What's going on in Fallujah?
POSTED BY: InevitableBetrayal
UPDATED: Monday, November 21, 2005 04:21
VIEWED: 4808
PAGE 2 of 5
Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
The slaughter. The rationalization. The heroic remolding of a cowardly act. All so predictable.
The hyperbole. The agenda. The rush to judgement with incomplete information. Yep. Predictable all right.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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What's going on in Fallujah? Here's yesterday's briefing.
Quote:
Tomorrow we will continue to work and evaluate the electrical grid. We'll continue to evaluate the water. We have uncovered the Fallujan water plant. It appears that we will be able to get that functioning sometime within the next 48 to 72 hours.
The plant itself is in very good condition, but the water distribution, the pipes that run throughout the town have sustained some damage. But we're doing work-arounds with that, a combination of Navy Seabees, Army engineers, Marine engineers, working, as I mentioned before, with the ministries, the Iraqi ministers.
As far as opening the town, that will be condition based. The town must be secure before we can let the Fallujan people start to move back in. Secure not only means searching each and every house to pick up and eliminate the caches of ordnance, of weapons, of improvised explosive devices that are rigged like booby-traps in many of the houses we've gone into; we also have to ensure before we turn the electric power on that downed lines that may be hot, that may cause harm to either our service members, the Iraqi security forces or the returning Fallujans, have in fact been -- that problem has in fact been corrected.
So it will take some time, but we've already commenced. We've commenced the cleanup operation utilizing mainly our own soldiers and the Iraqi soldiers. Once the environment is secure enough, we already have contracts that are in place that will be awarded. We have started to move humanitarian assistance into the town.
http://globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2004/11/mil-041118-dod
01.htm
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Hey, IB, I understand your anger at what amounts to simple squeemishness about a soldier doing the best he can in an impossible situation. Americans want to approve the war but they don't want to see any of its ugliness (it's prolly from watching all those G.I.Joe cartoons when they were kids where the ememy always jumped out of the tanks before they exploded 
). But I think the situation is complicated because a lot of Americans don't really know why we're there. I mean not really. Saddam is out, there are no WMD's, ObL is on the lecture circuit, etc.
What's going on in Fallujah? Well, like you said, we're killing 1,200 people in a week and we're losing how many in that time, 35? That's not a war. Seriously, that's a massacre.
Quote:
Originally posted by InevitableBetrayal:
In a single week, they killed as many as 1,200 of the enemy and captured 1,000 more. They did this despite forfeiting the element of surprise, so civilians could escape, and while taking precautions to protect Iraqis that no doubt made their own mission more difficult and hazardous. And they did all of this not for personal advantage, and certainly not to get rich, but only out of a sense of duty to their comrades, their mission and their country.
This kind of thing has been going on for thousands of years. An invading army with vastly superior numbers and/or a staggering technological advantage lays waist to an indiginous fighting force. The invaders claim to bring civilization and prosperity to the people. Sure, some folks accept the inevitable and count themselves lucky to be rid of the local tyrant and "support" the "regime change." But others? You've heard the expression "by any means necessary?"
In the old days we refered to the indiginous fighters as "savages" and catalogued their outragiously inhuman practices with shock and dismay--scalping, nailing dead women to trees, boobie trapping corpses. "They don't fight by the rules! They're inhuman monsters!" But can't you see that "by the rules" they'd simply have to roll over and die?
Why are we still over there? Iraq has always been an artificial country, created (correct me if I'm wrong) by the British to suit their own ends. Nothing has EVER held Iraq together as a country except tyrany. Nobody knows that better than the Iraqis. Why should they believe that this time is any different? Think! We're the ones who gave them Saddam Hussein! What are we gonna give them now? What can we give them now? A lot of Iraqis accept our inevitable domination and set their hopes on the "Pax Americana," but with every passing day that dream gets farther and farther away.
What's going on in Fallujah? Colonialism is going on in Fallujah. Why are we still there? I think Kipling sumed it up in "The White Man's Burden." As a country, we have no moral highground left, and the soldier in the field (as usaul) gets the blame.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
Edited to add:
The White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling
Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.
Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain,
To seek another's profit
And work another's gain.
Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine,
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
(The end for others sought)
Watch sloth and heathen folly
Bring all your hope to nought.
Take up the White Man's burden--
No iron rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go, m
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I really appreciate the fact that you didn't attack me or insult me. I wish that everyone on this board were willing to discuss things as calmly as you do. My hat's off to you.
Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
What's going on in Fallujah? Well, like you said, we're killing 1,200 people in a week and we're losing how many in that time, 35? That's not a war. Seriously, that's a massacre.
Merriam Webster online ( http://www.m-w.com/home.htm) defines "massacre" as "the act or an instance of killing a number of usually helpless or unresisting human beings under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty" (emphasis added).
The insurgents in Fallujah were neither helpless (one weapons cache reportedly contained seventy five thousand pieces of explosives) nor unresisting (Marines died there). Civilians were warned to get out, and by most estimates, 75-80% did. That means that the people there wanted to fight us.
Admittedly, the fact that 35 of us died as compared to 1,600 of them (or about 47-to-1) looks pretty overwhelming. But that can be accounted for by three things: armor (the average soldier has chest and back plates and a helmet; the insurgents have none, thus making them much more vulnerable), training (the average Marine infantryman has several years worth of training; the average insurgent has very little or even none) and weaponry (the U.S. had aircraft, helicopters and tanks, as well as rockets, RPGs, grenades and small arms; the insurgents have only RPGs, small arms and IEDs). Of course we killed so many more of them. They were outmatched. And although that might seem "unfair", the goal of war is to kill them without being killed yourself, so unfair is definitely the way to go.
Now, many on this board are quick to defend the Fallujans as the simple protectors of their home against a ruthless attacker. But remember the reason why we attacked in the first place. Fallujah was home to the architects of the insurgency, and the masterminds of terrorism (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi being the most obvious example, but not the only one). We could argue endlessly over why we are in Iraq. But whatever the reason, neither we nor the Interim Iraqi Government want chaos and violence to rule the country. That is what the insurgents in Fallujah were sowing. Obviously not everyone in Falljuah was a bad guy--that's why we warned the civilians to get out.
And do you know who is there in addition to the Marines? Navy Seabees and Army Engineers. They are there to begin rebuilding the city so that it will be livable for peaceful citizens. And after them 25 million dollars worth of reconstruction aid will flow in, allowing the men of that city to have an occupation other than trying to kill us.
Imperialism? Maybe. But not a massacre. And certainly not ethnic cleansing.
_______________________________________________
I wish I had a magical wish-granting plank.
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And meanwhile, the military has yet to release an estimate of civilian casulaties. I'll bet we never see one.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
And meanwhile, the military has yet to release an estimate of civilian casulaties. I'll bet we never see one.
