TheBlackHand
05-03-2004, 04:32 PM
We can thank the politicians and peaceniks for this (http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/World/7F7F6CD19ADDBF3086256E8700212D2E?OpenDocument&Headline=WAR+IN+IRAQ) one...
WAR IN IRAQ
By HANNAH ALLAM
Knight Ridder Newspapers
05/02/2004
As U.S. pulls out of Fallujah, Iraqis claim victory
"The Americans have been pushed out by true soldiers, heroic men," said a soldier from the new Fallujah Brigade, which is supposed to be a U.S. ally.
FALLUJAH, Iraq - Masked men carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers and waving Iraqi flags rode through the deserted streets of Fallujah on Saturday, claiming victory in the withdrawal last week of U.S. Marines after a monthlong siege of the city.
A day after the U.S.-led coalition announced it was handing over most security matters to a popular general from the ousted Saddam Hussein government, Fallujah residents tentatively stepped out of shuttered homes to find demolished buildings, uprooted palm trees, rows of shelled villas and car windows riddled with bullet holes.
They took comfort in what they did not see: Americans.
"The Americans have been pushed out by true soldiers, heroic men," said Shaker Adnan, 35, who wore the burgundy beret and dark camouflage of the Fallujah Brigade, the new proxy security force assembled by the coalition. "If the Americans were men, they would have never retreated. This triumph came from God."
Despite the coalition's insistence the move was not a retreat, local religious leaders called a victory prayer at a battle-scared mosque. Other Fallujah residents wept at a soccer stadium where dozens of anti-American Iraqis were buried in graves marked with crude tombstones and wilted flowers. So many bodies had arrived at the makeshift cemetery that a backhoe dug long trenches in the dirt, where the dead were buried single file.
Men with AK-47 assault rifles slung over their shoulders sobbed at one row of graves, where 26 members of the same family were buried. Several gravestones simply bore the inscription "unknown martyr," along with details of the remains. "Black beard, green trousers," read one marker. "Pieces of flesh, brown shirt," read another. An estimated 600 Iraqis died in the siege, according to hospital and news accounts.
"We're left with nothing but a few simple weapons, but we will continue to use them if the Americans return," said Hassan Ahmed, 35, who recited verses from the Quran over a plot.
After threatening a major offensive, the coalition last week announced the pullback, and recruited Maj. Gen. Jassim Mohamed Saleh, a former Republican Guard two-star general, to oversee security inside the city. He'll command the Fallujah Brigade, an emerging force that eventually is supposed to have more than 1,000 soldiers to maintain checkpoints and conduct patrols throughout the town.
The first checkpoint into Fallujah is still controlled by U.S. Marines and the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. On Saturday, barefoot children with rucksacks walked home with their mothers. About a third of the city's 200,000 residents left during the siege.
Inside Fallujah, however, the streets belonged to men with checkered scarves over their faces, roaming freely with grenade launchers. They waved at passing cars and flashed the victory sign. Some "mujahedeen," as they are called here, drove white trucks around town with the nose of their weapons pointing out the window. Graffiti scrawled on walls read "Goodbye, USA," mirroring the jubilation expressed by residents.
"Today is the first day we feel safe in Fallujah," said Salima Daoud, 48, whose son was shot during the violence. "I haven't seen all the destruction yet. I'm just happy the Americans are gone."
At a green bridge over the Euphrates River, where the mutilated bodies of American security contractors dangled after they were ambushed last month, a Fallujah Brigade soldier allowed a visitor's car to cross with a stern warning: "Be careful. There are still Americans ahead." Across the bridge lay the road to the Jolan district, where insurgents are still surrounded by Marines after days of intense gunbattles.
Along Old Market Street, which leads to the bridge, a single bakery was open and residents lined up for bread. But banks, music stores and groceries remained closed, their exteriors scarred by grenades and bullets.
Fallujah General Hospital stood virtually empty. A few doctors and a single patient remained after most had moved to a substitute hospital in a safer area. Hospital staff pointed to a fresh grave outside the emergency room where they said they had buried a mentally ill man accidentally shot to death by U.S. soldiers after he ran through the streets.
Game over. The ambiguous "they" won't let us win. Let's pick up our toys and go home. Leave these turds alone in their own sandbox.
Jeez, I hope Hitler wasn't on to something when he said...
"So it is only natural that when the capable intelligences of a nation, which are always in a minority, are regarded only as of the same value as all the rest, then genius, capacity, the value of personality are slowly subjected to the majority and this process is then falsely named the rule of the people. For this is not rule of the people, but in reality the rule of stupidity, of mediocrity, of half-heartedness, of cowardice, of weakness, and of inadequacy....
Thus democracy will in practice lead to the destruction of a people's true values. And this also serves to explain how It is that peoples with a great past from the time when they surrender themselves to the unlimited, democratic rule of the masses slowly lose their former position; for the outstanding-achievements of individuals which they still possess or which could be produced in all spheres of life are now rendered practically ineffective through the oppression of mere numbers. And thus in these conditions a people will gradually lose its importance not merely in the cultural and economic spheres but altogether, in a comparatively short time it will no longer, within the setting of the other peoples of the world, maintain its former value. . . . " Adolf Hitler, Jan. 27, 1932
It's the weaklings that make us fight with one hand tied behind our back. I know it, you know it, Saddam knows it and now every raghead in Fallujah knows it.
