Troops blast music in siege of fallujah

yahoo news ^ | 4/16/04 | drew

[drew]

Troops Blast Music in Siege of Fallujah 12 minutes ago

By JASON KEYSER, Associated Press Writer

FALLUJAH, Iraq - In Fallujah's darkened, empty streets, U.S. troops blast AC/DC's "Hell's Bells" and other rock music full volume from a huge speaker, hoping to grate on the nerves of this Sunni Muslim city's gunmen and give a laugh to Marines along the front line.

Unable to advance farther into the city, an Army psychological operations team hopes a mix of heavy metal and insults shouted in Arabic — including, "You shoot like a goat herder" — will draw gunmen to step forward and attack. But no luck Thursday night.

The loud music recalls the Army's use of rap and rock to help flush out Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega after the December 1989 invasion on his country, and the FBI (news - web sites)'s blaring progressively more irritating tunes in an attempt to end a standoff with armed members of the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas in 1993.

The Marines' psychological operations came as U.S. negotiators were pressing Fallujah representatives to get gunmen in the city to abide by a cease-fire.

Six days after negotiations halted a U.S. offensive against insurgents in the city, the Marines continue carving out front line positions and hope for orders to push forward. Many are questioning the value of truce talks with an enemy who continues to launch attacks.

"These guys don't have a centralized leader; they're just here to fight. I don't see what negotiations are going to do," said Capt. Shannon Johnson, a company commander for the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment. Word of truce talks last week forced his battalion to halt its plunge into the northeast section of the city just hours after arriving to back up other Marines.

In the meantime, perhaps the fiercest enemy — everyone here seems to agree — is the boredom, and worst of all the flies that pepper this dusty Euphrates River city west of Baghdad. Marines burn them, using matches to turn cans of flammable bug spray into mini blow torches. They also try to kill them by sprinkling diesel fuel over fly colonies. They joke about calling in airstrikes.

Fallujah's front lines remain dangerous.

On Friday, insurgents fired several mortars at U.S. forces. One of the shells blasted a chunk out of a house where Marines are positioned, filling the building with dust and smoke. No one was injured.

A short time later, an F-16 jet dropped a 2,000-pound bomb on the city, sending up a massive spray of dirt and smoke and destroying a building where Marines had spotted gunmen.

"The longer we wait to push into the city, the more dangerous it's going to be," said Cpl. Miles Hill, 21, from Oklahoma, playing a game of chess with a fellow Marine in a house they control.

"They (the insurgents) have time to set stuff up." He guesses the insurgents are likely rigging doors with explosives, knowing Marines will kick them in during searches if they sweep the city.

Up on the roof, Pfc. James Cathcart, 18, kept watch from a sandbagged machine-gunner's nest Friday. His platoon commander passed along word that troops found a weapons cache that included a Soviet-made sniper rifle with a night-sight.

"A night-sight, sir?" he said, surprised that insurgents had the technology. His commander told him to keep his head down. "Everyone here wants to push forward. Here, you're just a target," Cathcart said.

The young Marine looked out over grim city blocks around a dusty soccer pitch and a trash-strewn lot, as a rain shower passed over. He said during the long hours of duty, he wonders what the insurgents are doing, how many there are and if they're watching him.

Adding to the eery feeling up, he said, are the music and speeches in Arabic that come over mosque loudspeakers.

Unable to advance farther, Marines holed up in front-line houses have linked the buildings by blasting or hammering holes through walls between them and laying planks across gaps between rooftops, a series of passageways they call the "rat line."

Lying on his stomach on a rooftop and wearing goggles and earplugs, a Marine sniper keeps an eye to his rifle sight. His main task in recent days has been trying to hit the black-garbed gunmen who occasionally dash across the long street in front of him. To dodge his shots, one of the gunmen recently launched into a rolling dive across the street, a move that had the sniper and his buddies laughing.

"I think I got him later. The same guy came back and tried to do a low crawl," said Lance Cpl. Khristopher Williams, 20, from Fort Myers, Fla.

