← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Jack Cassidy
Thread ID: 15652 | Posts: 11 | Started: 2004-11-15
2004-11-15 05:30 | User Profile
[url="http://www.antiwar.com/ewens/?articleid=3977"]http://www.antiwar.com/ewens/?articleid=3977[/url]
| November 14, 2004 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 55 US Soldiers Killed This Week [size=5]At least 34 killed in Fallujah alone [/size] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| by Michael Ewens | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
**[size=7]I[/size]**n a flurry of weekend press releases, the Department of Defense [url="http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/"][color=#990000]named another 23 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq[/color][/url]. [url="http://antiwar.com/casualties/list.php"][color=#990000]These deaths[/color][/url] bring the [url="http://antiwar.com/casualties/"][color=#990000]total killed since Nov. 8[/color][/url] to **55**. Such facts may conflict with "[url="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6403689/"][color=#990000]official numbers[/color][/url]" released to the unquestioning media. However, in an *apparent* response to this article, [url="http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/breaking_news/10181636.htm"][color=#990000]the DoD is now reporting that 38[/color][/url] US troops have died in Fallujah. The discrepancy in numbers may stem from unreported deaths. We will only know after the troops' names are officially released.
The 50-plus killed this week is indicative of a [url="http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=582727"][color=#990000]growing[/color][/url] [url="http://telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=JIKJK4Y2K5ZL1QFIQMFCM5OAVCBQYJVC?xml=/news/2004/11/14/wirq14.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/11/14/ixworld.html"][color=#990000]insurgency[/color][/url] likely to spread to previously peaceful cities. Over twenty of the deaths occurred in Baghdad, Mosul, Abu Gharb, and Babli province (just south of Baghdad). This indicates that the violence is only spreading. Although the military concedes that "winning" in Fallujah [url="http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6790272"][color=#990000]won't quell the insurgency[/color][/url], they continue to pursue policies that suppose there exists a *static* number of Iraqis willing to fight the occupation: if they could only kill them all, democracy and calm would flourish. Of course, it is more likely that these incursions will *create *more insurgency.
We have compiled the following list of the estimated 34 US soldiers and Marines killed in Fallujah:
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2004-11-15 05:51 | User Profile
It appears as if there were hundreds, not thousands, of "insurgents" left in Fallujah when the US military went in. The US military says 1 to 2 thousand insurgents were killed, so divide this number by 5 and you should have a more accurate number of actual killed. The US military gets the number of killed insurgents from after-action interviews with Marines/soldiers and asks them how many they think they killed (sans any direct visual evidence, usually). In past actions in Iraq the numbers have been wildly inaccurate. I recall one case where the US military said it had killed over a hundred attackers in a repelled ambush. The next day eyewitness accounts and hospital doctors said 10 Iraqi were killed, half of them women and children caught in the middle.
Comparing this Fallujah operation to Vietnam equivalents, e.g., Hue, we did much better in Nam. In Hue the US Marines killed 5000 insurgents and lost 140 Marines (KIA). In Fallujah the Marines killed, at most, 700-800 insurgents, at a cost of 36 Marines KIA and hundreds wounded.
So, a city of 300,000 was essentially vacated. According to an LA Times photographer imbeded with a Marine unit, when the Fallujah residents return they will be shocked when they see the destruction done to their city. Perhaps they'll put off being pissed by the promises of new construction and aid from the US.
2004-11-15 13:47 | User Profile
The only reporters in Fallujah during the seige were embeded with the US military and subject to military censorship. When it comes to civilians killed, the reports are low-balled and the insurgents killed is high-balled.
I think the insurgency is waning. To me it appears that the United States made sweet deals with the Shiites and Kurds so they would sit out the search and destroy missions on the strongly held Sunni areas. The US bombs civilian areas, hospitals and mosques, and the rest of the Arab world is all quiet. Something's rotten there.
2004-11-15 15:45 | User Profile
[QUOTE=xmetalhead]The only reporters in Fallujah during the seige were embeded with the US military and subject to military censorship. When it comes to civilians killed, the reports are low-balled and the insurgents killed is high-balled.
I think the insurgency is waning. To me it appears that the United States made sweet deals with the Shiites and Kurds so they would sit out the search and destroy missions on the strongly held Sunni areas. The US bombs civilian areas, hospitals and mosques, and the rest of the Arab world is all quiet. Something's rotten there.[/QUOTE]
There are geopolitical reasons for keeping the ethnic hodgepodge we call Iraq together.
Turkey won't let the Kurds go b/c they have a claim on Kurdish populated areas in Turkey (ditto Iran and Syria), and the Yahoodis will never let the Shiites go b/c they'd side with Iran.
Other than those factors (and I'm sure I'm leaving out several) there's just no good reason for evening having an Iraq, as far as I can see.
Walter
2004-11-15 16:03 | User Profile
Well guys, something big is up as you know all the big wheels are leaving the Bush governmen, Colin Powers is the main one up till now and they are not saying nothing about the little wheels that are also leaving.
