Posted on 05/08/2004 4:39:21 PM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.newstandardnews.net ...
Somebody asked the Prophet: "What is this weakness?" He said: "The love of the world and the dislike of death." (Abu Dawud)
Reaching the nirvana of appreciating death seems to give them the self esteem most of us get from accomplishment.
"Dad, Heh. You know, everyone wanted the Marines to come back because they were sick of getting picked off in ones and twos like sitting ducks in convoys. So we take over, and within a month we really come out swinging, and now, all you hear about is the "friction" from the heavy handed tactics of the Marines. I personally think we should have made the rest of Fallujah look like that (that is, the rest of Fallujah that doesnt already look like that). Oh, that reminds me of something that I was going to write earlier, but forgot. I can't describe the vibe I get, from HEARING the explosions, SEEING the smoke, then hearing about it hours later on CNN. Or seeing someone from company zapping people with an M240G, when you realize you've seen those tatoos many times in your area of Pendleton. It must be the difference between watching the news and making the news. Matt"
Matt is a Corporal, USMC, in a forward unit in Fallujah. Semper fi, carry on.
As we walk back to the car the loudspeaker of a nearby mosque is blaring the words of an Imam: “We have two reasons to be happy this month. One is the birthday of our prophet. The second is our victory over the Americans!”I weep at the cost.
Over at another mosque a little earlier, under the constant buzzing of unmanned military surveillance drones, the mood was more defiant. The rumor is going around that the Marines will resume patrolling the streets of Falluja this coming Monday, along with Iraqi Police (IP) and the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC). Yet this rumor is being widely circulated by both the IP and ICDC.
Abdul Muhammed tells me, “When the Americans start patrolling on Monday, even more people will fight them this time because so many people need revenge now.”
Another man angrily states, “They try to cover their failure by these patrols. We will fight them again!” He continues sternly, “We don’t want them in our city! Nobody in Falluja wants to see them in our streets! Everyone who lost family to them will avenge them!”
[. . .]
One of them states, “I hope the Americans come back on Monday. They killed my cousin and burned my house. God gave us the victory, and He will give us another when they come back!”
[. . .]
Later as we prepare to leave, a man tells me, “The mujahedeen will shoot the Americans as soon as they start their patrols here. Falluja is our city, not the Americans’!”
Dahr Jamail is Baghdad correspondent for The NewStandard. He is an Alaskan devoted to covering the untold stories from occupied Iraq.
Alaskan, my eye.
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