Category: General

I’m sorry. On a seemingly slow news day, I can’t let the AP get by with this crap. They’ve thrown in enough to pretend it’s balanced, but one cannot read it, walk away and grab a brew without thinking, “Crap! Weren’t we heading in the right direction this time? What the freakin’ eff happened?!!” Well, not on my watch.

The Iraqi government rushed reinforcements Friday to the country’s third-largest city, Mosul, seeking to quell a deadly militant uprising that U.S. officials suspected may be in support of the resistance in Fallujah — now said to be under 80 percent U.S. control.

Police in Mosul largely disappeared from the streets, residents reported, and gangs of armed men brandishing automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers roamed the city, 225 miles north of Baghdad. Responding to the crisis, Iraqi authorities dismissed Mosul’s police chief after local officials reported that officers were abandoning their stations to militants without firing a shot.

Elsewhere, insurgents shot down a U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter near Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad, wounding three crew members, the military said. It was the third downed helicopter this week after two Marine Super Cobras succumbed to ground fire in the Fallujah operation.

Okay, all bad so far. Nice intro, AP.

In Fallujah, U.S. troops pushed insurgents into a narrow corner in the southern end of the city after a four-day assault that has claimed 22 American lives and wounded about 170 others. An estimated 600 insurgents have died, according to the military.

Oops! Something almost positive. Good move to quickly spin it towards casualties. Where were you when we needed you on D-Day?

Despite the apparent success in Fallujah, violence flared elsewhere in the volatile Sunni Muslim areas, including Mosul, where attacks Thursday killed a U.S. soldier. Another soldier was killed in Baghdad as clashes erupted Friday in at least four neighborhoods of the capital. Clashes also broke out from Hawija and Tal Afar in the north to Samarra — where the police chief was also fired — and Ramadi in central Iraq.

The most serious incidents took place in Mosul, a city of about 1 million people, where fighting raged for a second day. Gunmen attacked the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party in an hourlong battle that a party official said left six assailants dead.

Militants also assassinated the head of the city’s anti-crime task force, Brig. Gen. Mowaffaq Mohammed Dahham, and set fire to his home.

Good recovery. We wouldn’t want the world to think any progress was being made.

“With the start of operations in Fallujah a few days ago, we expected that there would be some reaction here in Mosul,” Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of U.S. forces in the city, told CNN from Mosul.

Ham said he doubted the Mosul attackers were insurgents who fled Fallujah and said most “were from the northern part of Iraq, in and around Mosul and the Tigris River valley that’s south of the city.”

Capt. Angela Bowman, a spokeswoman at the U.S. Mosul headquarters, said “some of these attacks are in support of the resistance in Fallujah.”

The AP sneaks in the obvious. No fanfare on anything that is supportive or that doesn’t glorify the terrorists’ efforts.

In a telephone interview with Al-Jazeera television, Saif al-Deen al-Baghdadi, an official of the insurgents’ political office, urged militants to fight U.S. forces outside Fallujah.

“I call upon the scores or hundreds of the brothers from the mujahedeen … to press the American forces outside” Fallujah, al-Baghdadi said.

“We chose the path of armed jihad and say clearly that ridding Iraq of the occupation will not be done by ballots. Ayad Allawi’s government … represents the fundamentalist right-wing of the White House and not the Iraqi people,” he continued — a reference to the interim Iraqi prime minister, who gave to the go-ahead for the Fallujah invasion.

Modern idea of objectivity: broadcast the propaganda of the enemy. For a further viewpoint on Omaha Beach, we turn to Berlin ….

In addition to firing the Mosul police chief, Iraqi authorities also dispatched four battalions of the Iraqi National Guard from garrisons along the Syrian and Iranian borders.

Most of the reinforcements are ethnic Kurds who fought alongside American forces during the 2003 invasion — a move which could inflame ethnic rivalries with Mosul’s Sunni Arab population. Nevertheless, it appeared Iraqi authorities had no choice given the apparent failure of the city’s police force to maintain order.

