Here's an interesting article from the Sunday Herald: http://www.sundayherald.com/46228
Perhaps posterity will see GWB as the LBJ of this century.
jwm
Perhaps posterity will see GWB as the LBJ of this century.
jwm
Fallujah & Elections in Iraq
- Thread starter jwmorrice
- Start date
What you all will see is the pacification of the rag heads in Iraq. They'll become Yanks and y'all all moan. Well, if you'd a been there and really helped instead of yelped and bitched and moaned, I'd feel for y'all. Y'all want to share without any risk. Never happen. Y'all gonna' be out in the cold again. But y'all are used to the cold. Get some testosterone y'all.
See y'all in Church on Sunday.
See y'all in Church on Sunday.
Your just another reason (as if I needed one) why I would never live in the U.S.Master Muse said:What you all will see is the pacification of the rag heads in Iraq. They'll become Yanks and y'all all moan. Well, if you'd a been there and really helped instead of yelped and bitched and moaned, I'd feel for y'all. Y'all want to share without any risk. Never happen. Y'all gonna' be out in the cold again. But y'all are used to the cold. Get some testosterone y'all.
See y'all in Church on Sunday.
I think that the pacification of Fallujah is a step in the right direction. It won't stop the insurgency but it will definitly make it much more difficult for the insurgents to plan, prepare and co-ordinate attacks.
Not to mention, Fallujah was a symbol for the resistance in Iraq. And it was a representation of the insurgency to the rest of the world. The United States should have taken this city out a long time ago.
I think the January deadline is just unrealistic. I could see elections being held for June but it is way too chaotic for elections to held in early 2005. The problem is that the Bush administration has sort committed itself to this date and may have to go forward with elections whether Iraq is ready for it or not.
Not to mention, Fallujah was a symbol for the resistance in Iraq. And it was a representation of the insurgency to the rest of the world. The United States should have taken this city out a long time ago.
I think the January deadline is just unrealistic. I could see elections being held for June but it is way too chaotic for elections to held in early 2005. The problem is that the Bush administration has sort committed itself to this date and may have to go forward with elections whether Iraq is ready for it or not.
..maybe in Church y'all can discuss calling people rag heads.Master Muse said:What you all will see is the pacification of the rag heads in Iraq. They'll become Yanks and y'all all moan. Well, if you'd a been there and really helped instead of yelped and bitched and moaned, I'd feel for y'all. Y'all want to share without any risk. Never happen. Y'all gonna' be out in the cold again. But y'all are used to the cold. Get some testosterone y'all.
See y'all in Church on Sunday.
I scraped some dog poop off my shoe yesterday, sorry to see that it ended up here.Master Muse said:What you all will see is the pacification of the rag heads in Iraq. They'll become Yanks and y'all all moan. Well, if you'd a been there and really helped instead of yelped and bitched and moaned, I'd feel for y'all. Y'all want to share without any risk. Never happen. Y'all gonna' be out in the cold again. But y'all are used to the cold. Get some testosterone y'all.
See y'all in Church on Sunday.
It's entirely possible that there will need to be another "pacification" of Fallujah in the near future, once all the insurgents come back - Fallujah may well become the Hill 937 of the Iraq War.
Oh, and Muse, do get banned. Not only for posting crap but for posting the same crap twice!
Oh, and Muse, do get banned. Not only for posting crap but for posting the same crap twice!
Yes sireeeee Y'all.... Billy-Joe-Jim-Bob or is that Billy-Bob-Jim-Bo,.... Y'all, is a product of the late Lee Atwater's 'Big Tent' theory of the GOP where everyone is welcome. We all gonna be one diverse group and Y'all welcome to join in with us and Dubya.Master Muse said:What you all will see is the pacification of the rag heads in Iraq. They'll become Yanks and y'all all moan. Well, if you'd a been there and really helped instead of yelped and bitched and moaned, I'd feel for y'all. Y'all want to share without any risk. Never happen. Y'all gonna' be out in the cold again. But y'all are used to the cold. Get some testosterone y'all.
See y'all in Church on Sunday.
See y'all in Church on Sunday.
It should have been dealt with promptly and with a more appropriate level of force. This should have been done at the first sign of trouble, even better yet during the main invasion. The only thing an honor culture understands is the use of greater force.
