Falluja operation underway

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
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. '

Are any of those any different really? It is beginning to seem like the dangerous men got out of dodge to fight again.

Lets hope the Islamic Party resigning from the government and the Sunni clerics asking for an election boycott don't cause major damage.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by 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.

So basically we killed some of their guys, but compensated them by giving them some of our Iraqi National Guards? Well, if the deserters serve the insurgency as well as they served the interim government then this could be seen as some sort of victory.

[Pax]

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.

Spirit of 1776!

[Ned]

Originally posted by Cruddy


He became a heroic defender of Islam against the Infidel.



Ned, the US drops tons and tons of explosives on Najaf... and the citizens blame Sadr?

Stop taking in Fox News on a drip and try to put yourself in the shoes of someone whose country has been invaded.

Sure, few Iraqis want Saddam.

Even less want infidels with guns roaming the streets.

Cruddy, I think it is you who have to stop listening to the very biased leftist apologists for extreme religious fundamentalism. See Chris Hitchens on the left's fascination with the Islamic extremists:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=3422703#post3422703

[Ned]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten


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...

This is way off topic, so ignore it if you want. But at the time of William's invasion, the English were fighting off Viking rule IIRC. After William's conquest, the Viking assaults on England seemed to cease. If this is correct, did this have anything to do with the fact that William was a Norman, who themselves were decendents of Vikings.

[Ned]

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.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=3422703#post3422703

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Ned
Cruddy, I think it is you who have to stop listening to the very biased leftist apologists for extreme religious fundamentalism. See Chris Hitchens on the left's fascination with the Islamic extremists:

How can we be apologizing for them when you are the occupier and they are defending themselves? You're the one who needs someone to apologize for you.

[Agathon]

Cruddy, I think it is you who have to stop listening to the very biased leftist apologists for extreme religious fundamentalism. See Chris Hitchens on the left's fascination with the Islamic extremists:

Yeah, it sucks when OBL is the lesser of two evils.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Ned


This is way off topic, so ignore it if you want. But at the time of William's invasion, the English were fighting off Viking rule IIRC. After William's conquest, the Viking assaults on England seemed to cease. If this is correct, did this have anything to do with the fact that William was a Norman, who themselves were decendents of Vikings.

Actually didn't Harold decisively defeat a Viking invasion a matter of a few weeks before succumbing to William? By 1066 the Vikings were definitely on their way out, for even as the last raiding parties were being driven out of northern England in the aforementioned year of our lord a plague of Christian missionaries was ravaging the homelands of the brave seafarers. Soon fierce warriors would be humiliatingly transformed into mere fishermen and goatherders.

I learned a fascinatingly useless fact the other day. It appears that when William invaded England he brought allies form Brittany with him. In fact half of William's troops may have been Celts from Brittany. The irony here is that these folks had left the British Isles a few centuries earlier to escape from the Angles and Saxons, and yet there they were in 1066 getting a little sweet revenge upon their former oppressors. Ain't history grand?

[Pax]

Originally posted by Ned


http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...03#post3422703

I miss your point.

[Ned]

PAX, I quote from Hitchens:

"The blood-maddened thugs in Iraq, who would rather bring down the roof on a suffering people than allow them to vote, pictured prettily as "insurgents" or even, by Michael Moore, as the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers. If this is liberal secularism, I'll take a modest, God-fearing, deer-hunting Baptist from Kentucky every time, as long as he didn't want to impose his principles on me (which our Constitution forbids him to do)."

[Kropotkin]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove Actually didn't Harold decisively defeat a Viking invasion a matter of a few weeks before succumbing to William?

The battle at Stamford Bridge, somewere outside York (Jorvik) if I remember correctly, not even close to Chelsea.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


Actually didn't Harold decisively defeat a Viking invasion a matter of a few weeks before succumbing to William? By 1066 the Vikings were definitely on their way out, for even as the last raiding parties were being driven out of northern England in the aforementioned year of our lord a plague of Christian missionaries was ravaging the homelands of the brave seafarers. Soon fierce warriors would be humiliatingly transformed into mere fishermen and goatherders.

I learned a fascinatingly useless fact the other day. It appears that when William invaded England he brought allies form Brittany with him. In fact half of William's troops may have been Celts from Brittany. The irony here is that these folks had left the British Isles a few centuries earlier to escape from the Angles and Saxons, and yet there they were in 1066 getting a little sweet revenge upon their former oppressors. Ain't history grand?

It also explains why Britain can truly be called Britain.

[Ramo]

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11340168%255E401,00.html

The Iraqi Islamic Party has just pulled out of the Allawi gov't (over Fallujah). They were the faction of Sunni Arabs that supported the occupation (as opposed to the more popular Association of Muslim Scholars).

Yawir may come next.

Basically, Sunni Arabs are out of the government.

And they're nearly certain to boycott the election.

[Patroklos]

Yeah, because not having a voice in the government that will move on without them will help. Great guys, you get a cookie!