Speaks for itself. Goes negative and quickly undermines the Allawi government’s decision by playing the ethnicity card.

At a U.S. camp near Fallujah, Lt. Gen. John Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said U.S. and Iraqi forces now occupy about 80 percent of the city, and that clearing operations are continuing to find caches of weapons and ammunition. Army and Marine units moved to tighten their security cordon around Fallujah, backed by FA-18s and AC-130 gunships.

The largest pocket of remaining resistance fighters were cornered Friday in the city’s southwest as airstrikes and strafing runs continued.

“The rout is on,” said a 1st Cavalry Division officer. “It won’t be long now.”

Iraqi forces were charged with searching every building in Fallujah, working from north to south, the military said.

In the city’s north, U.S. forces reported roving squads of three to five militants shooting small-arms fire and moving easily through narrow alleyways. Troops were finding numerous weapons caches, the military said.

Time magazine’s Michael Ware, embedded with U.S. forces, said troops of the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment who spearheaded the first push into the city early Monday found entire houses that were booby-trapped.

Tucked down this far, an American look at the Fallujah operation, its current progress and the treacherous nature of the Islamist bastards we’re sending bloodily to Allah.

Fighting was so fierce that, on one occasion, U.S. troops fought insurgents room to room, just a few feet away from each other in the same house.

No spin on this by the AP. War is hell, but better-trained, better-equipped and better-motivated soldiers, our freakin’ soldiers, are winning these encounters.

Troops have cut off all roads and bridges leading out of Fallujah and have turned back hundreds of men trying to flee the city during the assault. Only women, children and the elderly can leave.

The military says keeping men aged 15 to 55 from leaving is key to the mission’s success.

“If they’re not carrying a weapon, you can’t tell who’s who,” said an officer with the 1st Cavalry Division.

Yo, AP, work a little harder on finding a way to spin this badly.

The Fallujah operation threatens to enflame passions within the Sunni community, not only against the American presence but against the Shiite majority, whose clerical leaders have by and large remained silent over the killings of Muslims in the city.

An audiotape purportedly made by al-Qaida-linked terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi encouraged his fighters in Fallujah and said victory was near. He accused Kurds and Shiites in the Iraqi forces of abandoning their religion and said the offensive had been blessed by “the infidel’s imam,” Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the leading Shiite cleric in Iraq.

Good job, AP. One problem, though. Didn’t al-Zarqawi promise infidels couldn’t take Fallujah? And didn’t he apparently run away from the anticipated Fallujah showdown like a little bitch? Don’t try to save face for his little weak self.

U.S. and Iraqi authorities launched the Fallujah operation to restore government control so that national elections can go ahead by the end of January as planned. However, hardline Sunni clerics are calling for a boycott to protest the Fallujah attacks.

In Baghdad, Iraqi security forces, backed by U.S. troops, arrested one of those clerics, Sheik Mahdi al-Sumaidaei, and about two dozen other people after a raid of his Baghdad mosque uncovered weapons and photographs of recent attacks on American troops, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

Mosul area deputy Gov. Khissrou Gouran said gunmen tried to storm a food distribution center in the city’s Yarmouk area but were forced back by National Guardsmen and security guards. The gunmen were trying to destroy election registration cards held at the center, Gouran said.

In Washington, President Bush met with his top ally in the war, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and warned that with Iraqi elections approaching, “the desperation of the killers will grow and the violence could escalate.” But he said victory in Iraq would be a blow to terrorists everywhere.

Fallujah militants fought Marines to a standstill last April during a three-week siege, which the Bush administration called off amid public criticism over civilian casualties.

Fought to a standstill?!! The Islamists were getting shredded and the Americans were called off only as a means of showing the legitimacy of the Allawi interim government. That the Islamists chose to misinterpret this is why they’re bleeding so much now. I have an idea: if they are such badasses, how ’bout they do one of the following:

• Relieve their fellow maggots in Fallujah, or
• Affect the US elections. Oh, sorry, too late. They already failed in this endeavour.

Wasn’t there a time when the AP was, if not pro-American, at least neutral?

