[KellyAdmirer]

Don't forget to whistle as you pass by that graveyard, all you Sadr guys.

[kbennkc]

It is way past time to show our "or what" to go with our surrender demands.

[rudypoot]

According to Suits, the vast majority of the Arabic-language news outlets in Iraq, "except Al Jazeera," are making the point that al Sadr is hiding behind the American respect for Shia Islam. Iraqis, now granted never-before-realized freedoms, are refusing to buy into the propaganda of the past.

In your face Michael al'Eat Moore.

[Yardstick]

*Bump!*

[Uncle Miltie]

"Counterinsurgency missions like this are the most challenging types of operations, because the population becomes part of the terrain, and we have to deal with that. We have to respect that."

Deal, yes. Respect, no. War crimes (fighting in civilian clothes) are not respectable.

[prognostigaator]

bttt

[ALASKA]

I'm really liking the idea of pouring liquid nitrogen into the mosque from above and letting the boys surrender or freeze to death. It would be just like a low-tech neutron bomb, people neutralized, the building safe.........

[blasater1960]

Sounds like the Najaf "pool" has been almost fully chlorinated. "Despite our evacuation efforts and the numbers of enemy fighters we actually killed, our intelligence estimates said that the insurgent population doubled in Fallujah. So, it was almost as if people were coming to fight like it was the big showdown at the OK Corral. The enemy's buddies were sneaking into town from Syria or who knows where."

Fallujah is next. We will have to go back to "chlorinate" the pool there too.

[WOSG]

PING - GOOD NEWS IN IRAQ - comments on the article here:

http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com

" ... the vast majority of the Arabic-language news outlets in Iraq, "except Al Jazeera," are making the point that al Sadr is hiding behind the American respect for Shia Islam. Iraqis, now granted never-before-realized freedoms, are refusing to buy into the propaganda of the past."


This last is a most important point! This shrine has symbolic but not military significance. It's acting as a cultural shield for al-Sadr. While I believe we should end this seige as soon as possible for psychological reasons, militarily, we can keep these thugs bottled up for months without a problem. Those who have called for us to destroy the shrine or attack it, consider that the US military has ground down the Mahdi army significantly already, and we may well completely defeat the Mahdi army in Najaf without setting foot in the shrine. By showing more respect for this 1400 year old shrine and Mosque than al-Sadr has, we show - once again - the true intentions of our intervention in Iraq. Thus, we have a win/win for coalition and Iraqi Government. Not just a defeat of al-Sadr, but exposing him as a defiler of a Mosque who shows less respect for it than Americans and coalition forces. That would be a sweet victory, one worth waiting for.

[rhema]

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Good post. Thank you!

Asked if Iraqi national military forces and police are measuring up to their U.S. and British allies on the battlefield, Suits said, "I've been in combat with these guys over the last couple of days, and I was as wary as anyone else...but they have since coalesced into an effective force. I'm not lying. I'm not propagandizing. I'm not delivering a message someone else said. I have confidence in them being on my left or my right. They will go forward. They will close with the enemy. They will fix him. And they will kill him. They do not retreat. They do not cower. They support each other. They drag their wounded out of the line of fire. And I have confidence that these guys will be able to defend their country because they are doing it now."

[ken21]

how do those photo journalists get the close ups of sadr's militia firing at americans, as in the nyt print edition today?

[Abigail Adams]

Al your Sadr are belong to us!