Update: U.S. Warplanes Hit Insurgents in Fallujah

[Just Me]

-snip-

The second straight night of battles in Fallujah came as the extension of a fragile cease-fire ended in the turbulent city west of Baghdad. Marines have been preparing to begin patrols in the city later this week.


Tuesday's battle appeared far heavier than the previous night's clashes, in which a Marine and eight insurgents were killed — suggesting U.S. forces were trying to wear down gunmen in the Jolan neighborhood, a district of narrow alleyways and ramshackle houses.


An AC-130, a powerful gunship that can unleash a deluge of ordnance, joined 105mm howitzers in opening up on insurgent targets in the neighborhood. Gunfire and explosions reverberated for nearly two hours, and an eerie orange glow shone over the area while showers of sparks descended like fireworks.


Fires were visible in the Jolan neighborhood, and mosque loudspeakers elsewhere in the city called for firefighters.

-more-

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=1&u=/ap/20040427/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

[rumguy]

1. it's such a glorious cease-fire

I can't wait until the new government is set up, it's gonna rawk!

Democracy will be growing on the trees over there.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. And just how

is this winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people?

[hang a left]

3. Well it is almost 4 AM Wednesday. (Iraqi time)

Should be daylight soon. Maybe we will hear more in the next few hours.

[arcane1]

4. "called for firefighters"

are those firefighters heroes, just like those on 9/11, when they enter burning buildings to save lives at the risk of their own? Will we celebrate their noble and selfless sacrifice? Would I even be able to call them "heroes" in public without being branded a traitor?

oh that's right, Iraqi's don't value life like we do here in America. Those firefighters are on the job because Saddam threatened to rape their mothers if they didn't put out fires, it's all selfish. They would never take such a risk for any kind of noble, American, white-bread reason...

:eyes:

[Just Me]

5. We struck those "enemies" that had ties with 9/11,...

,...had WMDs,...and were out to destroy us. They were recalcitrant against our aims to free and democratize them. Therefore, they deserve our shock and awe.

<sarcasm off>

<reality on>

We have just wreaked mass destruction upon a city and a people in a foreign land in order to ensure that our imperialist capitalists fulfill their greedy, cold-hearted ambitions.

[revcarol]

6. And those joint patrols will be such a hit, now won't they?

Setting up Iraqis who collaborate...er, cooperate...,er whatever, for death,along with the Americans.

[Just Me]

7. By the way, if we are interested in seeing the whole story,...

,...the earlier link is here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x513224

[JohnOneillsMemory]

8. Polling gives neocons a renewed impunity just before *'s 9/11 commish day.

Whether or not there is a real polling bump for *, the fact that there hasn't been a support crash has, I think, given the neocons a renewed sense of impunity regarding Iraq. Merkins seem to approve of John Wayne* slaughtering all the injuns he wants to. This time, the 'Texans' will WIN the Alamo, right?

Fallujah has come to symbolise successful resistance to the occupation and the occupiers are ready to prove to Merkins they are tougher than those 'hadjis.' So they are having a Rodney King moment, a death fest to show dominance.

Hence the percieved need to show the stomping of Fallujah and try to also intimidate the resistence in Najaf.

AND...this is a good distraction from * and Cheney's 9/11 commish appearance in two days. The more dead Iraqis, the less criticism * gets for 9/11.

All in all, a domestic win-win for the White House cabal pulled out of war crimes out of sight reported like a sports match.

Everyone else, of course, loses. That's modern TV-fed fascism for ya!

[ConcernedCanuk]

9. Friggen cowards attacked them at NIGHT with a C-130 no less?

.
.
.