How soon before the old man gets his palace(s) back?
WAR IN IRAQ
By HANNAH ALLAM
Knight Ridder Newspapers
05/02/2004
As U.S. pulls out of Fallujah, Iraqis claim victory
"The Americans have been pushed out by true soldiers, heroic men," said a soldier from the new Fallujah Brigade, which is supposed to be a U.S. ally.
FALLUJAH, Iraq - Masked men carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers and waving Iraqi flags rode through the deserted streets of Fallujah on Saturday, claiming victory in the withdrawal last week of U.S. Marines after a monthlong siege of the city.
A day after the U.S.-led coalition announced it was handing over most security matters to a popular general from the ousted Saddam Hussein government, Fallujah residents tentatively stepped out of shuttered homes to find demolished buildings, uprooted palm trees, rows of shelled villas and car windows riddled with bullet holes.
They took comfort in what they did not see: Americans.
"The Americans have been pushed out by true soldiers, heroic men," said Shaker Adnan, 35, who wore the burgundy beret and dark camouflage of the Fallujah Brigade, the new proxy security force assembled by the coalition. "If the Americans were men, they would have never retreated. This triumph came from God."
Despite the coalition's insistence the move was not a retreat, local religious leaders called a victory prayer at a battle-scared mosque. Other Fallujah residents wept at a soccer stadium where dozens of anti-American Iraqis were buried in graves marked with crude tombstones and wilted flowers. So many bodies had arrived at the makeshift cemetery that a backhoe dug long trenches in the dirt, where the dead were buried single file.
Men with AK-47 assault rifles slung over their shoulders sobbed at one row of graves, where 26 members of the same family were buried. Several gravestones simply bore the inscription "unknown martyr," along with details of the remains. "Black beard, green trousers," read one marker. "Pieces of flesh, brown shirt," read another. An estimated 600 Iraqis died in the siege, according to hospital and news accounts.
"We're left with nothing but a few simple weapons, but we will continue to use them if the Americans return," said Hassan Ahmed, 35, who recited verses from the Quran over a plot.
After threatening a major offensive, the coalition last week announced the pullback, and recruited Maj. Gen. Jassim Mohamed Saleh, a former Republican Guard two-star general, to oversee security inside the city. He'll command the Fallujah Brigade, an emerging force that eventually is supposed to have more than 1,000 soldiers to maintain checkpoints and conduct patrols throughout the town.
The first checkpoint into Fallujah is still controlled by U.S. Marines and the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. On Saturday, barefoot children with rucksacks walked home with their mothers. About a third of the city's 200,000 residents left during the siege.
Inside Fallujah, however, the streets belonged to men with checkered scarves over their faces, roaming freely with grenade launchers. They waved at passing cars and flashed the victory sign. Some "mujahedeen," as they are called here, drove white trucks around town with the nose of their weapons pointing out the window. Graffiti scrawled on walls read "Goodbye, USA," mirroring the jubilation expressed by residents.
"Today is the first day we feel safe in Fallujah," said Salima Daoud, 48, whose son was shot during the violence. "I haven't seen all the destruction yet. I'm just happy the Americans are gone."
At a green bridge over the Euphrates River, where the mutilated bodies of American security contractors dangled after they were ambushed last month, a Fallujah Brigade soldier allowed a visitor's car to cross with a stern warning: "Be careful. There are still Americans ahead." Across the bridge lay the road to the Jolan district, where insurgents are still surrounded by Marines after days of intense gunbattles.
Along Old Market Street, which leads to the bridge, a single bakery was open and residents lined up for bread. But banks, music stores and groceries remained closed, their exteriors scarred by grenades and bullets.
Fallujah General Hospital stood virtually empty. A few doctors and a single patient remained after most had moved to a substitute hospital in a safer area. Hospital staff pointed to a fresh grave outside the emergency room where they said they had buried a mentally ill man accidentally shot to death by U.S. soldiers after he ran through the streets.
Game over. The ambiguous "they" won't let us win. Let's pick up our toys and go home. Leave these turds alone in their own sandbox.
Jeez, I hope Hitler wasn't on to something when he said...
"So it is only natural that when the capable intelligences of a nation, which are always in a minority, are regarded only as of the same value as all the rest, then genius, capacity, the value of personality are slowly subjected to the majority and this process is then falsely named the rule of the people. For this is not rule of the people, but in reality the rule of stupidity, of mediocrity, of half-heartedness, of cowardice, of weakness, and of inadequacy....
Thus democracy will in practice lead to the destruction of a people's true values. And this also serves to explain how It is that peoples with a great past from the time when they surrender themselves to the unlimited, democratic rule of the masses slowly lose their former position; for the outstanding-achievements of individuals which they still possess or which could be produced in all spheres of life are now rendered practically ineffective through the oppression of mere numbers. And thus in these conditions a people will gradually lose its importance not merely in the cultural and economic spheres but altogether, in a comparatively short time it will no longer, within the setting of the other peoples of the world, maintain its former value. . . . " Adolf Hitler, Jan. 27, 1932
It's the weaklings that make us fight with one hand tied behind our back. I know it, you know it, Saddam knows it and now every raghead in Fallujah knows it.
How soon before the old man gets his palace(s) back?