Military in Iraq Deepens US Resentment

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031108/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_shock_and_awe&cid=540&ncid=1480

<snip>
The show of force late Friday and early Saturday was a warning to the 120,000 people of Tikrit not to support insurgents, suspected of shooting down a Black Hawk helicopter hours earlier, killing six soldiers.


But while it succeeded in scaring residents, the barrage only confirmed for many that the United States is their enemy.

"Now that it's over, I feel we have won a new lease on life," said a retired Iraqi general, wearing a traditional Arab robe and looking fatigued after a sleepless night buffeted by the sounds of American fury. He and other residents across the city described a night of damage and disruption.

"The sky was red with explosions and my grandchildren were screaming," said Khalfar Raheem, a 70-year-old Bedouin woman, her face bearing the blue tattoos common in rural Iraq (news - web sites).

Local people called the Americans "terrorists," "mercenaries" or "Jews" — a word used colloquially in Iraq and other Arab countries to refer to Israelis who, along with Iranians, were Saddam's worst enemies.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

1. We never seem to learn that lesson, do we?

[jpgray]

2. Our planners are neanderthals. What IDIOTS!

When profits are all that matter, this is what you get. The truly shriveled souls are those of our TV newspeople, who can't be bothered to report on abuses of power--to whom words like "context" and "research" no longer exist.

[HalJessopJr]

3. Leave Iraq NOW

Too many boys are dying for lies!!!

[leftchick]

4. from the article....filed under:WTF?

<snip>He recalled that eight or nine U.S. tanks — other residents put the number at five or six — were deployed in the area around his house starting from sunset Friday. Machine guns fitted on tanks and Humvees opened up on a half-completed house nearby, which he said belonged to a police colonel serving under the U.S.-backed, Tikrit local council.

......FUBAR!

[tabasco]

5. The commanders responsible for this are idiots

The Army is capable of much more enlightened operations. But apparently the commanders in this area feel Nazi-style tactics will scare the populace into submission. Has this type of cruelty ever succeeded in pacifying an area? I doubt it. This war just gets uglier and uglier. Bush will be judged harshly by history for his choice to wage an unnecessary war. I hope the ghosts of the dead haunt Bush and his cronies.

[Emillereid]

6. Bombing people -- what a way

to win the hearts and the minds of the people! It didn't work when the British used it against the Iraqis, but maybe they just didn't have the right bombs or enough of them. When will we ever learn....

[Vis Numar]

7. ouch!

"We Iraqis know the ethics of war and we know that knights don't do what the Americans are doing here," said the retired officer. "What were they shooting at anyway? I think they just wanted to terrorize us."

[Barrett808]

8. Vote this one up. Today is a disaster for US foreign policy n/t

n/t

[0007]

10. A show of force, Wow!!!

"This is to remind the town that we have teeth and claws and we will use them," said Lt. Col. Steven Russell, who oversaw troops destroying two abandoned houses and a warehouse with machine gun and heavy weapons fire."

Maybe the Iraqis saw Mohammed Ali rope a dope?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

9. destroy the village in order to save it

So closely entwined were some populated localities with the tentacles of the VC base area, in some cases actually integrated into the defenses, and so sympatheic were some of the people to the VC that the only way to establish control short of constant combat operations among the people was to remove the people and destroy the village....

That it was infinitely better in some cases to move people from areas long sympathetic to the Viet Cong was amply demonstrated later by events that occurred when the discipline of an American company broke down at a place called My Lai.

--General Westmoreland in his memoir A Soldier Reports, as quoted in The Tunnels of Cu Chi, Mangold and Penycate, 1985, p 168.

"On 8 January 1967 the village of Ben Suc -- former population about 3,500 -- was wiped off the face of the earth."
p 165.

[dbt]

11. And how is Iraq NOT like Viet Nam again?

Just one more explanation, please.

:freak:
dbt

[gulliver]

12. Do the Tikritis have no family in Baghdad, Mosul, Fallujah...?

Are we nuts? So we attack Tikrit and punish the whole village with shock and awe, tooth and claw. What about all of the extended family members in the rest of Baghdad? What about co-religionists and Jihadists in other countries?

Saddam's gone, the regime has changed. These Tikritis are "our people" now, like them or not.

[Paschall]

13. Kind of off-topic: Can someone explain this headline?

"Military in Iraq Deepens US Resentment"

US resentment?

I think they got all the words there, but in the wrong order.

"US Military Deepens Iraqi Resentment" would be accurate.

[truthisfreedom]

14. yep

seems right to me.

[R Hickey]

15. The Klu Klux Klan Brigade.

So now our soldiers are being ordered to ride around at night, like members of the Klu Klux Klan, shooting their guns into the houses of sleeping Iraqi children?

Conservatives are familiar with such nightwork. Konservative Klansmen Konsels have supressed Southern blacks this way for generations.

Perhaps next the PNAC will decide that our troops should go a goose-step further and randomly lynch a few of these sand-ni**ers from the palm trees and lamposts.

I hope we Americans are not next asked to send bed-sheets and klansmen's hoods to our troops.

[saigon68]

16. I once detected a little bit of night riding spirit-in Southern officers

The horses, sheets and hoods were on the surface of their thoughts.

To them all nonwhite people were niggers.

Admittedly this was before political correctness etc.

Their prejudices are more furtive and concealed now.

[Jacobin]

17. Armitage was just in Iraq

Methinks there is a connection between the two.

[alcuno]

18. Again. Don't they always call this the town of Tikrit?

This is the first time I've seen the population - 120,000? Kind of like the town of Fallujah - population 270,000.