Some C-130 info / behaviour of troops:

From the folowing testimony:

U.S. NUCLEAR POLICY AND DEPLETED URANIUM

TESTIMONY AT THE JUNE 28, 2003, PUBLIC HEARING FOR

THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR WAR CRIMES IN AFGHANISTAN

CHIBA, CHIBA PREFECTURE, JAPAN

LEAKED VIDEO FOOTAGE OF AN AC-130 SPECTRE GUNSHIP ON A COMBAT MISSION IN AFGHANISTAN

In the radio traffic from the AC-130 plane the crew sounds like kids playing a video game. The crew is engaged in combat but from a safe distance and without any threat or resistance from the human targets on the ground. The video shows people leaving a mosque who start running for their lives as they are fired upon. The AC-130 continues circling and firing on individual Afghanis below. The crew sounds like “rednecks” picking off varmints on a Texas ranch as they talk back and forth and fire on the Afghanis one by one:

“Yeah, I was trying to lead that guy…..he was hiding behind that bank….he’s down, he’s still moving…..I saw him fly into pieces….”

It is a frightening and horrifying example of the most powerful military in the world using sophisticated satellite guided and other technology, precision targeting some of the poorest people in the world from airplanes far off the ground. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. This is the war against the third world.

(emphasis mine) http://traprockpeace.org/TribTest062803.html

also:

Combat video of Afghani civilians targeted from an AC-130 Spectre U.S. military plane

http://www.hk94.com/weblog/index.php?p=62&c=1

Support the Troops?

hmmmmm :freak:

[CharlieBakerAble]

11. What cowards are you talking about?

The only cowards I have heard about in Iraq are those hiding behind unwilling innocents while shooting at soldiers trying to keep the peace, those blowing up Iraqi police stations and those arming themselves in mosques. Are these the cowards you speak of?

Support our troops? Yes I do and nearly every American does too. They would also support any Canadian troops if they were there.

[wabeewoman]

14. What exactly does that mean?

Is 'support our troops' code for not acknowledging that what they are doing is wrong? Is it possible to read what was posted about what sounded like video game war and not think it's wrong? How it it being a coward to fight a vastly superior foe who has invaded and is occupying your country. Sorry but I don't give a blanket 'I support the troops'. If they are doing wrong, they are wrong. I support the fact that an illegal president has ordered them into an illegal war and most are not there by choice and don't like what is happening any better than we do. Many are young kids or weekend warriors who are dying to protect bush's oil and profits. But IMHO 'support our troops' is being used to try to silence an criticism of the war or the actions of the military. Kinda like calling those who marched before the war unpatriotic.

[Just Me]

16. "Cowards" and "Courage" are interchangeable terms,...

,...with neo-fascists. If our citizens dissent, we are cowardly "appeasers". If a foreign citizen fights against occupation they are "enemies" or "terrorists". No courage in those actions,...in the eyes of a fascist control-freak.

Of course, in retrospect, we dissenters and insurgents would be called the "courageous",....by right-wing control freaks, today.

[wtmusic]

21. I don't support our fucking troops

except the ones who have laid down their arms and gone to jail rather than fight. They're the ones with courage.

[LONG-LINER]

22. Well that is sad ...!

[wtmusic]

25. Actually, it's very positive

To support invasion of a sovereign country without provocation, theft of a nation's right to self-determination, being too cowardly to pursue peaceful solutions...

now THAT's sad.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

30. "Hiding behind unwilling innocents"??? Rubbish. The Marines...

...have been stopping the Iraqis...mostly women and children...that have been trying to leave the city and sending them back.

And those "defensive positions" that the Marine commanders and reporters in Iraq keep talking about? Those were the positions that the Marines moved up to occupy in both Fallujah and Najef...clearly offensive moves designed to provoke the Iraqis into a full-fledged fight.

Hey, hotshot, while we're at it, tell me how those AC-130s are discriminating between opposing forces and innocent civilians caught inside the same structure at night?

While you're at it, tell us all about YOUR military experience.

[ze_dscherman]

32. Would you support "illegal" U.S. troops

resorting to guerilla warfare, if Saddam had invaded the U.S.?

"Hiding behind unwilling innocents", my ass. Guerilla fighters can't persist, if they do this - they depend on the protection of a large percentage of the population. Ever heard of that?

[Just Me]

10. silence

[despairing optimist]

12. A Warsaw Ghetto liquidation for the new millennium

I guess Iraq's road to democracy needs human paving stones.

When will our government stop sinking to new lows? Not before Najaf gets what's coming. And then all bets are off for what comes next.

