U.S. Forces Storm Iraqi Town, Say 94 Rebels Killed

[talksense101]

SAMARRA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces stormed Samarra on Friday and said nearly 100 guerrillas were killed in air strikes and street-to-street combat during a major new American offensive to wrest control of the Iraqi town.

....

U.S. officials use the phrase "anti-Iraqi forces" to describe the various armed groups fighting Iraq (news - web sites)'s U.S.-backed government, including supporters of former leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and violent Islamists, some of whom have come from abroad.

The military said the Samarra raid was "to facilitate orderly government processes, kill or capture anti-Iraqi forces, and set the conditions to proceed with infrastructure and quality of life improvements for the people of Samarra."

...


Someone wanted to know why the US military was compared to the Taliban in another thread. Does this give a hint?.

:no:

[Common Man]

These people are terrorists who want to disrupt the new Iraq and they must be brought tho justice. We let Sadr and his army go and now they are a problem again. We are moving towards a take- no- prisioners policy and it is about time.

Moe L

[MarcUK]

Originally posted by Common Man
These people are terrorists who want to disrupt the new Iraq and they must be brought tho justice. We let Sadr and his army go and now they are a problem again. We are moving towards a take- no- prisioners policy and it is about time.

Moe L

No, this is the last desperate attempt by the administration to try to do something right before the election. No doubt the number of civilians killed will be grossly underestimated or supressed, but hey, that doesn't matter as long as you can pull someone (Zakarwi? sp) out as a token gesture that Bush is doing it right. Gotta have a big fight around the time of the election to rally the electorate.

[segovius]

Originally posted by Common Man
These people are terrorists who want to disrupt the new Iraq and they must be brought tho justice. We let Sadr and his army go and now they are a problem again. We are moving towards a take- no- prisioners policy and it is about time.

Moe L

Terrorist - charity-worker - who cares what you call them. I won't argue.

The real point is that the 'New Iraq' should be disrupted. By all possible means. 'Bring to Justice' just means stop them before they stop the 'New Iraq'. There is no justice where the US foreign policy (?) is concerned.

Here are some examples of the US 'justice':

A Bush lie of a few days ago was quite an interesting one for a change. In his recent joint propaganda exercise with Alawi (http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/09-23-2004/0002257790&EDATE=) Bush said the following:

Electricity has been restored above pre-war levels. Telephone
service has increased dramatically. More than 2,000 schools have been
renovated and millions of new textbooks have been distributed.

Well, this is a lie but it is a lie aimed purely at the non-critical lapdogs in the west (the Common Man in fact) to make them feel better/not worry or provide ammo for partisan activism.

The truth (for those remotely interested) is that not only is electricity well below pre-war levels (12 hours per day) but the costs have soared ! Maybe that's what they mean by success !

Riverbend (http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/) has a not-really-funny take on it on her blog:

A few days ago, most of Baghdad was in the dark for over 24 hours and lately, on our better days, we get about 12 hours of electricity. Bush got it wrong (or Allawi explained it to incorrectly)- the electricity is drastically less than pre-war levels, but the electricity BILL is way above pre-war levels. Congratulations Iraqis on THAT!! Our electricity bill was painful last month. Before the war, Iraqis might pay an average of around 5,000 Iraqi Dinars a month for electricity (the equivalent back then of $2.50) - summer or winter. Now, it's quite common to get bills above 70,000 Iraqi Dinars... for half-time electricity.

So lying is not justice. Lying about people's lives and misery is not justice.

Exhibit B: Alawi - basically your common or garden Ba'athist murderer. Not really surprising the US wanted him on board and certainly not surprising he is thanking them so profusely,

But he isn't a terrorist - oh no. Interesting article here (http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Iyad_Allawi) about his life and crimes.

Samarra: US atrocities are happening all the time. One in 5 or 6 of these items hits the news but it's happening EVERY DAY. Certainly it has been going on in Fallujah for months so any 'starting to get tough' reasoning just shows how out of touch the commentator is or more likely, how completely they've bought into the party BS.

Btw - collective punishment (which is what Samarra and Fallujah actually are by any definition) is a war crime under the Geneva convention. The Iraqi PM has accused the US of this today - this will be a major diplomatic incident. Stay tuned to Fox till it's over and you'll still sleep ok.

These incidents or their moral equivalent happen all day every day They do not report them for the following reasons:

1) If it is (as it often is) Americans doing the killing

2) if they reported all the time it would lose propaganda value

3) the US are taking some heavy hits in places

4) the true picture wouldn't play well with Joe Voter

The unpalatable truth (for you) is that basically all these lies are aimed merely at the uninformed and couldn't cares of the west. No-one in Iraq could ever even consider them - [b[they live there !!!!!!![/b]. I know you don't think much of them in general but I guess you could concede they might know whether their electricity is on or whether there kids are still alive.

And they do know. So, they are doing what anyone would do - fighting those sick individuals who are responsible for their situation and who are lying about it.