Not much to say to this other than “Yikes!”

About 660 soldiers were found to have contracted the leishmaniasis parasite since US troops launched operations in Iraq in March 2003, said Colonel Naomi Arenson, an expert on the disease at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The cases found in Iraq are all of cutaneous leishmaniasis, which is seldom lethal, and usually heals over time but can leave significant scarring.

If left untreated, simple skin sores in rare cases can spread to the nose and mouth.

The number of victims is likely to rise in coming weeks, she told AFP on the sidelines of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene’s annual conference.

“This is about the season when we start seeing cases,” she said.

She nevertheless expects the number of new cases to drop as a result of better troop facilities, including air-conditioned barracks sealed to keep out flies, as well as education on the risks of diseases.

Since the parasite causes open sores the main risk is that victims could suffer secondary infections, said Arenson.

Caution was particularly important in the field, where troops often can’t bathe regularly.

She said the parasite’s presence also affects morale, with soldiers worried at “the concept of having parasites in their bodies.”

The most severe cases from Iraq are sent to the Walter Reed hospital, located just outside Washington, for treatment. But US forces have recently set up facilities for basic treatment in Baghdad and Kuwait.

….

Leishmaniasis is spread by infected sand-flies, and is endemic in some tropical and subtropical areas including Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan (news – web sites).

Arenson said fewer than 10 cases have been recorded among US troops in Afghanistan.

So far there have been no reports of US troops in Iraq or Afghanistan being infected with visceral leishmaniasis, which can cause severe damage to some of the body’s internal organs, including the spleen, liver and bone marrow.

On the bright side, I guess, is the fact that this is relatively minor compared to malaria, the “leading cause of casualties among U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War and in the Pacific region during World War II” [source]. Don’t bother to tell that so-called bright side to those suffering this affliction, however. Our troops courageously go into theater willingly knowing they may have to sacrifice; few envision this kind of crap. War is hell, even on the microbial level.

Here’s two little tidbits for y’all, in case you were doubting the efforts of the US and its allies to date.

Arab League head demands weapons free Middle East

Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa called for all Middle East leaders to commit their nations to a WMD- and nuclear-free future.

“Security in the Middle East depends on an agreement among all members of that region to build a zone free of WMD (weapons of mass destruction), nuclear weapons, as well as other types of those destructive weapons,” Mussa said during a visit to Madrid.

“If there is an exception to the rule, the whole work would be useless. All countries should adhere to the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) and the only country in the region that has not joined is Israel.

“All countries should commit themselves not to develop nuclear weapons. All countries with no exception should be party to this,” Mussa insisted.

“If one country is allowed to have those weapons … it won’t work, because we feel threatened by all WMD coming from whatever direction. We find no reason, no logic, for us to accept that all countries join the NPT with the exception of one,” Mussa said.

“One exception will open the doors for an arms race. If not today, it will be tomorrow,” Mussa concluded, explicitly including North Africa, Iran and Turkey in his vision for a weapons-free region.

This move is assuredly a result of the recent diplomacy by Libya and the subsequent rewards the country has gained. Libya’s move was just as assuredly a response to the demise of Saddam Hussein’s dastardly hold on Iraq.

Much good could come from this call to the Arab League, but it could all be made worthless if a similar move by Israel ever becomes a stipulation.

Al Qaeda ‘To Disintegrate’ in 2 Years – UK Adviser

Al Qaeda will begin to disintegrate within two years as its various factions start to squabble and militants return to their local roots, a senior British parliamentary adviser predicted on Wednesday.

Professor Michael Clarke, a specialist adviser to lawmakers on the House of Commons defense committee, said the consequence would be that the security services would be able to win the “war on terror” as the group’s structure fell apart.

“I think (cracks) are going to start to appear in the next 12 months to two years,” he told Reuters at a security conference in London.

“It’s going to start to fragment and split up,” he said.

