A crusading army was sent by the pope to crush some heretics in sothern france about the 12th century. 'How will we know the good christians from the heretics' a knight asked the commander. "We shall kill them all, God shall know His own" And they did. The reformation still occured. 'Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out' is a common slogan in the US military. On approved t-shirts, Barked out in cadence. And we have indescrimanately killed civilians. This slaughter may well be the turning point of the occupation. I doubt it will be the pacifying success that some are banking on.
What is it with Americans thinking that superior force could ever pacify these people? Israel has been oppressing the Palestinians for half a century, and to what avail? "Flattening everything" won't work at all, because if we flatten everything, we earn the world's condemnation. In the wise words of our commander-in-chief "more and more of are imports are coming from overseas," and that won't do at all.
Israel has been oppressing the Palestinians for half a century, and to what avail? if the IDF were to use 1/10 of its actual force, bye bye "palestinian" state and bye bye intifada. the moral high ground prevents Israelis to clean the cancer within our midst. John Wayne said "when you got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow". why drag this out and give them another chance at blowing up a market full of children or cut off some more heads? and no, world condemnation is no big deal. it's just lip service to the terrorist countries. the world loves US markets, and the world loves American anti-terror efforts. especially the EU. by the way, what's everybody thinking about France's actions in Ivory Coast? killing civilians in revenge, destoying a country's entire air force... who gave them the right? those barbarians? it's bullshit of course... there was no intent to occupy or kill anyone on purpose - it's just a reminder that this is war.. and in war it's not "make believe" killing, it's real one. not for the purpose of killing, but for something else - think what that purpose is. (hint: head choppings)
Wait, so we go to war because every raghead, jew, and muslim in the middle east look the same, accidently pick the wrong country, go in shooting, get shot back, shoot them back, they cut off some heads, we cut off some heads, until someone runs out of heads?
no. "we" go to Falluja and get Zarqawi so Iraq has elections, gets stable, and "we" can finally leave
US Forces Moves In -> Falluja -> Citizens/Insurgents Move Out There will be insurgents left behind to create some resistance but none with the intention to "defend their stronghold." This is not conventional warfare people...
I was talking about Iraq. Fallujah's not the war, Fallujah's a battle. You Israelis ought to know that.
The Coalition is about 12,000 strong, intelligence officials already admit that many of the 3,000-5,000 insurgents probably left with the 250,000 citizens of Falluja when details of the assault was reported. In the admitedly tricky terrain of Urban warfare it will not take many insurgents to create some resistance. (ie. Booby traps, Morters, Sharpshooters) It shows the futility of it all. The US expends munitions on a nearly deserted city (est. 50,000 citizens remain) and spends the money to reorganize the forces to assault the city of Falluja where the end result is maybe 1000 dead insurgents and about 250,000 pissed off residents to return to their homes in shambles. We haven't even taken into account friendly and civilian casualties (always some when it comes to warfare) or the loss of infrastructure that will need to be rebuilt. How do you declare a winner or a loser in this sick game?
Curious has a point there, allthough some insurgants seem eager to die for Allah (iraqi Sunni strike me as more secular baathists than saoudi fundi anyway, who we should REALLY be concerned about) , I don't think all of them want to make their last stand in a direct confrontation with the proverbial guy with the large hammer (they would lose obvious), I think its entirely possible that many of the flies might have swarmed out to come back later or elsewhere to bite again ( Maybe they should have RFID tagged all the young males leaving the city to track their whereabouts in the future Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ) The fall of Fallujah could help to smooth the elections, yes, and in the short term it would rob the resistance (erh.. I mean terrorists, resistance sound too much like fighting for a legit cause Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ) from an important commandcenter/weapons stashes etc, so yes, they would be crippled somewhat, maybe crippled badly The question here is: will there be roadside bombs, abductions and ambushes again in Fallujah area in say three months? If not, then one could truely claim victory, otherwise it's just managing and maintaining some bloody status quo, unless offcoarse you measure victory by securing the oilpipelines (or arabs being damaged in their abillities to pose a potential threat to israel) and not by bringing peace to the people On the whole the challenge is to build up the iraqi army and policeforce to strength levels that they themselves can maintain the bloody status quo, so that at least the americans pull safely out (bombings would continue ofcoarse, but it wouldn't be of much interest to the american people, who could return to much more important issues like the scott peterson trial and Oprah playing santa with automobiles) This is exactly the reason why iraqi policemen are the favourite target of the insurgants, as long as the insurgants can keep the local police/army from getting the upper hand, they know the americans cannot hand over and pullout without being concerned their preferred regime will stay afloat...
