U.S. military launches new air campaign south of Baghdad, sees further links to Iran

[RamboLiberal]

Source: San Diego Union-Tribune

The U.S. military has launched a new air campaign against militant safe havens and weapons smugglers south of Baghdad as it seeks to choke the flow of bombs and weapons reaching Baghdad, a top commander said Thursday.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, who leads the 3rd Infantry Division, also said he and other commanders feared insurgents would try to stage a massive attack ahead of a pivotal report due in mid-September to the U.S. Congress on political and military progress in Iraq.

“We've been fighting this enemy now for a while. He's the most vicious enemy we've ever seen. He has no respect for human life and what he's going to try to do is to do some catastrophic attack that's going to influence the debate back in Washington,” Lynch told The Associated Press. “We've got to stop him from doing that by taking the fight to him all the time.”

Lynch said he gave the order on Wednesday for the division's 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade to begin Operation Marne Husky, the latest in a series of offensives in the capital and surrounding areas.


Read more: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20070802-1311-iraq-usgeneral.html

[Captain Angry]

1. We have that country bathed in satellite based surveillance.

Show me video of vehicles crossing the border.

Show me ANYTHING crossing the border from Iran.

We have so much technology pointed at (and in) Iraq, that if any of this were true, it would be easy to show it.

Or is it just another case of "We don't want to show it because people will know how good our technology is?"

Baloney.

[Selatius]

2. Let's turn Baghdad into another Hanoi.

[saigon68]

6. Yes lets Bomb them back to the "Stone Age" proclaimed the Chimp

Bombing of Bach Mai Hospital

The Bach Mai Hospital, one of the largest in Vietnam, was bombed twice during the campaign. It was first hit during the initial day of the bombings causing severe damage to the hospital. It was hit again on 22 December, this time destroying it. The civilian casualties caused by the bombings are unclear. According to sources, it seems like between 20-30 persons died during the second bombing, of whom mostly were medical staff as most of the patients had been evacuated. <44> <45> It took eleven years to rebuild it.<46>



Echoes of the Air War Fading Over Hanoi

Wreckage of giant B-52 bomber pokes from surface of the aptly named B-52 Lake.

[stillcool]

3. can this shit...

get any more fucked up? I no longer ask where are the American people..now I ask where is the rest of the world.

[Kagemusha]

4. Yes, bomb, bomb, bomb the Ahmadinejad Trail

That'll work, yessiree!!

[acmavm]

5. Someone needs to tell Maj Gen Rick that it's not Iran providing explosives

to the 'insurgents'. We left enough C4 and guns and other weaponry laying around (that have since disappeared) that no one has to provide anything. Not to mention that they've caught our own men selling weapons to anyone with cash. (Does anyone have a like to that story about that Major or whatever who recently was convicted of selling arms to the Iraqi people??)

[wjmj]

7. "The US military has launched a new

air campaign" and, again and again, an old and enduring headline rears its ugly head. Pick a decade when you've been alive and say it ain't so, that we didn't "seek to choke" something with our massive techno-arrogant lethality. MILITARY SAFE HAVENS???? Oh, please.

[rodeodance]

8. when we leave, and we will--the country will be rubble

[Amonester]

9. Another Bad Case Of Psychological Projection

"the most vicious enemy we've ever seen. He has no respect for human life"

I guess collateral damages are not human life, especially when they walk over Cheney's oil.

[bamacrat]

10. I wonder hwo many of the weapons "from Iran" originated in the US.

And after the multi-billion dollar arms deal with the Saudis I wonder how long it will take for those weapons to be used against us.

[Theduckno2]

11. They're not calling it ; "Shock and Awe : Part Deux"?

Seeing as "Shock and Awe" is what got us here, I guess not.

It is encouraging that the media here is starting to notice the little reported air war in Iraq.

I find it curious that we evidently have been fighting this enemy for a while and we are just getting around to using air power? The escalation brought more troops, not more planes, as far as I know.

Either the commanders on the ground foolishly ignored a strategic weapon in their arsenal OR they believed that an escalation of the air war wouldn't bring about enough positive results. I'm betting on the latter.