7 U.S. Soldiers killed in Iraq (April 4th)

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[Jim Noble]

A Tet offensive was entirely predictable.

It's certainly what I would do, were I in their place.

Hopefully, we have learned from Tet, from Beirut, from Mogadishu.

[Glenn]

You can't disarm them and expect their support.

I'm not looking to start an argument. Just for an opinion. Don't you see a basic difference in this war in as much as there was never a surrender and there likely never will be?

Other wars where we have vanquished the foe have ended with their armies laying down their arms at the order of their leaders. This new kind of war confuses me. It seems like we need to crush the opposition until they agree to have us stop crushing them. It's the only way it's been successful in the past.

[Esther Ruth]

That would be to easy, for us to announce this to the whole world, they have to learn it themselves - they have to see it for themselves. We need to continue to lift up the good things, the right things, talk of principles, values, truth, justice, freedom and compare them to what evil, darkness and hatred look like. I believe ALL people know in their hearts right from wrong, and you just need to bring things to light and the truth will be revealed. Then they will have a decision to make, follow what is right - or continue to follow evil. Just getting the truth out does not guarantee that everyone will say "hey yea, your right, what was I thinking", - People are very proud and they will build a very thick wall around themselves if someone gets in their face and tells them they got it all wrong. Are government cannot say this but people who know better are saying it everyday to anyone who will listen. My goodness, they freeked out when W used the word "evil" - you think it would help if he we said "that we are fighting militant islam". In theory it should work that way, but it doesn't because we REALLY are dealing with something very evil that dwells in peoples hearts.

[river rat]

I suspect the "renewed vigor" is a response to the success of violence in Spain..

They saw that a couple of hundred murdered Spaniards, resulted in a change of government...a change to one less hostile to Islamic lunatics.

The Islamists would dearly love to unset President Bush, and get Kerry,that weak kneed, French loving apologist - who hasn't figured out his position on anything - including his heritage and religion, who has already publicly paid total homage and allegiance to the corrupt Arab loving United Nations.

Semper Fi

[Arkinsaw]

I think we should formally reopen hostilites and wage unrestricted warfare against this cleric and his followers with Airstrikes,Artillery, and all the trimmings.

Either that or get out....because thats what its going to take against this guy.

[Robert_Paulson2]

nah...
just hang on.
there are good islamics.
and the islamic apologists will be here shortly to tell us how best to have a "measured" response, one that is targetted, to protect the innocent Iraqis.

when fallujah looks like dresden and nagasaki.
the islamics worldwide will surrender.

and if they don't, we need to go mecca on them.

[af_vet_1981]

Lugar is calling for more troops.

Why not more combat with the troops we have ? Let them fight and utterly destroy all armed opposition.

[yonif]

It's going to take more then just getting this one guy. It is a whole ideology.

[TheOtherOne]

War for both countries is more worrying about how they will be thought in the world than trying to anihilate your enemy. Feels to me like treading water, you are only going to get tired, but make no progress out of the water. Both countries have the means to get out, but lack any will to use the powers they have.

[Robert_Paulson2]

One last desperate push to weaken and split the allies?

---

wishful thinking.,
this is but the beginning of the outbreak of islamic war against the planet... the 110,000,000 muslims that have been "radicalized" according to CONSERVATIVE estimates.

of the 1.2 billion muzzies, only 110 million are belt bomb and suicide plane nuts.

killing them, would turn the world against us.
so, I guess we better just lie down and burn just like those poor stupid americans in fallujah who had the audacity to try and feed the poor.

my solution is already considered heresy here.
but I think we would be much happier and safer if we nuked them. every muslim population center that has ill will towards us, americans, jews, christians, hindus, buddhists.

islam must be destroyed. root and branch it is unsafe for humanity.

[Robert_Paulson2]

they will do it to us.
we haven't the moral courage to burn 120 million of them in a house cleaning of the gene pool.

limited warfare against unlimited, assymetrically inclined, lunatic savages is impossible to win... unless you got the balls to fry a few million of them for effect.

we don't.
at some point we have to realize that it is us or them and bush wont' get reelected whether we lay down and take it like we did in fallujah, or fry the bastards like we did in dresden.

better to act now and hope things settle a bit before the election... but we won't.

we are now fighting limited warfare. KNOWN to fail in vietnam, korea, and israel.

[reluctantwarrior]

The US military invited this region wide probing attack, it is a direct response to the lack of a clear retaliation for the Fallujah murders a few days ago. Weakness was shown and now we have a general attempt to push the coalition to see where it cracks. Expect alot more of this type of attack until we violently repress the militias and the Sunni's in Fallujah.