Given that it's Penatagon policy to let the Iraqi Health Ministry or independent agencies provide those figures, you might win that bet.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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What'a happening in Falujah? Judging by this past April's aborted invasion, whatever is happening is sure to be kept a deep, dark secret. The Falujah Hospital, which offered the only independent and verified casualty reporting in April was occupied this time supposedly because the bridge to the hospital was "littered" IEDs. (I note that the IEDs did not prevent Marines and Iraqi security forces from crossing the bridge to take the hospital). The Iraqi Health Ministry is our sock puppet - previously banned by the USA from tallying and reporting these figures, it now provides data that demonstrably false according to Iraq Body Count (Geezers' prefered site). The Pentagon classifies their own internal reports, and any data derived from non-USA sources is sure to be qualified as "unconfirmed" and "inflated" by USA press:
Quote:
Given that it's Pentagon policy to let the Iraqi Health Ministry or independent agencies provide those figures, you might win that bet.- Geezer
"Iraq's Health Ministry ordered to stop counting civilian dead from war
www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-12-10-iraq-civilians_x.htm
After the aborted April invasion, Iraqi Health Ministry (IHM) figures (~260) were ridiculously low-balled, according to the Iraq Body Count (IBC). IBC Press spokesman John Sloboda said "Data recently released to the public by the Iraqi Health Ministry has allowed IBC to resolve a problem we have been struggling with for months: how to reconcile casualty figures reported by local doctors of 800 total dead with a much lower estimate (280 dead) produced in short order by the Iraqi Health Ministry (IHM)... it now appears incontrovertible that the IHM estimate...was acknowledged to be flawed"
www.iraqbodycount.net/details/x360_notes.php)
The bulk of civilian dead (~600) was reported from the Falujah Hospital. Those April 2004 figures from the hospital were written off in US Press as "unconfirmed" and "inflated"- a point the NYTIMES made again this month on Nov 8, 9, and 17- but have been acknowledged to be accurate for months. "Dr. Rafie al-Issawi (head of Falujah hospital has consistently maintained that more than 600 people were killed in the initial U.S. siege of Fallujah in April 2004, a figure that rose to more than 800 as the siege was lifted and people pinned down by the fighting were able to register their families deaths (Knight-Ridder, 5/9/04). More than 300 of the dead, according to al-Issawi, were women and children."
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/10/300103.html
Despite Tommy Franks' assertion that "I don't do body counts", the Petangon keeps its own tally, which is classified. "But since 1991, when Colin Powell was head of the joint chiefs of staff, the figures have been kept secret."
www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1031-01.htm
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What is my point? I note that IHM, Military briefings and USA press are demonstrably untustworthy and that even IBC figures are biased low (per Geezer)
But furthermore, judging by Geezer's insight that totally protecting civilians in these circumstances is "undo-able", and according to April figures (800 total deaths, 300 of them women and children + 500 males age 15-80 "presumed" combatants) if the USA is reporting approx 1200 combatant deaths, we should expect to see civilian deaths in roughly the same number as reported combatants. In other words, if the USA military says it knows of "no civilian deaths" (which was stated in a military briefing) they are lying. If the IHM reports anything less than about 600 civilian deaths, they are probably shading the figures.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
The Falujah Hospital, which offered the only independent and verified casualty reporting in April was occupied this time supposedly because the bridge to the hospital was "littered" IEDs. (I note that the IEDs did not prevent Marines and Iraqi security forces from crossing the bridge to take the hospital).
As I explained to you in another thread, the Fallujah hospital is on the west bank of the Euphrates river, and the main part of Fallujah is on the east bank. The Marines and Iraqi forces who secured the hospital approached it from the west, and did not have to cross the bridges. The actual move into the city was from the north, and did not use the bridges either.
Assuming that the 600 dead figure from the April attacks is close to correct, there are a couple of things that might reduce civilian casualty totals in the recent operation. First, there were a lot fewer people in town this time around. I've seen estimates of up to 90% evacuated. Second, the major fighting was over sooner.
The International Red Cross is ready to go into the city and provide aid and assess casualties as soon as the insurgents provide them passage. Would you accept their figures?
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Meanwhile, in Falljah:
Quote:
FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - U.S. troops have found close to 20 "atrocity sites" used by insurgents to imprison, torture and kill hostages in Fallujah, a U.S. military officer said Sunday.
Marine Maj. Jim West said that in addition to numerous weapons caches, troops clearing the city after a major U.S.-led offensive had found rooms containing knives and black hoods, "many of them blood-covered."
Briefing reporters at a base outside Fallujah, West said one room had "handprints on the walls and along the sides of the walls ... There was blood covering the entire wall and along the floorboard area."
He said troops had found signs of "torture, murder, very gruesome sights."
"We found numerous houses where people were just chained to a wall for extended periods of time," he added.
http://www.wtop.com/index.php?nid=105&sid=76114
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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"Assuming that the 600 dead figure from the April attacks is close to correc"
No, the figure is 800. Each death has been validated by the IBC, so the the total is correct even if biased low due to under-reporting. Along with the USA press, the military, and the IHM, Geezer like to play with the truth.
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