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| 11/23 |
| 2004/10/13 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:34098 Activity:very high |
10/13 Insurgent Alliance Fraying in Fallujah
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28105-2004Oct12.html
The proposal the [insurgent] delegation took back to Fallujah calls
for surrendering control of the city to the Iraqi National Guard. U.S.
forces would remain outside the city unless the lightly armed
government forces were attacked. But first, all foreign fighters must
leave the city, and the foreigners are adamantly and publicly opposing
the plan. Their representative voted against it in a meeting last week
of [Falluja]'s ruling mujaheddin shura, or council of holy warriors,
which supported the peace proposal, 10 to 2. The local insurgent who
cast the other negative vote was later persuaded to change his mind,
residents say. ... substantial support remains for the foreigners,
especially given the number of civilian casualties caused by U.S.
airstrikes.
[Yes, a way out. Local insurgents can say they're working with Allawi
to kick out the foreigners, saving face, while U.S. soldiers continue
to kick ass and Iraqi National Guard troops finally stop running away.
By "continue to kick ass" I mean suffering a small number of casualties
per month from IEDs, while still decimating any enemy who doesn't run
away. This doesn't kill insurgents, though -- the Iraqi National Guard
is the ONLY way out. We tried this before, and it was called
Vietnamization. But, unlike the peasantdom of Vietnam, Iraqis know a
secular government and would like to have one again, not an al Qaeda
proving ground. -liberal]
\_ I'm always up for more articles on U.S. soldiers kicking @$$.
More links please.
\_ go pick up the atlantic monthly and read
"5 days in fallujah"
http://marinecorpsmoms.com/archives/000096.html - danh
\_ I couldn't find the article I was looking for. Basically
it's about how the U.S. went all out in Samarra and the
insurgents lost since the U.S. didn't leave time for
them to regroup. Also, the Iraqi National Guard didn't run
away this time.
\_ I don't give these type of articles much credence, whether they
express opinions either way. I doubt very much that reporters
have a handle on what is going on there.
\_ You know, I did a http://news.google.com search on Karl Vick (reporter
who wrote the article), and I see a lot of pieces that make
America look good. Could be a coincidence - maybe not. -op |
| 11/23 |
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| www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28105-2004Oct12.html All RSS Feeds Insurgent Alliance Is Fraying In Fallujah Locals, Fearing Invasion, Turn Against Foreign Arabs By Karl Vick Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, October 13, 2004; The disputes have spilled o ver into harsh words and sporadic violence, with Fallujans killing at le ast five foreign Arabs in recent weeks, according to witnesses. Residents of Fallujah, Iraq, search through the rubble of a building in t he city center destroyed by a US airstrike. Sign Up Now "If the Arabs will not leave willingly, we will make them leave by force, " said Jamal Adnan, a taxi driver who left his house in Fallujah's Shurt a neighborhood a month ago after the house next door was bombed by US aircraft targeting foreign insurgents. Located 35 miles west of Baghdad in Iraq's Sunni Triangle, Fallujah has b een outside the control of Iraqi authorities and US military forces si nce April, when a siege by US Marines was lifted and Iraqi security fo rces were given responsibility for the city's security. Local and foreig n insurgents gradually gained control, and Iraqi and US officials say Fallujah has become a principal source of instability in the country. US and Iraqi authorities together have insisted that if Fallujah is to avoid an all-out assault aimed at regaining control of the city, foreign fighters must be ejected. Several local leaders of the insurgency say t hey, too, want to expel the foreigners, whom they scorn as terrorists. T hey heap particular contempt on Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian whose M onotheism and Jihad group has asserted responsibility for many of the de adliest attacks across Iraq, including videotaped beheadings. "He is mentally deranged, has distorted the image of the resistance and d efamed it. I believe his end is near," Abu Abdalla Dulaimy, military com mander of the First Army of Mohammad, said. One of the foreign guerrillas killed by local fighters was Abu Abdallah S uri, a Syrian and a prominent member of Zarqawi's group. He was shot in the head and chest while being chased by a carload of tribesmen, according to a security guard who said he wi tnessed the killing. Residents say foreign fighters recently have taken to gathering in Falluj ah's grimy commercial district after being denied shelter in residential neighborhoods because their presence so often attracts US warplanes. The airstrikes and the turmoil in the streets have spurred perhaps half of the city's 300,000 residents to flee, residents and officials said. An airstrike just after midn ight destroyed the city's best-known restaurant, a kebab house that a mi litary statement said was used as an arms depot, citing "numerous second ary explosions." A second strike at 4 am destroyed "a known terrorist safe house" in the northeast of the city, the statement said. Adnan, the taxi driver who moved his panicked wife and four children to a nother town, said attitudes toward the foreign fighters have changed dra matically since they poured into Fallujah after the Marines' siege ended in April. "We welcomed them first because we thought they came to support us, but now everything is clear. " Among the tensions dividing the locals and the foreigners is religion. Pe ople in Fallujah, known as the city of mosques, have chafed at the stern brand of Islam that the newcomers brought with them. The non-Iraqi Arab s berated women who did not cover themselves head-to-toe in black -- ver y rare in Iraq -- and violently opposed local