I still say that Bush is going to be inpeached one of this days that is to say if the US wants to survive.
2004-11-15 19:35 | User Profile
Here we go again. In a show force. the US mowed down Fallujah, and reportedly killed over a 1000 "insurgents." The neocons tell us that the resistance is just a very tiny fraction of Iraqis thus this should be a real dent in their ability to attack the US. Yet. what will next month bring? Many more dead Americans. Over 100,000 Iraqis killed since the invasion, what's another 1000 to 2000 dead?
2004-11-16 08:50 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Ponce]Well guys, something big is up as you know all the big wheels are leaving the Bush governmen, Colin Powers is the main one up till now and they are not saying nothing about the little wheels that are also leaving.
I still say that Bush is going to be inpeached one of this days that is to say if the US wants to survive.[/QUOTE]
And the CIA is undergoing a major purge.
Is Iran next?
2004-11-16 12:52 | User Profile
A year to six months ago I would say yes but as you know China now has a two billion dollars (I think this firure is right) contract to build some special oil pipe line in Iran going somewhere, forgot where, that is to say besides France, Spain and I think Germany but not sure.
Like I wrore elsewhere, for the US to invade now Iran would be like China invading Saudi Arabia and the US doing nothing about it and besides that whith the SunBurst in their hands and being able to close the water way in that area Iran is now in a pretty good position.
Besides, with what would we invade Iran? the boys scouts? with the help of the Israelis? heheheheehhe I would love to see this one, that would give all Arabs and Muslims the excuse to ban together against the US and Israel.
The US is esperimenting with a super missile that will work with the help of the ram jet and capable of traveling at ten times the speed of sound and able of hitting a target anywhere on earth from the US, in other words with the super spy scopes in the sateliltes and GPS the US wont have to send troops but only push a button in order to destroy the "enemy".
2004-11-16 13:58 | User Profile
Jack Cassidy,
More than 50,000 of Fallujah's residents did stay put in the city, so who knows how many of the so-called "insurgents" were just people who got in the way.
[QUOTE]In Fallujah the Marines killed, at most, 700-800 insurgents, at a cost of 36 Marines KIA and hundreds wounded. So, a city of 300,000 was essentially vacated. According to an LA Times photographer imbeded with a Marine unit, when the Fallujah residents return they will be shocked when they see the destruction done to their city. [/QUOTE]
2004-11-16 22:44 | User Profile
View From Lodi, CA: Fantasy And Failure In Falluja
By Joe Guzzardi
By using our town of Lodi as an example, Iââ¬â¢ll explain why the "taking" of Falluja will prove futile.
Operation New Dawn is more about destroying Falluja than "taking" it. But for today, Iââ¬â¢ll use the military parlance.
Falluja, a Sunni city of about 250,000, was once the headquarters of approximately 3,500 insurgents. Today, only a fraction of those remain. They are disorganized and ineffective.
Because the White House determined that a secure Falluja is essential for safe and orderly Iraqi elections in January, early this week a coalition of 6,500 US Marines and 2,000 Iraqi troops stormed the town, launching rocket fire and mortar shells.
During the weeks leading up to the ground assault, American aircraft repeatedly bombed Falluja knocking out power and other essential services.
In anticipation of the American-led attack, however, nearly 70 percent of Falluja residentsââ¬âabout 150,000 peopleââ¬âfled in fear for their lives.
Pentagon officials concede that many insurgents including kingpin Abu Musab al Zarqawi were among those who escaped. And the escapees are known to be conducting terrorist attacks in other cities.
The American-led conquest of Falluja is done in the name of a free Iraqââ¬âOperation Iraqi Freedom. And a broader goal of the war is, according to the White House, to plant the seeds of democracy throughout the Middle East.
Now I ask you: if Lodi were Falluja and the same 70 percent of residents (42,000) evacuated to avoid a deadly invasion from armed foreign troops and the 18,000 who stayed behind witnessed rampant death and destruction, how many converts would be made?
Unfortunately for the American public, the presidential election did not provide a meaningful forum about the nationââ¬â¢s goals in Iraq.
Campaign pomp and circumstance stifled many military expert opinions that predicted that the Iraq War, as it is currently being managed, is doomed to deadly failure.
Among those who are pessimistic about the ultimate outcome in Iraq are: bullet
Four Star General Wesley Clark who predicted, "The war will go on for yearsââ¬Â¦without the willing cooperation and active participation of our alliesââ¬Â¦"
bullet
General Norman Schwarzkopf, Commander Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, agrees with General Clark: "In the Gulf War we had an international force and troops from many nations. We would be lacking if we went it alone. ... It is not going to be an easy battle but it would be much more effective if we didn't have to do it alone."
bullet
Four Star Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, "It's pretty interesting that all the generals see it the same way and all the others who have never fired a shot and are hot to go to war see it another way"
Someone should have listened to Generals Clark, Schwarzkopf and Zinni.
But because no one did, Americans have suffered heavy losses.
