opened fire on parents and children demonstrating against the continued military occupation of their primary school - killing 18 of them in cold blood and injuring about 60 others. Until the killing of those demonstrators, not a single bullet had been fired at US soldiers in Falluja or any of the cities north of Baghdad. But, remorselessly, little-known Falluja became a world-renowned centre of defiance, where a poor and poorly armed people has courageously faced the military wing of the new empire.

The way Falluja's 300,000 people reacted to the April 28 massacre has made them a prime target for savage bombardment and conquest. Najaf was bombed into a ceasefire in August. Samarra was conquered in September. Sadr City in Baghdad was bombarded and negotiated into temporary silence in October. Now they want to crush the symbol of Falluja, to teach the rest of Iraq a bloody lesson. Another pyrrhic victory is likely to be added to an already long list.

Blair once again misled parliament this week by branding the resistance in Falluja as Zarqawi-style terrorists out to destroy the prospects for democracy. It was he and Bush who last year rejected the calls for early free and fair elections from those who rejected the occupation, including Ayatollah Sistani, Moqtada al-Sadr, the resistance and the widely supported Iraqi National Foundation Congress. Bush and Blair are terrified of the Iraqi people voting for anti-occupation leaders. They will accept nothing short of the legitimisation, through sham elections supervised by the occupation authorities, of an Allawi-style puppet regime.

More than 100,000 Iraqis are estimated to have been been killed since the US-led invasion; the country's infrastructure has all but been destroyed; people are exposed to the danger of US and British depleted-uranium shells; hospitals have been reduced to impotence in the face of mounting injuries and disease; the centre of Najaf and entire neighbourhoods of several cities have been razed. How much more should the Iraqi people be subjected to for Bush and Blair to have their "democratically" chosen puppets installed in Baghdad?

These are war crimes of Saddamist proportions, and there is evidently more to come. Bush's latest pronouncements and Blair's declaration of a "second war" have made clear that the occupation governments are ready to kill (as "collateral damage", no doubt) even more Iraqis to enforce a pro-US order. Without a shred of evidence, Bush, Blair and Ayad Allawi's quisling regime shamelessly declare that they are only pursuing the Jordanian kidnapper Zarqawi and other "foreign terrorists". The people of Falluja, their leaders, negotiators and resistance fighters have always denounced Zarqawi and argued that such gangs have been encouraged to undermine the resistance.

The occupation forces have now reverted to their initial ploy of attacking cities north of Baghdad, while reaching ceasefires with some Baghdad districts and southern cities. Presumably, they see this as an effective divide-and-rule tactic, but it is likely to prove as futile as the rest of their plans for post-invasion Iraq. It is, in reality, merely a battle postponed. Iraq's history, reaffirmed by events since the US-led occupation, shows that its people's unity is stronger than differences based on religion, sect, ethnicity or national identity. That was demonstrated on Sunday when a senior Kurdish officer with the token US-commanded Iraqi force besieging Falluja deserted within half an hour of being shown the plans to occupy the city.

The US and British governments could do worse than digest the old Chinese proverb: "They lift a stone to drop it on their own feet." For they might have occupied Iraq and succeeded in lifting some of its heavy stones, but the stones will inevitably come crashing down on their feet.

Sami Ramadani was a political refugee from Saddam Hussein's regime and is a senior lecturer at London Metropolitan University

Top Quote Tripledoc , Fekkin A.

[Kropotkin]

Posters quoting long quotes posted by other posters.
No, really. I do have more things to do in life than scrolling!

[problem_child]

Originally posted by Kropotkin
Posters quoting long quotes posted by other posters.
No, really. I do have more things to do in life than scrolling!

sure,fine, whadev'r.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Kropotkin
Posters quoting long quotes posted by other posters.
No, really. I do have more things to do in life than scrolling!

sometimes I like to quote those really long posts just to annoy people

[Last Conformist]

You're such a hater.

[Kropotkin]

Originally posted by problem_child
sure,fine, whadev'r.

Are you not a bit dissappointed that there's no 'holding up hand against the other persons face'-smiley?

[germanos]

The Beeb's link to 'The Herald Tribune' paints a rather nasty picture of the events in Faluja. With 20 dead and 200 wounded the coalition should pray most of the rebels are still inside the city...