customs rooted in the town 's more mystical religious tradition. One Fallujah man killed a Kuwaiti who said he could not pray at the grave of an ancestor. Residents said the overwhelming majority of Fallujah's people also have b een repulsed by the atrocities that Zarqawi and other extremists have ma de commonplace in Iraq. The foreign militants are thought to produce the car bombs that now explode around Iraq several times a day, and Zarqawi 's organization has asserted responsibility for the slayings of several Westerners, some of which were shown in videos posted on the Internet. There was another digital display of a beheading on Tuesday. The victim a pparently was a Shiite Muslim Arab, and the group that said it posted th e video identified itself as the Ansar al-Sunna Army. Abu Barra, commander of a group of native insurgents called the Allahu Ak bar Battalions, said: "Please do not mix the cards. There is an Iraqi re sistance, a genuine resistance, and there are other groups trying to set tle accounts. |
| marinecorpsmoms.com/archives/000096.html We support our Marines, their familie s, and those who love them by linking sources of support and information , in collaboration with other public, private, and military groups, and individuals. New MilBlog June 10, 2004 Five Days in Fallujah If you havent picked up the July/August edition of The Atlantic Monthly, add it to your shopping list. And, pick up a few extra copies to send to deployed Marines there is an excellent article by correspondent Robert Kaplan who describes the courage of the 1/5 Marines who went into Falluj ah under the command of LtCol. Brennan Byrne, following the horrific amb ush and murder of the civilian contractors. The briefing on April 2 at Abu Ghraibs Combat Operations Center was low- key and terrifically businesslike. The taking of a middle-sized city of 285,000 is an amazingly complex affair. Was there enough barbed wire o n hand to create makeshift detention facilities? We need wire, wire, an d more wire, Byrne said, and that means we needs lots of stakes and pil e drivers. Were there enough interpreters, MREs, mineral-water bottles, ammo, power amps, blue force trackers, and so on? This would be an incredibly complex operation without the complications o f enemy combatants. its complexity d emanded that the main briefings be fragged" out into smaller ones deali ng with different aspects of the task. All the elements came toge ther fast, owing to a factor largely missing from civilian life: the in contestability of command. Meetings quickly resulted in priorities that in turn quickly led to decisions. As soon as the ranking officer decid ed on something, the debate moved on to the next point. Stun the bad guys wi th aggressive fire, then Psy-ops the shit out of them, always coming ba ck to the theme of the inevitability of the superior tribe. Gents, let me tell you what this is really about, Byrne said. He made reference to the Commanding General, or CG, of the 1st Marine Division, Major General James N Mattis. Mattis, who constantly drilled humanitarian concerns into his men, nevertheless kne w when the time had come for pure aggression. The CG, Byrne went on, ha s changed the Op Order from capture or kill the enemy to kill or captur e He wants the emphasis on kill. A few hours later, Kapl an wrote: At dawn, coughing and freezing, I walked over to Byrnes Humvee. He was s itting in the backseat, his head half hidden inside a balaclava, shiver ing and coated with dust like the rest of us, and listening and talking to three different radio nets at once. Military command is about makin g split-second executive decisions, the consequences of which might psy chologically immobilize your average CEO and making those decisions dur ing periods of extreme physical discomfort. Leadership lessons learned in the Corps translate well to the outside wor ld. Ive lost count of the times that, upon seeing my Proud USMC MOM swea tshirt or pin that proclaims My son is a US Marine, that a CEO or indu stry executive has come up to me and quietly said, Semper Fi. Kaplan was preparing a MRE when the Marines he was with came under RPG an d small-arms fire. Over the ICOM, Smith learned tha t it was coming from a mosque on Michigan, about 300 yards away. The mo sque was promptly targeted for a possible air strike and everyone began a fast march towards it. Smith did not have to order his Marines straight into the direction of t he fire; it was a collective impulse a phenomenon I would see again and again over the coming days. The idea that Marines are trained to break down doors, to seize beachheads and other territory, was an abstractio n until I was there to experience it. Running into fire rather than see king cover from it goes counter to every human survival instinct trust me, I was sweating as much from fear as from the layers of clothing I s till had on from the night before, to the degree that it felt as if pur e salt was running into my eyes from my forehead. As the weeks had roll ed on and I had gotten to know the 1/5 Marines as the individuals they were, I had started deluding myself that they werent much different tha n me. But in one f lash, as we charged across Michigan amid whistling incoming shots, I re alized they were not like me; Later, a large Iraqi family was ordered to leave their apartment so that Marines could search the building. Through his interepreter, Captain Jas on Smith explained why to the head of the family: Sir, we are truly sorry that we had to ask your family to leave the buil ding. We are United States Marines, a different breed than you are used to. If you have an y information on the Ali Babas, please share it with us. If you know an y of the Ali Babas personally, please tell them to attack us as quickly as possible so that we may kill them and start repairing sewers, elect ricity, and other services in your city. TrackBack Comments It was a great article and i thoroughly enjoyed it, maybe one day i can l ive up to the standards set by the men and women of the marine corps. |
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