[TexKat]

Fallujah, Ramadi, and Habbinayah will be the hardest for the coalition forces to crack down the insurgency.

IMHO The Fallujan Game: We never got or had control of Fallujah for some reason.

The Fedeyeen, RG did not put up too much of a fight when we got to the sunni triangle. The RG and the Fedeyeen played hide and seek, catch me if you can, they laid low.

The major part of the war was said to have ended May1, 2003.

After just a few days we fell for the line hook line and sinker that the little ragtag Fallujah police should handled the fallujah area due to a few confrontations (lies of course) between the American troops and the fallujans. Part of the fallujah game to get and keep the occupier out of Fallujah.

What is in Fallujah? I heard a talking head say last week that it could be possible that perhaps the wmds could be in Fallujah. How well was Fallujah searched for wmds?

[Triple Word Score]

You're right.

Prayers for those who are there.

I think the biggest part of the problem is that we aren't retaliating decisively. Take the town where corpses were desecrated. Give the populace five hours to get out, search everyone as they leave, shoot anyone who has weapons on them, presume anyone who does not comply 100% with clear instructions to leave and not bring weapons out is a terrorist to be shot on sight. Then level the freaking town and anyone who didn't obey our command to leave. Salt the ground around it. Repeat as needed. The Japanese needed two such lessons of town leveling and this method is more humane than that one was. Are the Iraqis smarter or dumber? It won't take more than three town levelings and the clear message that Bagdhad could be next, and they'll quit. It might not even take more than one.

But we can't keep ignoring this. When ten year old kids are kicking the heads of dead American civilians--people there to help them rebuild--its' time to send the message, we ain't having any.

They can be civilized. They can lose their tolerance for terrorists in their midst. They need help getting there, obviously. Clear self-interest is always a great motivator. Tell a kid the litter box is going to be moved into her room the next time she forgets to change it without being told, and her door will have to be taken down so that the cats always have free access, and sure enough, she starts changing it without being told.

[Triple Word Score]

we are now fighting limited warfare. KNOWN to fail in vietnam, korea, and israel.

I thought that bore repeating. I don't always like your posts but I sure wish the President and Congress had to listen to you right now. You'd make more sense in five minutes than most of them have made in two years.

[TexKat]

A couple of the first articles from this morning:

3:47 a.m. US forces, Shiites brace for protests in Baghdad; two US marines killed in western Iraq

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US-led coalition braced for bloodshed in Iraq's capital as mosques linked to a fireband Shiite cleric called for a general strike and the Americans shut the entrances to their Baghdad headquarters in anticipation of violent demonstrations.

The loudspeakers of Shiite mosques, affiliated with cleric Moqtada Sadr, called Sunday morning for religious followers to conduct a mass strike and for Sadr's paramilitary Medhi army to gather in the capital.

Separately the US military said insurgents killed two US marines in western Iraq.

In Baghdad, US troops and Shiites braced for confrontation after a night of protests in Baghdad that saw Sadr supporters throw themselves at US tanks blocking their path toward the coalition headquarters as they headed to protest Saturday.

A police officer said two demonstrators were crushed by the tanks, but it was impossible to confirm his account.

Baghdad has been rocked by demonstrations since last Sunday when US forces shut down al-Hawza newspaper, a pro-Sadr publication, for 60 days on charges of inciting violence and hostility against the coalition.

Sadr's supporters again took to the street Saturday around central and southern Iraq after his movement claimed one of the young cleric's top aides, Sheikh Mustafa Yaacubi, had been arrested. However, the coalition refused to confirm or deny the report.

An advisory from the US consulate in Iraq warned that the coalition feared the protests Sunday could turn violent and announced it was shutting the entrances to their sprawling headquarters, better known as the Green Zone from 5 am to 12 pm.

"With the concurrence of Ambassador Bremer, travel outside the Green Zone from 0500 - 1200 hrs on Sunday 4 April 04 will be prohibited due to large demonstrations at ALL Green Zone check points," the advisory read.

"These demonstrations have a very high probability of turning violent."

Bearing out the coalition's worries, Shiite mosques around Baghdad called for Sadr's followers to turn out in force Sunday.

"Loyal people of Iraq, in protest of the detention of religious clerics by the occupaion forces, the decision has been taken to general strike at all government institutions an schools, so we call on you to answer this call," the loudspeakers blared from mosques.

"Mehdi army members should immediately head to Mosque Mohsen al-Hakim in Sadr City."

