Frontline Fallujah

Iraq Dispatches ^ | 5/7/04 | Dahr Jamail

[gandalftb]

The tight streets and numerous alleys of Julan are mostly empty after we pass through two mujahedeen checkpoints. So many homes are bombed, others riddled with bullets. Date palms are torn down and the stench of rotting bodies hangs in the air.

There is a huge crater, at least 8 feet deep and three times that at its diameter, just in front of a small mosque. The hole is partially filled with water from a leaking pipe below.

At yet another mosque I am shown a copy of the Holy Koran which has two bullet holes through it. Another man, walking from a minaret that has been completely demolished, shows me casings from a tank shell.

He too tells the story of Marines shooting people from minarets, “When we tried to go to our mosque, the snipers shot at us.”

I hear more horrendous stories: Marines occupying people’s homes and looting them of money and gold, leaving feces in their foodstuffs, butchering their cows, chickens and dogs.

[gandalftb]

This crater is centered on the perimeter wall where rebels retreated to early in April after assaulting Marine positions. The courtyard was a collection point and armory. Estimated 40+ rebel KIA.

[Unknowing]

The author made a typographic error, I think: should read "holey Koran."

[sgtbono2002]

Things were just fine in fallujah till sadr's foplks started on their rampage. What goes around ---Comes around.

[DUMBGRUNT]

I hear more horrendous stories: Marines occupying people’s homes and looting them of money and gold, leaving feces in their foodstuffs, butchering their cows, chickens and dogs.


This place is a slum, yet they have money AND gold?

[secretagent]

The article's link doesn't work for me:

"The page cannot be found"

[vbmoneyspender]

Word has gotten out pretty damn quick that the marines are paying compensation for damages done to Fallujans' homes.

[gandalftb]

"This discussion takes place standing in the rubble beneath a minaret that has been blasted by either a missile or tank -- a gaping hole just below the top. After climbing up the spiral stairs as high as possible, two men join me to look out over the city that resembles more of a ghost town. There is so much more destruction than the last time I was here a few weeks ago."

Here is another excerpt from the story I should have posted. The minaret damage referred to was caused by a Hellfire missile courtesy US Army Cobra. It is amazing that we have weapons that can localize damage like this, the trees aren't even shredded.

[gandalftb]

I just tried the URL link and it worked.

[rageaholic]

Falluja needs a nuclear bomb. They'll stop complaining.

[gandalftb]

The Marines did eat the chickens and cows, but they did not kill the dogs, they tied them up and fed them and used them as an early warning system.

[jocko12]

It's called WAR. Kill or be killed.

[bilhosty]

Not too much of a problem since the homes are probably worth about ten dollars.

[kcar]

It was a seige, right? Isn't the object of a seige to starve the other side until they surrender?

[gandalftb]

This is from the National Journal post:

The jihadist movement, said Paul Eedle, a prominent British reporter on militant Islam, "has been talking of nothing but Falluja since the thing exploded. A lot of people expressing these sentiments are sitting cozily in Saudi Arabia, but they get just as worked up about Falluja as they do about Palestine."

Good! I hope they give tours of Fallujah before it gets cleaned up. A theme park for jihadists, where they can laugh at weak, ineffective America.

[Oatka]

I hear more horrible stories of snipers . . . Another man angrily states . . . The rumor is going around . . . I hear more horrendous stories . . . Abdul Muhammed tells me . . . Another man angrily states . . ."

So, this guy just saw dead bodies, a Koran with some holes in it and heard lots of anecdotal evidence that Americans did all this and dutifully reports it as the truth, with no caveats.

Some is probably true, but none of it would have happened if the terrorists hadn't of started it. Bottom line, you slap us in the face, we will kick you in the teeth.

[MrNatural]

What is the point of posting this imaginary tale?

[FreedomCalls]

I hear more horrendous stories: Marines occupying people’s homes and looting them of money and gold, leaving feces in their foodstuffs, butchering their cows, chickens and dogs.

That one quote right there show this to be a total fabrication on the reporter's part. This is a made up story along the lines of the Jayson Blair and Jack Kelley events. Dogs are considered "unclean" in Islam and are in the same category as pigs. There are no dogs in Fallujah.

[FreedomCalls]

What is the point of posting this imaginary tale?

Indeed. It's possible the whole story is fabricated. See my number 17.

[MN_Mike]

Who posted this garbage? Where's the discussion of Kurdish families in "the Golan" of northern Fallujah getting kicked out of their homes by the Iraqi Resistance forces, families being forced to leave Fallujah or be killed by insurgents and Arab foreign fighters?

Where's the coverage of Iraqi Resistance fighters shooting at USMC while hiding behind woman and children?

Even in Saddam's home turf one would hope for some objectivity instead of resistance pap.

The most humanitarian way to deal with Fallujah and al-Ramadi, give residences 72 hours to clear town, then pay a visit with Uncle Moab.

We can build things up again afterwards. This is the better use of our tax dollars and the preservation of our blood and treasure

[Lion Den Dan]

shows me casings from a tank shell. ===

Makes me wonder about this. Neither our tanks or Brit tanks have shell casings. The cartridges are combustable. There is nothing left when the Brit gun fires and only a 4 inch or so long base from the Abrams tank.