As for the elections, no way possible to back off now. This insurgency is all about getting attention in the west. Thank you very much liberal media.
As for the elections, no way possible to back off now. This insurgency is all about getting attention in the west. Thank you very much liberal media.
Manji said:Not to mention, Fallujah was a symbol for the resistance in Iraq. And it was a representation of the insurgency to the rest of the world. The United States should have taken this city out a long time ago.
I think the January deadline is just unrealistic. I could see elections being held for June but it is way too chaotic for elections to held in early 2005. The problem is that the Bush administration has sort committed itself to this date and may have to go forward with elections whether Iraq is ready for it or not.
When you mean by more "appropriate level of force"; do you mean the size of the force or do you mean the actual tactics and weapons the US military used?Peeping Tom said:It should have been dealt with promptly and with a more appropriate level of force. This should have been done at the first sign of trouble, even better yet during the main invasion. The only thing an honor culture understands is the use of greater force.
As for the elections, no way possible to back off now. This insurgency is all about getting attention in the west. Thank you very much liberal media.
Because, the last operation of Fallujah was quite successful. Sure they didn't get the leaders or killed and captured as many insurgents as the US military wanted to but they did take the city with minimal loss of US and civilian life.
I think this summary, from an article by Michael Kinsley in the L.A. Times, better captures the situation:Manji said:When you mean by more "appropriate level of force"; do you mean the size of the force or do you mean the actual tactics and weapons the US military used?
Because, the last operation of Fallujah was quite successful. Sure they didn't get the leaders or killed and captured as many insurgents as the US military wanted to but they did take the city with minimal loss of US and civilian life.
"...An American general in Vietnam famously said, "We had to destroy the village to save it." This has become the definitive expression of the macabre futility of war. Last week, we destroyed an entire city in order to save it (progress!), but our capacity to find that sort of thing ironic seems to have become shriveled and harmless."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-kinsley21nov21,1,3905886.column?coll=la-util-op-ed
jwm
Another thought on 'the appropriate level of force'. This is from a column by Jackson Diehl in today's Washington Post:
"...still leaves the question of whether the hard-hitting combat tactics employed in Fallujah, including the liberal use of heavy artillery and 500-pound bombs, will in the end prove to have done more harm than good. Yes, the Marines and Army were able to rout the dug-in insurgents in relatively short order, with relatively few U.S. casualties, thereby achieving a textbook victory according to traditional U.S. doctrine. But what of the aftermath? Will others -- Fallujans, Iraqis, other Arabs, the world -- judge that the U.S. attack involved "excessive force"? And if so, will we still have won?
For now U.S. spokesmen are insisting that civilian casualties in Fallujah were modest; if that's the case, the fallout may be mild. But reports from the scene tell of heavy destruction of property, with scores of buildings flattened by the 500-pound bombs and 155mm artillery shells. One vivid battlefield account by Dexter Filkins of the New York Times described a confrontation between Marines and a couple of insurgent snipers in a mosque's minaret. A tank round punched a hole in the minaret and eliminated one sniper; but when a survivor shot and killed a Marine, two 500-pound bombs were dropped, reducing the entire mosque to rubble.
Such stories prompted some acerbic commentary from the veteran Israeli journalist Zeev Schiff, a sympathetic observer who has covered his own country's wars for decades. After resorting to warplanes and artillery in urban areas, he wrote in the daily Haaretz, Americans should at least find it more difficult to issue reports lambasting Russian military offensives in Chechnya or Israel's in the Gaza Strip.
Alternatively, U.S. commanders could learn something from the Israelis, who, Schiff says, found out the hard way that "this is not World War II" and that "the legitimization of international public opinion" is needed to fight terrorists successfully. A turning point came in July 2002, when the Israeli air force killed a Hamas leader by demolishing a block of houses in Gaza: Thirteen civilians were killed, and even the Bush White House joined the international chorus of condemnation, calling the attack "heavy-handed."