Here is a list of American casualties that I pegged to important dates in the Iraq War. These totals will only go up for the foreseeable future: bullet
Since the war began (3/19/03): 1163
bullet
Since Bushââ¬â¢s "Mission Accomplished" statement (5/1/03): 1026
bullet
Since the capture of Saddam Hussein (12/13/03): 701
bullet
Since the handover by the U.S. to an interim Iraqi government (6/29/04): 302
President Bush should have listened to his father.
George H. W. Bush wrote in his book, "A World Transformed," that after Desert Storm had the U.S. invaded Iraq:
"We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect rule Iraq. The coalition would have instantly collapsed. ... Going in and thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations mandate would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different - and perhaps barren - outcome.''
And Bushââ¬â¢s former Secretary of State James Baker added this prescient observation:
"Removing him [Saddam Hussein] from power might well have plunged Iraq into civil war, sucking U.S. forces in to preserve order. Had we elected to march on Baghdad, our forces might still be there."
To date, every prediction the Bush administration has made regarding the war has been wrong. Falluja will likely be one more sorry chapter in the sad saga that is Iraq.
Not only has the administration been unable to capture Osama bin Laden, it canââ¬â¢t catch al Zarqawi either.
President Bush owes Americans, who oppose his Iraq policy in ever increasing numbers, an honest evaluation of the nationââ¬â¢s course in the war.
Joe Guzzardi [email him], an instructor in English at the Lodi Adult School, has been writing a weekly column since 1988. It currently appears in the Lodi News-Sentinel.
http://www.vdare.com/guzzardi/041112_vfl.htm
2004-11-16 22:52 | User Profile
What Does Taking Fallujah Get Us?
by James Glaser
It was reported on Sunday that the Marines have taken Fallujah. Now this isnââ¬â¢t like when the Marines took Iwo Jima or Guadalcanal, but Washington wants us to think that. The truth is that this battle did almost nothing to shorten our troopsââ¬â¢ stay in Iraq.
The Department of Defense reports that 38 U.S. troops were killed and 275 wounded in the ongoing operation in Fallujah. 60 of the wounded could return to duty. Without our incredible medical care, we might have lost a couple of hundred troops; as it is over 300 casualties in less than a week is bad enough.
Remember, this is just our losses in Fallujah. According to Defense Department reports, another 17 soldiers were killed in the rest of Iraq. Depending on which report you read, we lost either three or four helicopters, several tanks and who knows how many other vehicles.
Now I was in the Marine Corps and it really tears me up to see these losses, but what is even harder to cope with, is that these deaths and wounds were for almost nothing. Washington kept telling the country and the enemy that we were going to attack for weeks. Therefore, any of the top enemy commanders who wanted to, could walk away from Fallujah long before any fighting started.
We claim we killed anywhere from 600 to a 1,000 of the enemy fighters, but there has been no count on the number of innocent civilians we killed. Just like in Vietnam, you see a leg lying there and you just know that leg belonged to an enemy soldier. No way could that leg have belonged to an old man or woman or some teenager in the wrong spot at the wrong time.
You drop a 500-pound bomb or a 155 artillery round on a house, you're lucky if you can identify a leg. Sure we killed a lot of the enemy, but to put a number on them and no number on the civilians killed tells us a lot. We havenââ¬â¢t a clue as to whose body parts we were counting and we really donââ¬â¢t want to know. Civilian deaths are hard on troop morale.
Will taking Fallujah get our troops home faster? Only the ones coming home in a box or shipped to some state-side hospital. How about enemy troop strength, did we cut that down? Iraq has a custom of "blood feuds" and by destroying a huge city like Fallujah (Pop. 300,000+), we very well might have increased the number of fighters against us.
Before this war, all we talked about was how Saddam destroyed whole towns and villages of those who opposed him and now we are using that same tactic.
The world sees a lot more of the fighting going on in Iraq this past week than we see here in the States. All of our coverage is approved by the military and we only see what they want us to see. The world on the other hand sees only what we donââ¬â¢t want our own citizens to see. If there is a dead child, you know the rest of the world is going to see that little body over and over again.
We are in a War on Terrorism and the rest of the world watches in horror as American troops bomb, fire artillery, use tanks and attack helicopters and jets against a city whose claim to fame is that it has over two hundred houses of worship.
We are losing this War in Iraq and I believe, even though we took that city and killed several hundred Iraqi fighters, we have lost this battle. There is no way that we could win, when we displace hundreds of thousands of innocent people, kill who knows how many innocent civilians who couldnââ¬â¢t leave for one reason or another, and destroy much of a huge metropolitan area.
The whole world sees what were are doing and they have to ask is the price the innocent people had to pay worth it so that the United States could kill maybe less than a thousand Iraqi freedom fighters? How many of those Iraqis died defending their own homes? Wouldnââ¬â¢t most Americans do the same and fight, if a foreign power was destroying their home town?
November 16, 2004
Jim Glaser [send him mail], a Marine Corps Vietnam War veteran and Commander of VFW Post 3869, works to educate the American public on the consequences of war. His personal website is JamesGlaser.org.
Copyright é 2004 LewRockwell.com
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