Clarke said he envisaged the network breaking down into smaller, disparate cells which would be more easily infiltrated and dealt with, bringing an end to the group’s ability to carry out major attacks along the lines of the Sept. 11 attacks

“Terrorism will go back to being about more local issues. It will be reduced to a level which people can live with,” he said.

Al Qaeda’s pyramid structure — with Osama bin Laden and about 30 associates at its head spreading out to a loose franchise of affiliated networks — would begin to prove a major weakness when it was once a strength, he said.

Groups associated with al Qaeda across the world, such as those in southeast Asia, would start to pursue their local agendas, he added.

Clarke pointed to Iraq, where Baathist supporters of deposed president Saddam Hussein were fighting alongside foreign Jihadists linked to al Qaeda although the groups had nothing in common.

Ultimately the Baathists would go their own way and pyramid would be weakened.

Clarke noted that even association with bin Laden’s network had proved damaging to the cause of other militants such as Chechen separatists.

Clarke, director of the International Policy Institute at London’s King’s College, said this would be fueled further as the “glamour” surrounding bin Laden started to wear off and political in-fighting took hold.

“Whenever you get a general movement, people will vie for prominence and that’s what I think is the next stage,” he said.

He said a major failing of al Qaeda was its complete misunderstanding of western society and the belief it could terrorize governments into achieving their aims.

“They are not going to frighten Western society out of policies, they are not going to bring down the House of Saud, their first real objective, by terrorism,” he said.

“They can cause great inconvenience but they can’t damage them in the way they think they can.”

While I agree with and find hope in much of this assessment, I have a fundamental problem with the following portion:

“Terrorism will go back to being about more local issues. It will be reduced to a level which people can live with,” he said.

The war against Islamist terror is not a war against al Qaeda exclusively, nor has it ever been. For it to be so would be folly. The disintegration of al Qaeda would truly be a great victory, and it may lead to eventual success, but the war against the Islamist bastards ain’t over until the atmosphere that allowed the likes of Osama bin Laden to gather such a following is gone. That will not happen until the world of Islam sees a major cultural shift. That is the hope of President Bush’s shining Arab city on the hill that Iraq could become.

If you care to read what the Islamic world is hearing, apparently resistance in Fallujah is so stout that the US has turned to employing WMDs.

US troops are reportedly using chemical weapons and poisonous gas in its large-scale offensive on the Iraqi resistance bastion of Fallujah, a grim reminder of Saddam Hussein’s alleged gassing of the Kurds in1988 .

“The US occupation troops are gassing resistance fighters and confronting them with internationally-banned chemical weapons,” resistance sources told Al-Quds Press Wednesday, November10 .

The fatal weapons led to the deaths of tens of innocent civilians, whose bodies litter sidewalks and streets, they added.

“They use chemical weapons out of despair and helplessness in the face of the steadfast and fierce resistance put up by Fallujah people, who drove US troops out of several districts, hoisting proudly Iraqi flags on them. Resistance has also managed to destroy and set fire to a large number of US tanks and vehicles.

“The US troops have sprayed chemical and nerve gases on resistance fighters, turning them hysteric in a heartbreaking scene,” an Iraqi doctor, who requested anonymity, told Al-Quds Press.

….

The sources said that the media blackout, the banning of Al-Jazeera satellite channel and subjective embedded journalists played well into the hands of the US military.

“Therefore, US troops opted for using internationally banned weapons to soften the praiseworthy resistance of Fallujah people.

“More and more, the US military edits and censors reports sent by embedded journalists to their respective newspapers and news agencies,” the sources added.

Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Al-Shaalan had said Tuesday, November9 , would be decisive.

“Al-Shaalan declaration meant nothing but the use of chemical weapons and poisonous gases to down Fallujah fighters,” observers told Al-Quds Press.

The reported gassing stands as a grim reminder of Saddam Hussein’s alleged gassing of the Kurdish community in the northern city of Halbja in 1988 .

While the West insisted that Saddam was the one behind the heinous attack, the ousted president pointed fingers at the then Iranian regime.

Ummmm … okay. I’m going to side with the story that the terrorists are getting their collective Fallujah-asses handed to them. Unfortunately, so many in the Arab world will believe this tripe.