Others have run across the street, hiding behind children on bicycles, said the sniper. In his position — reachable only by scaling the outside ledge of a building — he sits for hours with his finger poised on the trigger of a rifle that fires 50-caliber armor-piercing bullets with such force that the muzzle flash and exiting gasses from the weapon have blackened the bricks around the gun.

On the street in front of his position sits a car riddled with bullets, where the bloated, fly-infested bodies of three armed men have been left. The vehicle was shot up by Marine gunmen before the sniper set up his position.

Along the front line, Marines have been firing warning shots to scare away dogs chewing on corpses. In some cases, the troops have wrapped bodies in blankets and buried them in shallow graves.

At night, the psychological operations unit attached to the Marine battalion here sends out messages from a loudspeaker mounted on an armored Humvee. On Thursday night, the crew and its Arabic-language interpreter taunted fighters, saying, "May all the ambulances in Fallujah have enough fuel to pick up the bodies of the mujahadeen."

The message was specially timed for an attack moments later by an AC-130 gunship that pounded targets in the city.

Later, the team blasted Jimi Hendrix and other rock music, and afterward some sound effects like babies crying, men screaming, a symphony of cats and barking dogs and piercing screeches. They were unable to draw any gunmen to fight, and seemed disappointed.

[Polybius]

I do hope you're right in your assessment. It bothers me that our men and women are sitting there, and the enemy is fortifying their positions. Wasn't "shock and awe" supposed to be achieved with overwhelming might and unforgiving assaults.

In mobile warfare, speed and daring are key. In urban warfare, slow and methodical avoids unnecessary casualties.

My take on this is that the "ceasefire negotiations" are an excuse to allow the civilians to pack up and get out of Dodge.

The civilians have been warned to get out and are being allowed to leave only on foot and only with what they can carry. Refugee camps have been set up around the city and tens of thousands of civilians have been flowing into them.

In the meantime, Iraqi fighters have been coming to Fajullah in "humanitarian convoys" like roaches to a Roach Motel.

We are not at Fajullah to gain "Glory" or make a show of Marine "elan". We are simply there to kill as many of the enemy as we can in the most cost effective way we can.

Once you have Fajullah relatively empty of civilians and packed full of jihadis, we can then fight an urban battle on our own terms.

"Our own terms" means using our Marine infantry as the bird dogs to spot the quails and using our snipers and airpower to kill them. In a fast moving battlefield of World War II, taking a building might entail house to house, room to room and roof to roof infantry fighting and accepting high infantry casualtiy rates.

However, you can seen in the article that we are already benefitting from the exodus of the civilians and the absence of time constraints. Now, in the slow and methodical seige warfare in Fallujah, taking that same building means calling in the GPS coordinates to the flyboys who then drop a 2,000 pound JDAM on that house while the Marines go "Oooooooh! Aaaaaaaah!!" from a safe distance.

There is no hurry. Time is on our side and, sooner or later, every roach in that Roach Motel will be dead.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Battle Hymn of The Republic would sink in pretty hard.

That would have to be the Peter Wilhousky version sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, of course ;-).

[hummingbird]

I suggest instead, that the US troops play Christian music. Not contemporary Christian rock like Creed, but Christian hymns and chorals. That will really screw with their minds.

SWEET!

Also: "Hey, hey we're the Monkeys, people say we Monkey around..."

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

I supposed I should have put a "turn up your computer speakers" notice on that post! (grin)

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

By the way, as the wife of a card-carrying member of ASCAP (grin), I thought I should mention that .mp3 of the Battle Hymn of the Republic I referenced/linked above is a legitimate download from this page. Amazing - I really like this multi-channel surround stuff! :-)

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Yeah - Melanie and Susan Estrich - twins with squeaky horrible voices separated at birth!

[TomasUSMC]

Yes it is. It can be done by aircraft and Satellite also.