Since then, Israel has quietly refined its tactics, developing special warheads that can be placed on small missiles and fired from helicopters, and depending more on foot soldiers than tanks to root out militants in heavily populated areas. Palestinian civilian casualties are down significantly this year. No, Israel is not more popular with al-Jazeera and Amnesty International than it was before. But there are fewer Palestinian families with a terrible grievance to nurse over the death of an innocent. And there is less grisly footage that can be shown to the world, over and over and in slow motion. "
jwm
"...still leaves the question of whether the hard-hitting combat tactics employed in Fallujah, including the liberal use of heavy artillery and 500-pound bombs, will in the end prove to have done more harm than good. Yes, the Marines and Army were able to rout the dug-in insurgents in relatively short order, with relatively few U.S. casualties, thereby achieving a textbook victory according to traditional U.S. doctrine. But what of the aftermath? Will others -- Fallujans, Iraqis, other Arabs, the world -- judge that the U.S. attack involved "excessive force"? And if so, will we still have won?
For now U.S. spokesmen are insisting that civilian casualties in Fallujah were modest; if that's the case, the fallout may be mild. But reports from the scene tell of heavy destruction of property, with scores of buildings flattened by the 500-pound bombs and 155mm artillery shells. One vivid battlefield account by Dexter Filkins of the New York Times described a confrontation between Marines and a couple of insurgent snipers in a mosque's minaret. A tank round punched a hole in the minaret and eliminated one sniper; but when a survivor shot and killed a Marine, two 500-pound bombs were dropped, reducing the entire mosque to rubble.
Such stories prompted some acerbic commentary from the veteran Israeli journalist Zeev Schiff, a sympathetic observer who has covered his own country's wars for decades. After resorting to warplanes and artillery in urban areas, he wrote in the daily Haaretz, Americans should at least find it more difficult to issue reports lambasting Russian military offensives in Chechnya or Israel's in the Gaza Strip.
Alternatively, U.S. commanders could learn something from the Israelis, who, Schiff says, found out the hard way that "this is not World War II" and that "the legitimization of international public opinion" is needed to fight terrorists successfully. A turning point came in July 2002, when the Israeli air force killed a Hamas leader by demolishing a block of houses in Gaza: Thirteen civilians were killed, and even the Bush White House joined the international chorus of condemnation, calling the attack "heavy-handed."
Since then, Israel has quietly refined its tactics, developing special warheads that can be placed on small missiles and fired from helicopters, and depending more on foot soldiers than tanks to root out militants in heavily populated areas. Palestinian civilian casualties are down significantly this year. No, Israel is not more popular with al-Jazeera and Amnesty International than it was before. But there are fewer Palestinian families with a terrible grievance to nurse over the death of an innocent. And there is less grisly footage that can be shown to the world, over and over and in slow motion. "
jwm
I don't think anybody should have been surprised at the level of destruction in Fallujah. It was pretty obvious that the Americans were going to use every conventional weapon in their arsenal to take the Iraqi city.
As for the comparsion with Israel, "apples and oranges". Fallujah is (or was) nothing like Gaza and I don't think there can be any comparisons made between the two areas. Fallujah is part of Iraq; and close enough to the Iraqi capital that many of the insurgents just commute to Baghdad to unleash their attacks. Gaza is seperated from Israel and the Palestinians militants do not have the widespread access (as the Iraqi insurgents do) to any major city such as Jerusalem.
The insurgents possess a wider array of devestating weapons making them far more dangerous to the US troops than the Palestinians are to the Israelis soldiers.
Also, the death of civilians seems to be relatively low in Fallujah. The American military went out of their way to assist civilians in assisting them to evacuate areas of Fallujah that had fighting and to even provide medical care to civilians (and even insurgents) which is something the Israelis have never done.
Maybe Peeping Tom means that the media is not focussing enough on the positive aspects of the occupation. Rebuilding of hospitals and schools, reconstruction of water and sewage facilities, the ability to prinit a newspaper and state whatever you want etc... The media does tend to focus on just the violence in Iraq and not on anything else.
As for the comparsion with Israel, "apples and oranges". Fallujah is (or was) nothing like Gaza and I don't think there can be any comparisons made between the two areas. Fallujah is part of Iraq; and close enough to the Iraqi capital that many of the insurgents just commute to Baghdad to unleash their attacks. Gaza is seperated from Israel and the Palestinians militants do not have the widespread access (as the Iraqi insurgents do) to any major city such as Jerusalem.
The insurgents possess a wider array of devestating weapons making them far more dangerous to the US troops than the Palestinians are to the Israelis soldiers.