Did I say kill every one? I merely showed the mentality of those forces or it will be somewhere in those lines. I do not propagate killing. Thank you.
How the US got Saddam, by brute force? Do some intelligence work with lot of money to offer as prize, you have Zarqawi. He is just an excuse to crush all the disenters of any US installed Govt.
You think Otheadp is unaware of that?, he is just practising for his spindocter examn, seriously everneo, you underestimate his intelligence .... BTW: I believe the brits are known to take bets on anything, maybe I should ask my bookmaker what are the current odds and payouts for Al-Zarwhatshisname b eing captured or killed in Fallujah.....
the bounty is out and the intelligence network is active. but being proactive is better than sitting on your hands like some girl with braces waiting for that guy to call and then running to your room in tears after waiting until 11pm in vain. as for the US crushing dissent, any dissent may be expressed through voting. but the violent jihadi minority knows this and is why they resort to all these gruesome methods. they know their agenda is not liked and will not be accepted by the majority (because the majority "simply does not understand the glory of Allah"). unfortunately for them they will not decide for the majority. in January all dissidents may voice their political opinions. but any dissent involving head choppings killings of police and civilians, will be crushed, as it should.
Active and efficient intelligence work is not like sitting on your hands like some girl. Or may be the girl is expecting the guy just not to show up until her periods are over. The head-chopping gang would not be sitting on their hands waiting for the marines to come and crush them. They would vanish and reappear somewhere else. Don't tell later that all the crushed civilians are jihadis.
If you think that fighting these ppl in a traditional way is going to some how stop the beheadings and the whole lot, good luck. If anything the insurgents left the city along with the civilians and are going to regroup and re-enter the city at some other date or will enter into another city to break the Iraqi interim gov’ts will. The whole point of the insurgency if you didn’t notice thus far is not to beat American forces, but to entice them into battle, when the Americans like idiots blow cities up they find to their surprise that the resistance is low, and most have fled. Same tactic was used in Vietnam, the Vietnamese would come out of the Bushes attack American solider, and then sink back into the background. The Americans wouldn’t know what hit them. What America is doing is ultimately playing into the hands of the insurgency because the more the US seems ruthless and militaristic the people of Iraq will not want or like the US even further then they do now. You must remember that a popular insurgency has never failed against major powers, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Vietnam, etc.
So the disease got you? **quoting people out of context** isn't it nice, missed what was written before or after? even missed the whole paragraph, what it was about and FOUND what you were looking for? very funny. try again. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The head-chopping gang would not be sitting on their hands waiting for the marines to come and crush them ... If you think that fighting these ppl in a traditional way is going to some how stop the beheadings and the whole lot, good luck. the fight against the jihadis is on many fronts. 1) money prizes, 2) intelligence work, 3) police work (trying to arrest), 4) army work (trying to kill), 5) propaganda (trying to fight their propaganda with counter-propaganda), and 6) secret... some stuff we don't know about just because they might move somewhere doesn't mean there should be no action against them at all. i'm sure that the planners knew that once the media got a hold of the report they (terrorists) will flee. i'm sure that they took that into consideration and set up traps at the exits of the cities before the media started advertising everything. there are many surprizes we don't know about. i think it's funny to say "well they'll escape so there isn't any point in chasing after them" You must remember that a popular insurgency has never failed against major powers but it isn't a popular insurgency. it's a minority of extremists (i'm aware that for the jaded among us it's become a meaningless slogan, but it's not meaningless at all imo) holding the population hostage, terrorizing the whole country. that doesn't mean they have no supporters, but it's manageable. Fallujah has 250,000 citizens. that's a pretty small city, even if it was a popular insurgency. Or may be the girl is expecting the guy just not to show up until her periods are over i don't get your analogy