[hummingbird]

I have heard that we have some kind of sonic "weapon" that emits a very low frequency and causes people to either get sick or lose control of their digestive system.... For riot control... is this factual?

Well, that would certainly explain my last South Padre Spring Break...I think. <8^/

[Terp]

Hillary screeching!!!

[Ben Chad]

How bout some of Rush's Shrillary tapes.

[Polybius]

Patton believed in a very fast and and aggressive offensive. He didn't like defending a fixed position and spoke out about it a lot. He wouldn't have agreed with this ceasefire. He would have taken the town within a day or two because that's how he fought.

See my Post 141.

Patton engaged in classic blitzkrieg warfare which was carried out with "bypass and haul ass" strategy.

However, once you "bypass" some enemy concentration, you will have to neutralize it one way or the other.

If the enemy concentration represents an immediate danger to your rear, you must deal with it immediately and accept high casualties as the price of speed.

However, if time is on your side and the enemy concentration poses no immediate threat to your rear, you have the luxury of dealing with them methodically or, as in the case of how MacArthur dealt with the 100,000 crack Japanese troops on Rabaul, you have the luxury of simply cordoning them off and turning their entrenched positions into a giant POW camp without risking the life of a single infantryman.

[TomasUSMC]

What the Islamist Terrorist are doing now.:

Setting up fields of fire
Digging tunnels
Establishing moving mine fields underground in sewers
Rigging poison gas
Rigging every door and window
Setting up remote control fire weapons
Filling rooms with gasoline
Rounding up human shields
Spider holes everywhere
Cellphone mines everywhere
smuggling advanced anti-tank weapons
Setting up communications with enemy troops outside the marines so as to coordinate attacks on the rear area and supply.
WMDs
Communicating with allies on the governing council
with Syria
with Iran
with the rest of the scum in the middle east
Setting up video cameras
Setting up Tank Traps
Kill Zones
Stocking up on SAMs

add your own here....
Every hour means more dead Marines and Soldiers.

[LisaMalia]

Since they're already playing AC/DC, I think a dedication to OBL and the Klintoons is in order. I would suggest "Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap!"

[chuknospam]

Man, it would be nice to email in requests!

[TomasUSMC]

Time is not on our side. Every hour that passes more hi-tech arms are flowing into Iraq from Iran and Syria. Real anti-tank missiles that can destroy a main battle tank.

I would love to see the Marines employ Air Power to level the enemy but if they hide in a mosque or school or hospital, what then. I say hit it anyway but that is not what the rules of engagement are going to allow, especially if they are just hiding and not firing. Remember the enemy knows our rules of engagement, and they have none. Our mentality is one of weakness instead of one of strength. The enemy should fear emboldening the USA, not the other way around.

While we wait, the enemy is attacking our convoys and rear area. Every day they use to capture more civilians and troops and wage war on television with their friends in the american media. There is no truce there.

Sooner or later we will find WMDs in Iraq, THEY WILL BLOW UP IN OUR FACE.

Time is not on our side.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

I must be the only person in the world who likes Barney...... the music reminds me of those sweet days when my son was 3.......;^)

[txrangerette]

Are WE blind to their activities?
Not to mention deaf & dumb? Don't
think that is the case.

So if we know, at least in part,
does that suggest anything to you
about our own plans?

Agree or not with our approach so
far, there has to be a rational plan on our side.

[adaven]

May I recommend:

Band: Storm Troopers of Death (circa 1980something)
Title: F*** The Middle East:

F*** the middle east
There's too many problems
They just get in the way
We sure could live without them
They hijack our planes
They raise our oil prices
We'll kill them all and have a ball
And end their fu**in' crisis
BEIRUT, LEBANON-Won't exist once we're done
LIBYA, IRAN-We'll flush the bastards down the can
SYRIANS and SHIITES-Crush their faces with our might
Then Israel and Egypt can live in peace without these di**s

[hummingbird]

Just rerun the Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake Superbowl half-time show.

[Momaw Nadon]

The Sand People will be flocking to get out of earshot....