Sadr, the scion of an illustrious Shiite family, has clashed repeatedly with US forces since last summer, but has intensified his verbal barrage against the coalition in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, two US marines were killed in action by insurgents in the restive western Iraqi province of Al-Anbar, the US military said.

"Two marines assigned to the 1st Marine Division have been killed as a result of enemy action in the Al-Anbar province," the military said in a statement.

"One marine was killed in action yesterday. The other marine died today from wounds received in separate action yesterday."

The military declined to give any further information on the incidents, citing security reasons.

4:39 a.m. Gunfire Heard During Iraqi Protest

NAJAF, Iraq - Gunfire rang out during a protest Sunday by thousands of supporters of an anti-American Muslim cleric who had gathered outside the headquarters of Spanish troops. At least two protesters were injured, witnesses said.

It was unclear who opened fire during the demonstration in the southern holy city of Najaf. The crowd was protesting the reported detention of an aide to Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric who opposes the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.

Some 5,000 people marched to the garrison of the Spanish military contingent in Najaf after hearing that Mustafa al-Yacoubi, a senior al-Sadr aide, had been detained.

Spanish troops in the area have said they have no information on al-Yacoubi's reported detention and did not take part in any such operation. They had no immediate comment on the demonstration.

I have not read the article of the one that happened in Basra yet.

[Adam36]

Bush needs to stop with the politically correct war.
Its time to fight this war the way Patton and Pershing would.

[TexKat]

Marines tense in Fallujah as confrontation looms

April 3, 2004

By Edmund Sanders and Tony Perry

Los Angeles Times

FALLUJAH, Iraq - The charred bodies have been cut down from a bridge over the Euphrates River but the shadows of the four American security contractors who were killed here continue to fall over this restive Iraqi town.

As leaders in United States and Iraq huddle to map their next moves in Fallujah, the key actors on the ground are showing no signs of being able to prevent a fierce clash.

A day earlier, a senior U.S. military official said the American forces would not embark on ``a pell-mell rush'' into Fallujah, and that any military strike ``will be precise'' and ``overwhelming.''

On the outskirts of the city Friday night, battalions from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force geared for a battle, setting up checkpoints and camps in preparation for their eventual return to the hostile city. As they braced against one of the season's first blistering sandstorms, several Marines said they were rearing to avenge Wednesday's brutal killings.

``I've got a lot of hate inside me but I try to put that aside,'' said Sgt. Eric Nordwig, 29, of Riverside, Calif., a veteran of the battle to topple Saddam Hussein. ``We just sit and take it and be mortared.'' The time has come to ``clean up the town,'' he said.

In Washington, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz briefed members of the House Armed Services Committee on plans for retaliation in Fallujah. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., the committee's chairman, said the classified briefing suggested that a reprisal may entail the use of U.S. air power.

``Obviously, we have very competent people who have since the beginning of the war against terrorism have the ability and know-how to put together a blueprint to, number one, identify the perpetrators of the terrorist actions, and number two, to hunt them down and eliminate them,'' Hunter said.

Inside Fallujah, many of the city's quarter-million residents warned of further bloodshed if the Marines return.

In an interview before Friday prayers, a senior Fallujah cleric made no apologies for the attack on the four Americans as they drove through the town Wednesday morning, but condemned the subsequent mutilation of corpses and dragging of the bodies through the streets.

``The killing is legitimate,'' said Khalid Ahmed Salih, cleric at the Al-Badawi mosque. ``But we do not accept the mutilation of the bodies. Islam orders us not to do that to a dog. No decent man will accept this.''

Fallujah residents called the attack a justified response to a Marine patrol through the city last week that ended in a firefight killing one Marine and about 18 Iraqis, including some civilians.

``It is inevitable that the sons of Fallujah will kill the Americans and mutilate their corpses,'' said Fallujah resident Fadhil Badrani. ``Though mutilation is not allowed in Islam, the grudge and malice in the hearts of the people led them to do this because of the repeated American prov- ocation.''

Such reactions are disappointing to U.S. officials, who have been pushing Fallujah's clerics and local government officials to condemn the attacks and help catch those who took part. A public call to Fallujah citizens for assistance in the case has yielded a few tips, Marine officials said.

[Jim Noble]

It seems like we need to crush the opposition until they agree to have us stop crushing them

Almost right.

We need to kill them at a fast enough rate that they run out of people who want to die before new ones grow up.

It isn't that hard, we did a fantastic job of it from 1941-45.

And these are Arabs we're dealing with-not Germans.

The sooner we start killing them, the sooner we'll win.

[Jim Noble]

we are now fighting limited warfare. KNOWN to fail in vietnam, korea, and israel

And never known to succeed.