U.S. Convoy in Iraq Attacked

Current Events
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FALLUJAH, Iraq - Iraqis said insurgents attacked the contractors with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. After the attack, civilians, none of whom appeared to be armed, gathered to celebrate, dragging the bodies through the street and hanging two of them from the green, iron bridge spanning the Euphrates River.

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This event makes all to clear what we’re up against in Iraq. The twisted and barbaric creed that is prevalent in the Middle East has resulted in a people who are capable of such reckless hate. I don’t see how we can view this conflict as anything but an ideological war. Sure, putting a few bullets in the heads of the people responsible for this monstrous act is a first step, but to end terrorism altogether we must end that which hath given it life: Islam. How we go about this I am not altogether certain. But as sure as Christianity resides in obscurity in the west, so to will Islam be confined to anonymity in the east.

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You are right that this is a war of ideas. But before we go any further, we need to send in whatever force it takes to clean out the filthy, festering sore that is Fallujah. With this act they have gone beyond being a mere hot spot. They cannot be allowed to get away with thinking that they are the “cemetery of American” forces. We allowed them to get away with Iran, Lebanon, Somalia, the Cole, without immediately paying for it. Until we knock down this kind of direct action on the part of the population, we can expect the slaughter – and the unspeakable barbarity – to continue.

Sorry, Invictus, I know this doesn’t speak to the question. I can’t seem to get past what they’ve done, and way they danced in the street afterward. The time we allow them to dance without facing immediate consequences is over. They need to understand that we are not going to leave everytime someone lobs a grenade or RPG at us.

I’m so sick of seeing someone step up to a podium and pratle on about bringing folks to justice, a la Clinton, or making statements about our resolve, a la Bush. Bush is better, but not nearly good enough. I’m so sick of words. I’d rather see pictures showing me a hole where moments before I saw dancing.

Maybe after my blood-pressure goes down, I’ll be able to talk about ideas.

And Invictus, thanks for acknowledging these deaths by opening this thread.

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I totally agree with Invictus here.

I’d just like to add that Bush had good intentions regarding his invasion of Iraq.

It’s a shame that he is bumping and grinding his way through this conflict, because of his weak resolve and his lack of principle.

We have, for example, a bogus constitution in place here that legitimizes Islamic law. Very bad.

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How does a 5 megaton Nuclear Weapon detonating at 1km over Fallujah sound?

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“Sure, putting a few bullets in the heads of the people responsible for this monstrous act is a first step, but to end terrorism altogether we must end that which hath given it life: Islam How we go about this I am not altogether certain.”

where’d I put that goddamn invisible hand?

It will happen, and the beauty of capitilism is that it will happen largely without force.

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How does a 5 megaton Nuclear Weapon detonating at 1km over Fallujah sound?

Here ya go

There once was a land named Fallujah

It went the way of Hiroshima :blink:

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How can anyone believe in a God when man has such power. A full nuclear release by the US or Russia would unleash more firepower then all the act of Gods in the bible put together.

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There once was a land named Fallujah

It went the way of Hiroshima

Haha…Let’s not go nuts.

Forcing capitulation via intimidation seems to be the way to go when it comes to solving the immediate situation in Fallujah. I am in no real place to comment on how America’s generals should do this but I think taking a few lessons from Mossad and the IDF would be a good start.

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Haha…Let’s not go nuts.

Forcing capitulation via intimidation seems to be the way to go when it comes to solving the immediate situation in Fallujah. I am in no real place to comment on how America’s generals should do this but I think taking a few lessons from Mossad and the IDF would be a good start.

The problem with that is it seems that the actions of every administration after Kennedy’s have not been taken with any degree of seriousness by foreigners, vis a vis the few times brinkmanship was attempted, those we threatened scoffed at us.

It remains to be seen how America will react to the atrocities in Fallujah. Right now, I don’t hold up much hope that we will respond in the assertive manner that we should.

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Okay, my blood-pressure is down and I’m thinking like an adult again. I have no doubt that we will go into Fallujah and clean out that nest of murderers. We won’t do so without a plan, though.

Den Beste has an excellent article about this. Check it out and we’ll discuss it further. If you want, that is.

url=[http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2004/03/Fallujaterrorism.shtml]

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If it were up to my I would move batterys of 105’s and 155’s(howitzers) around the city and then shell the city to the ground or till they stop fighting.

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Without stating some more names of military weapons I assume we all should know, could someone tell me how it is conceivable to eliminate terroristic acts? They are merely violent acts within a group which is attempting to assert its ideology upon others, and unless you have some way of ending all ideological conflict it wll persist.

A large part of the resistance to war in Iraq is not simply that fighting is wrong in all cases, but also that greater resistance will occur unless there are more concrete measures used to end war/tyranny/impingement on others’ rights.

Every follower of Islam on the brink of deciding whether to allow the conflict in their homeland to pass unnoticed would be pushed to the point of anti-american fanaticism by the prospect of a nuclear explosion, damning innocent and guilty.

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Hello, I just happened to find this webpage today, and would also like to share some input on the situation in Iraq.

In order to fully understand the concept of Islam, Iraq, and the Middle East under the context of US opinion, it is completely necessary to first, go back in history and try to understand the present political and religious dispute. If you have done that already, you will know that when the Ottoman Empire fell after WWI, Britain and France, because of their victory, took on the job of ‘sectioning’ off the Middle East into various territories, which is now their sovereign nations, but failing to take into consideration the various ethic, religious, and racial differences that the Islam world possesses. Instead, they separated the land, based on their resources in order attempt to gain from them what they sought out.

Because they were the world ‘superpower’ at this time in history, their orientalist thoughts ruled over their common sense… As superpowers, they felt that their attempt at colonizing and sparating the Middle East was in everyone’s best interest, which was not the case.

