Falluja operation underway

[GePap]

The point of being an insurgent is being able to meld into the population, and run when you can't win, which the insurgents will never be able to do in a pitched battle vs. the US army. Ay insurgents with brains (the dnagerous ones) are thinking of ways to get out- the ones with balls but no brains and the ones with neither are out there getting blown up.

[Gibsie]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
English people do?

Not heard of genetic memory? We English can all recall the pain of when Willy the Conquerer invaded nearly a millenium ago.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Cruddy


Ned, the first casualty of war... is the truth.

Like I said, imagine (just sit and imagine) what your reaction would be to a bunch of foreigners turning up in your hometown and blowing the sh1t out of all and sundry.



I think most Americans have no concept of what it feels like to be invaded.

EDIT: The Americans that do have such a concept are the Vietnamese immigrants.

1. Im NOT Ned.

2. Imagine your country being run by a tyrant, who discriminated against the group you belong to, and who used totalitarian methods. Now imagine that said dictator got into a war with some outside power, and lost. And said outside power called on you and fellow members of your group to rise in rebellion. And you did so. And said outside power sat on its hands while said dictator slaughetered members of your group, including your own friends and relatives. Now said foreigners come in overthrow said dictator, but fail to protect you from terrorist acts by folks who were the elite under said dictator.

I would be VERY skeptical about the foreigners, and angry at them for FAILING to protect me from the terrorists.

3. My wife was born in Hungary, though she is too young to remember the '56. Her mother lived through the German takeover in '44 as well as the Soviet Invasion in '56. She did not get to see the Soviet invasion of Hungary in '45, as she was in Auschwitz at the time. She was eventually liberated by Soviet troops. I assure you that she was not angry at the Soviets for invading Hungary in '45.

There are many Americans who have a range of experiences you dont realize. I would say if it happened to any sizeable group of people on the planet, there are SOME Americans who experienced it.

[Drake Tungsten]

Originally posted by Gibsie
Not heard of genetic memory? We English can all recall the pain of when Willy the Conquerer invaded nearly a millenium ago.

I'm genetically English, as well, so 'tis a pain I know all too well. Sometimes I wake up at night screaming for Harold to rest his troops before heading to Hastings...

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
The point of being an insurgent is being able to meld into the population, and run when you can't win, which the insurgents will never be able to do in a pitched battle vs. the US army. Ay insurgents with brains (the dnagerous ones) are thinking of ways to get out- the ones with balls but no brains and the ones with neither are out there getting blown up.

any one who wanted to "ive to fight another day" should have gotten out weeks ago, before the close cordon was set up. Theyre going through the city house to house now, and the Iraqi troops with them can tell Iraqi accents from foreign accented arabic.

It should also be recalled that the insurgents have been under air attack for almost two months, and under artillery attack for over a week prior to the ground assault.


CNN:
'There has been less organized resistance than expected so far, said Lt. Col. Pete Newell with Task Force 22 of the 1st Infantry Division.

Nevertheless, insurgent casualty numbers mount. Newell said his Army unit has killed or wounded 85 to 90 insurgents.

"Thirty hours into the fighting, Task Force 22 and the attached Iraqi intervention force have sustained minimal casualties," Newell said.

Michael Ware, Time magazine's Baghdad bureau chief embedded with U.S. soldiers, described the fighting as street-to-street battles, with sporadic resistance and no signs of organization among the insurgents. Most of the insurgents are in small groups, he said, with the most being 25 in one place. '

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Patroklos
You know back in the day citizens didn't do this "melt back into the populaion" thing, because armies would kill the population.

Se what happens when you give them an inch.

True, but I do not think this a change for the worse.

[GePap]

Hmm, light resistance- sounds like Samara.

[Pax]

Can people please stop referring to the Iraqi's and foreign fighters as "terrorists". Call them guerilla's, insurgent, rebels, dissidents, rabble rousers, freedom fighters or whatever, but they are not terrorists by definition. terrorists don't control cities, rebels do. Terrorists hijack planes.

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
The US and Iraqi troops arent just blowing up buildings for the hell of it. They blow up buildings when said buildings are used by insurgents. Which means the insurgents too have a dilemma. IF you run, you DONT get scenes of destruction. You give up your sanctuary for nothing. IF you stay, you DO get scenes of destruction, BUT you lose fighters. You DO get the propanda win, but you pay for it.

Well, duh, but my point is that there are going to be a lot of civilian causalities and that could potentially be capitalized upon by unsavory elements.

-Drachasor

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Pax
Can people please stop referring to the Iraqi's and foreign fighters as "terrorists". Call them guerilla's, insurgent, rebels, dissidents, rabble rousers, freedom fighters or whatever, but they are not terrorists by definition. terrorists don't control cities, rebels do. Terrorists hijack planes.

