AMS: Falluja battle derails elections

[bemildred]

Fallujah not done yet?

The Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) has warned that the situation in Falluja will directly affect the elections and even delay the process.

Muthanna Harith al-Dhari, chief of information and culture affairs for the AMS, also warned that the "tragedy" in Falluja "will not reinforce the US military presence in Iraq".

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"What has happened is a rare example of resistance as the city's circumstances have forced the fighters to stay, thus, distinguishing this battle from others."

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The US military operation has now completely changed, he said. The battle has lasted for more than 11 days, proving that resistance in the city is fierce.

al Jazeera

[amber dog democrat]

1. This reminds me of the Warsaw Ghetto

and guess what side we are on?

[bemildred]

2. I was thinking more Stalingrad, but both have merit. nt

[amber dog democrat]

4. Stalingrad is not yet here

but it will it be? Wondering about Dienbien Phu.
I think for a Stalingrad, we'll have to have an army cut off and surrounded with out any hope of escape. I have no doubt our brilliant military leadership is capable of making this happen, but the Iraqis have to become more focused, and be better led.
Also they need to acquire a lot of weaponery we won't permit them to have.

But it COULD be like Vietnam. Right now the calandar reads 1962.

[bemildred]

5. It's early yet, not Stalingrad yet, but I'm starting to think about it.

Long supply lines and shortages of this and that.

And history never repeats exactly. Much depends on what the US does
now. Dienbien Phu would surprise me, but you are right that our
military "geniuses" have that sort of blindness. But the troops are
generally highly trained and disciplined, I would not expect them to
crack easily.

But the image of being bogged down is what they want to avoid,
I assume that's why the city was kept closed while they "cleaned up",
and that's getting harder to maintain with each passing day. If it
descends into a war of attrition there, it's going to get bad fast,
I think.

Edit: of course it's all very VietNam, the lies, the military wishful
thinking, all of it, but distorted in various ways by the nature of
things in Iraq.

[amber dog democrat]

7. The troops are not the problem

We will be bled white in a war of attrition. Every city we "take" is just going to cause more civilian freedom fighters to stand against us - all over the country.

I agree Logistics will kill us. The summary executions won't help much with our PR image problems in the Arabic speaking world either. They are seeing us as the problem already.

What did we think would happen : that we would kill or drive off all the bad guys and then bolster a democraticly led puppet government that will sell us OIL ?

What a mess. What an absolute mess.

[Dhalgren]

8. The US has lost 50 soldiers, dead, in the last week.

This is not what we are being told. How long before the US has to "go back into Fallujah" (not, of course, ever having left).

[bemildred]

9. I have around 70, maybe a bit more, since last Tuesday.

Saigon68 posted #1137 on Tuesday, and we seem to be around #1210 now.
There's more in the pipe, no doubt.
The point is that there are still "holdouts", and no apparrent forward
progress since around Sunday. Of course it's hard to tell out here in
TV land, things could be all settled down, but I keep seeing stories
here and there that deny that, and the media etc. are still being kept
out, and this fellow from the AMS seems to consider it obvious that
things are not going our way in Fallujah. Of course he has his own
axe to grind too.

[yellowcanine]

10. 1962? No way. Mostly "advisors" there in 1962.

Major involvement wasn't until 1965. I would say we are at least at 1967 (just befroe TET) in Iraq.

[amber dog democrat]

11. Are we it I Drang yet?

There is a strong parallel to Vietnam but its still different in many ways.
If a centralized opposition forms that has a national identity and something like the Vietminh commences a civil war against us AND the puppet govt. the comparason is closer. It sure looks like we are headed that way and yes , there is light at the end of the tunnel, Iraqization is going well and our body counts show we have them on the run... but we still need more troops and material . let freedom reign. Freedom is on the march. Bring em on.

Also a draft. stay tuned.

[JohnnyRingo]

3. The battle of Falluja may well be a voter purge

To eliminate the possibility of election of a candidate not approved by the US overlords.

Same as US voter "disenfranchisement" with permanent and certain results.

[kimchi]

6. Knowing Bushco, that was the plan all along. n/t

[Journeyman]

12. This situation is far more analogous to Yugoslavia during WWII. . .

than to Stalingrad, Dien Bien Phu, or the Warsaw Ghetto.

In Yugoslavia you had Nazis invading for trumped up reasons, supported by token forces from their "coalition" allies. The nation was divided into multiple ethnic groups, each pitted against the other, some siding with the Nazis and others against. Eventually, Hitler poured so much effort and materiel into the fray his plans for Operation Barbarossa were thrown awry and the attack on the Soviet Union didn't begin until much later in the year than he anticipated. (Ultimately, this was critical to the destruction of the Reich, so there are silver linings where they're least expected.) Eventually, the Nazis wasted years in Yugoslavia, expended untold men and materiel, and never did subjugate it.<[/i>