Thus, we are left with a situation where religions clash, not because of their differences (incase you do not know this 97% of Iraq is Muslim, but of different forms, just as Christianity may be protestant, roman catholic, anglican, etc.) These different forms of Muslim are predominantly Shiites and Sunni, who don’t conflict with each other because of religious differences, but because of the discrimination and poor living standards one (Sunni’s) were given over the other (Shiites). And who alloted the wealth of each section of the Muslim faith? The British after WWI…

Now, as for the political scene, it is far too ethnocentric and stereotypical for one to group the WHOLE Iraqi nation as one. Saddam Hussein’s authoritarian power in Iraq allocated all of the nation’s wealth to those who were his relatives and the Baathist militia (Hussein being a Baatist military figurehead as well). After decades of manipulation, and interrogation, the Iraqi people have lived in fear and without freedom, forcing themselves to comply with Hussein’s power and secret police, for fear of their lives. In order to speak of the Iraqi people, it is more useful in arguing to group them differently than as one people. Perhaps the military (Hussein’s followers), the Sunni, the Shiites would help distinguish the people, since the majority of them have been oppressed by Hussein and are not followers of them. They simply would be killled if they rose up against him. A good example of this would be Hitler’s totalitarian regime in Germany from 1939-1945.

I would like to finish my argument by enlightening you WITHOUT a “one sided” opinion on why the Americans have not been well recieved by the Iraqi people, whether they are followers of Hussein or, usually not followers at all! To put this simply, the Islamic people, dating back to the first world war, have had no sovereignty at all. Not only did the Brits and French split the Middle East up, but the US, since they have become the new economic superpower, have taken over the old superpower’s role of going into a nation (where obviously western thought has not been well recieved since WWI) and have attempted to once again, place western ideals on a nation that is clearly not interested in becoming part of the west. They have a right to not wish this, since they have been exploited by Hussein, the Baathist, the French, the British, and the US in regard to oil.

Just try to put your perspective at a more international level… The US are tryin to maintain peace, abolish Hussein’s militia, and mainly, democratise the Middle East. Clearly this would have been a job that the UN would be responisble to take on, but unfortunately, Bush’s administrative was too trigger happy and unable to compromise completely and work solidly with the UN. If you would like to find more resources on how Bush was concieved by the various country representatives within the UN, feel free to do so, and you will notice that he wasn’t liked at all by some.

Another note to add would the media’s domination of the US people… and in case you don’t know what I mean by this, I mean the television’s broadcast of the “war on Iraq”… they failed to uncover how many Iraqi civilians have died, but made a clear atttempt to portray the American soldiers that were killed… the ratio of innocent civilian deaths to US/UN/Canadian military this is tantamount… there is something wrong with this picture… ladies and gentlemen, this is propaganda at its best in YOUR backyard.

Cheers,

Jessie

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Jessie, if you’ll pardon my french, that is simplisme. If you want to cite history, you must go back to the rise of Islam itself and its policy of spreading the faith by the sword. The west was attacked first by Islam, not the other way around. But all of that is beside the point.

You preach the partyline of all pacifists and you’ll get no sympathy for that point of view here. We are not ignorant of the “facts” you cite. But they aren’t very well thought out and fail miserably to take into account all of the facts.

And just so you know, there has never been a war fought that didn’t result in the deaths of non-combatants. It is also a fact that no nation in the history of the world has ever invested so much effort and capital to avoid this. We put our own people in greater danger to avoid civilian casualties. Your complaint isn’t that any civilians died. Your complaint is that America has fought back for once instead of folding. If you want appeasement, you don’t want America, you want Spain.

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A large part of the resistance to war in Iraq is not simply that fighting is wrong in all cases, but also that greater resistance will occur unless there are more concrete measures used to end war/tyranny/impingement on others’ rights.

Every follower of Islam on the brink of deciding whether to allow the conflict in their homeland to pass unnoticed would be pushed to the point of anti-american fanaticism by the prospect of a nuclear explosion, damning innocent and guilty.

Nuking them is of course not the best option. But we should make a very strong effort to hunt these people down. We need to pinpoint these peoples hideouts and destroy by any means possible. There is not much more you can beyond this unless you want to destroy most of the civilian population. The Iraqis need an ideaology to grasp onto, right now all they have is Militant Islam. They need to be tought the ideas of Capitalism, Individual Rights, etc. They need to be shown a supperior way. This is I believe the only way we can truely win.

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You are right that our ultimate safety depends on the ideas we promote. This is where I am pessimistic about the war. America’s leaders, along with the vast majority of its citizenry, have no understanding of the very foundations of this country. How are we to advocate ideas that no longer rule even here?

I think that the actual war of ideas is the war taking place right now in America. If we don’t win here, it won’t matter what happens in the Middle East or anywhere else, because we will doom ourselves.

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Nuking any place in Iraq is not the best option… we have ground troops there which would have to deal with radiation. Also, there are Iraqi police/troops, doing a fair amount of work to help us; they wouldn’t like it much if they had radiation sickness tomorrow. I think it might be hard to gain the corporation of any Iraqis after nuking them.

You forget, however, that we have many powerfull non-nuclear bombs which would serve us very well in such a place.

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You are right that our ultimate safety depends on the ideas we promote. This is where I am pessimistic about the war. America’s leaders, along with the vast majority of its citizenry, have no understanding of the very ideas upon which this country was founded. How are we to advocate ideas that no longer rule even here?

I think that the actual war of ideas is the war taking place right now in America. If we don’t win here, it won’t matter what happens in the Middle East or anywhere else, because we will have doomed ourselves.

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Yah, we do.

Such as the MOAB:

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Ah, the Mother Of All Bombs… one of my personal favorites, if for the name alone.