[bemildred]

20. It will not be effective in supressing resistance.

The Iraqis are a good deal better armed than the Jews in
the Warsaw ghetto, and aerial bombardment, while spectacular,
has never been effective in this role. This is not to say
that there will not be plenty of dead people.

[Just Me]

13. It's been a sad day in hell,...

,...Najaf got brimstone as well:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040427/ap_on_re_mi...

But, that story got "scrubbed". Wish I could offer more.

:cry:

Many die at the hands of arrogance.

[mvd]

15. Sometimes I think our misadministration is almost as mad as..

Al Qaeda. :-( That looked like "shock and awe" part two. We are just creating more terrorism and ill-will. :grr:

[Just Me]

17. Just read the "Prince of Darkness" book,...

,...he illustrates this wicked regime via his dark theme of the world. We have some really delusional, possessed, evil people in charge,...and I do not say such stuff, lightly.

[leesa]

18. Ahhh...Americans valuing life once again, and again, and again...

Now if those Iraqis were having abortions, THAT would be a crime!

[LONG-LINER]

19. It's all sad.........

Their children are dieing along with our sons and daughters. Once the war was started and the path set I can't see another way out. We can't just walk away. Iraq must be stabilized which means the removal of extremist and separatist factions. We left Japan and we left Germany lets hope we can leave Iraq soon.

[bpilgrim]

23. NEWSFLASH: we're STILL in japan AND germany

folks think we can't have FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY without SECURITY well it could also be the INVERSE as well, as our OWN country, by it's very existence PROVES.

we don't want a DEMOCRACY we want to RULE.

peace

[LONG-LINER]

24. If ya ask all the sheepal of those countries??

[ze_dscherman]

31. How are you going to "remove" separatist factions from Iraq?

It consists of "factions".

As well, "remove" is a nice word, that in fact means killing them or send them to concentration camps, since there would be no jail big enough to hold all the "separatists".

Of course, this will make them love democracy.

BTW, Germany and Japan were not occupied to stabilize them, and U.S. troops never left.

[The_Casual_Observer]

26. Our brave liberating US warplanes

Bringing peace and freedom to the good citizens of Iraq.

[oblivious]

27. If I'm fated to die in war...

...you can be damn sure it'll be defending my own country rather than invading another. God, that would be a horrible feeling killing those people.

[abracadabra]

28. Insurg-ents? or Resitance?

Looks to me kike they are trying their best to defend their "home" land... Barricading their holy cities--it's so sad --these guys are defending what is theirs and they are going to be massacred by our hi tech weapons.
If the U.S troops destroy these people's sacred ancient temples and blow up neighborhoods with families then we can only expect at the very least extreme retaliation-
the Israeli role model--
Why the hell are our govt leaders so dumb to go for that?
It doesn't take a genius to see what is about to happen.
The survivors will just get more determined to free their country from occupation.

[tedzbear]

29. Sistani is al-Sadr's next door neighbor!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1204966,00.html

"The Shia cleric's crowded three-storey office is directly opposite Najaf's Imam Ali mosque, one of the most famous shrines in the Muslim world. It is the proximity of the building that has probably spared Mr Sadr from being hit by an American missile - and the fact that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most respected Shia figure, lives next door."

No wonder the Coalition is holding back. Big Daddy is protecting his wayward son!

:wtf:

[WheresWaldo]

33. would love to get copy of pool video feed on 4/27

anybody know where I can download video from the pool feed from earlier today in Fallujah, especially when you could still hear the chanting. it was very eerie. I might try and use it in a music track. let me know. thanks

[gottaB]

34. "Sometimes force has to be met by force."

That's according to John Negroponte, felon, liar, scoundrel, death squad booster, and Bush appointee to the Ambassadorship of Iraq.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3665775.stm

[oblivious]

35. Those Fallughans are taking his advice to heart.

[democrank]

36. Suppose if I called the Pentagon

someone would tell me if we`ve killed more innocent Iraqi civilians than died in our country on 9/11? Are we "terrorists" yet?