Also, the death of civilians seems to be relatively low in Fallujah. The American military went out of their way to assist civilians in assisting them to evacuate areas of Fallujah that had fighting and to even provide medical care to civilians (and even insurgents) which is something the Israelis have never done.
Maybe Peeping Tom means that the media is not focussing enough on the positive aspects of the occupation. Rebuilding of hospitals and schools, reconstruction of water and sewage facilities, the ability to prinit a newspaper and state whatever you want etc... The media does tend to focus on just the violence in Iraq and not on anything else.
From the dead at 75 threadManji said:...Fallujah is part of Iraq; and close enough to the Iraqi capital that many of the insurgents just commute to Baghdad to unleash their attacks. Gaza is seperated from Israel and the Palestinians militants do not have the widespread access (as the Iraqi insurgents do) to any major city such as Jerusalem. ...
I'm a bit confused. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that the insurgants are seperated? Should the Americans isolate the insurgent areas like Isreal does or should Israel allow free passage?Manji said:...What about all the innocent civilians who die from diseases attributed to malnutrition and lack of access to proper health care due to Israeli curfews, border closures and checkpoints?...
What's with the confusion?
Its two very different conflicts that just happen to be in the Middle East and you cannot really make a comparison.
If Israel wants to erect a wall in the name of security then by all means, let them do it. But they should be responsible for making sure that the Palestinians are able to bring in food and medicines without excessive interference from the Israelis. Also the Palestinians shoud be able to gain access to proper health care without any delay from the wall and Israeli security procedures.
Even if the Americans wanted to isolate insurgent areas; they would not be able to; they just do not have enough resources to isolate an entire area in Iraq.
The Americans are also concerned about world opinion and the death of innocent civilians by starvation or lack of proper health care would be a public relations nightmare. Right now, the United States can ill afford to lose what little support it has in Iraq.
Israel on the other hand, does not care about what the world thinks about its actions even if it is at the expense of innocent Palestinian lives.
Its two very different conflicts that just happen to be in the Middle East and you cannot really make a comparison.
If Israel wants to erect a wall in the name of security then by all means, let them do it. But they should be responsible for making sure that the Palestinians are able to bring in food and medicines without excessive interference from the Israelis. Also the Palestinians shoud be able to gain access to proper health care without any delay from the wall and Israeli security procedures.
Even if the Americans wanted to isolate insurgent areas; they would not be able to; they just do not have enough resources to isolate an entire area in Iraq.
The Americans are also concerned about world opinion and the death of innocent civilians by starvation or lack of proper health care would be a public relations nightmare. Right now, the United States can ill afford to lose what little support it has in Iraq.
Israel on the other hand, does not care about what the world thinks about its actions even if it is at the expense of innocent Palestinian lives.
You can't really complain about destruction of property when you're fighting a group of people who will fire at you from a place of worship or wave a white flag and then fire on you. Glad to see the boys got the job done with fewer than expected (at least on my part) casualties.
OTB
OTB
Many here seem to be using an Orwellian dictionary for the definition of *pacification*. Sad.
(edited to add that i was referring to it's use on page one. I am new here and didn't realize there ere 2 pages to follow. Catching up to the format)
(edited to add that i was referring to it's use on page one. I am new here and didn't realize there ere 2 pages to follow. Catching up to the format)
This insurgency is all about getting into the western media. Consider this: Iraq is under its own control now. American troops act on the request of an Iraqi government. So, this isn't really insurgency, it has more of the character of terrorism. Civil war would be applicable in a certain sense.
Do these insurgents actually believe that they can defeat the American military? If the answer is yes, then they really are crazy, in which case darwin++
In response to this, I'll point out that the left thinks with their head up their ass. Talk about countering content with content ...
Do these insurgents actually believe that they can defeat the American military? If the answer is yes, then they really are crazy, in which case darwin++
bbking said:Ok let me get this straight - It's the liberal media's fault that the insurgency is doing as well as it is - right? Never mind the fact that it was a conservative POTUS that pushed for this war, a conservative lead Pentagon that didn't supply enough troopsto control looting, not only of cultural items but of weapons depots. It was a conservative Administrator who disbanded the Iraqi military and police forces instead of weeding out the asshats.
In response to this, I'll point out that the left thinks with their head up their ass. Talk about countering content with content ...
Typical of the head in sand thinking of conservatives. If it goes right we did it, if it goes wrong they did it. Geeeeeez