UPDATE: With the news of Arafat’s death, the Arab world will quite possibly bury their own Fallujah propaganda in the coming days with a loving devotion to Palestinian terrorist el numero uno.

It looks like things are progressing as planned, if not better, for the coalition forces in Fallujah.

The top US commander in Iraq, General George Casey, has told US President George W. Bush that his troops are “making very good progress” securing Iraq, as American forces and their Iraqi allies paralysed insurgent forces in Fallujah and cut off their escape routes from the city.

“He said that things are going well in Fallujah,” Mr Bush said on a day when US forces cornered insurgents after a swift advance that seized control of 70 per cent of the militant stronghold.

….

The senior US Marine commander there said Wednesday echoed that message.

“We are comfortable that they are not able to communicate, to work out any coordination,” Lieutenant General John Sattler said of Fallujah’s insurgents. “They are now in small pockets, blind, moving about the city. We will continue to hunt them down and destroy them.”

….

Lt-Gen Sattler, appearing with a senior Iraqi general, declined to discuss the positions and strategy of the American and Iraqi forces still fighting in Fallujah. But he said they have followed their battle plan and left the remaining insurgents with no good options.

“When they attempted to flee from one zone to another they were killed,” Lt-Gen Sattler said. “We feel very comfortable that none of them moved back toward the north or escaped on the flanks.”

Major General Abdul Qader Mohammed Jassem Mohan, speaking through an interpreter, said it was “possible but unlikely” that any insurgents had escaped in the days since the city was sealed off. Asked to describe the fighting tactics of the insurgents, he replied, “They have no tactics.”

The US military and the interim Iraqi government are eager to put an Iraqi face on the Fallujah offensive. In addition to letting the Iraqi general take the lead in responding to reporters’ questions, officials showed a video of Iraqi soldiers in Fallujah hoisting an Iraqi flag and singing the Iraqi national anthem.

Lt-Gen Sattler declined to specify how many US and Iraqi troops had been killed and wounded in the fighting.

“They would be catalogued as light at this time,” he said, adding that to be more specific would provide the insurgents with potentially useful information about the effectiveness of their tactics.

Both Lt-Gen Sattler and the Iraqi general expressed confidence the Fallujah offensive would restore order in that hotbed of Sunni resistance, but they cautioned that much fighting remained.

Along with this progress, evidence of the terrorist atrocities is being uncovered in the wake of the advance.

Iraqi forces fighting alongside US troops in Fallujah yesterday claimed to have found the houses in which civilian hostages were held by militants and beheaded in front of a camera.

Iraqi troops found video disks with recordings of the killings, the black clothes worn by militants in the videos and records of the names of hostages, Major-General Abdel Qadir Jassem said. “We have found hostage slaughterhouses in Fallujah that were used by these people,” said General Jassem, who has just been named military governor of Fallujah by the US-appointed Iraqi Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi.

Although General Jassem said records of prisoners’ names had been found, he could not say whether information had been uncovered about the humanitarian worker, Margaret Hassan,held since 19 October, or the two French journalists Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, held since 21 August.

General Jassem said that records of “hundreds” of prisoners had been found. At least 28 foreigners are known to be held and 38 are known to have been killed. But Iraqis have been abducted and killed in much higher numbers.

The beheadings of hostages have become the most haunting image of what is unfolding in Iraq. Although most television networks, both Western and Arab, have refused to show the grotesque execution videos, they are widely available on the Internet and thousands of Westerners have watched them.

Since the first video was released, of the American contractor Nick Berg being beheaded with a knife, there has been a steady stream of similar videos. At least 38 foreign hostages have been killed in Iraq. Although some were shot, many have been beheaded on camera, including the British hostage Kenneth Bigley.

It was the beheadings, more than anything else, that forced the Americans’ hand into going into Fallujah. The last aid agencies were leaving and any effort at reconstruction was impossible with contractors facing abuction and murder.

All this evidence does is show how important it is to continually press the evil Islamists until they reach their breaking point.