There is a lot of gray area though, and there are a lot of terrorists in Iraq. There have been a lot of illegal targets by the insurgent forces, hence acts of terrorism.

I don't pretend to believe that all the insurgents agree with non-military attacks though.

-Drachasor

[Kidlicious]

gl Iraq

[Kidlicious]

The only nonembedded journalists that I have heard from say that no Iraqis support this attack.

[lord of the mark]

"The number two US commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Thomas Metz, has said that the operation in Falluja has achieved its objectives on or ahead of schedule in the first 48 hours.

"I think we're looking at several more days of tough urban fighting," said Gen Metz, the overall operational commander for the Falluja mission.

Iraqi government forces involved in the operation have performed admirably, as Gen Metz put it.

LOTM - Iraqi forces performance


He described casualties on the US side as light - about a dozen, he said, but he wouldn't be more specific; and he said he believed there had been very few civilian casualties.

LOTM - low US, low civilian casualties

Insurgent casualties he described as significant but acknowledged that many of the leaders - including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - had probably fled.

LOTM - insurgent forces high casualties

key figures escape



The insurgents are now fighting in small groups of three to six, he said, and without much coherence.

But according to him, the coming days will show whether US-led forces are pushing the enemy back, capturing or killing them, or whether the insurgents are just falling back. '

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Kidicious
The only nonembedded journalists that I have heard from say that no Iraqis support this attack.

From Healing Iraq:

"Note, that I'm not suggesting a peaceful or political solution would work either in these areas. Insurgents west of Baghdad have quite obstinately made it clear that nothing but full control of the country, or at least the Anbar governorate, will satisfy them. They have refused to participate in the political process, they have repeatedly announced their intentions to boycott the elections and to disrupt them in other areas, and they do not recognise the government or any other authority in the country beside themselves.

The demands of the Fallujah negotiants from the government weeks ago were obscene and they clearly reflect the overt sectarianism and regionalism of the armed groups in the area. The demands were not released to the Iraqi public at the time for unkown reasons but they have leaked out days ago. Here are just a few of them:
-A clear timetable for the withdrawal of foreign occupation forces (fair enough).
-Immediate withdrawal of US and Iraqi security forces from the Anbar governorate and the handover of security responsibilities to former army officers from Anbar.
-The appointment of ministers from the Anbar governorate to the ministries of Interior, Defense, Oil and Finance.
-The removal of certain officials (most of them from Shi'ite Islamic parties such as Ibrahim Al-Ja'fari) from governmental positions.
-The complete return of Ba'athists, army officers, Republican Guards, Mukhabarat, intelligence and security personnel to their former positions.
-The removal of Shi'ite Edhan (call for prayers) from official television and radio programs.
-Incomes of Shi'ite sacred shrines should be returned under the control of the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs.

These last two demands have been allegedly added by Sheikh Harith Al-Dhari (head of the Association of Muslim Scholars) and are said to have been a major reason behind the failure of negotiations with the government.

Iraqis here in the south were shocked to hear of these demands and sectarian tensions are on the rise. It scares me to see the reaction of people around me whenever Fallujah is mentioned. The director of a primary health care clinic was remarking the other day that "Fallujah should be burnt upon its residents and then razed to the ground. They are the sons of Mu'awiya, may Allah curse them all." Sidenote: Mu'awiya bin Abi Sufyan was the governor of Syria during the 7th century and he fought Imam Ali bin Abi Talib (Muhammed's son-in-law) over the Caliphate after the assassination of Caliph Othman. He became the first Ummayid Caliph and two decades later, under the Caliphate of his son Yazid, Imam Hussein bin Ali (grandson of Muhammed) was killed by his armies at present day Karbala. Someone hushed the director and pointed out to him that I'm Sunni. He was a bit embarrassed and tried to explain that he was referring to Wahhabis and foreign fighters. It was a bit uncomfortable and I could feel that people were giving me furtive glances. '

[Last Conformist]

Not to blacken LOTM's day or anything, but Little Raven posted this on CFC, attributed to Andrew Sullivan:

No Iraqi army or national guard unit fought in Al Fallujah, sources close to the Interim Iraqi Government (IIG) say. Iraqi national guard units reportedly have refused to attack guerrilla positions; their commanders have been unable to make soldiers move forward and some officers are siding with the troops. Only the Iraqi army's special forces unit, which is mostly Kurdish, helped search for hidden guerrillas behind U.S. Marine lines outside the city. Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers have deserted to bases around Al Fallujah, the sources added.