from an Iraqi newspaper: US Operation 'Quick Strike'

[welshTerrier2]

the following article was allegedly written by an Iraqi citizen who witnessed US Operation 'Quick Strike' ... consider this, even if it's NOT true, and it very well may be true, the article was published in the Azzaman newspaper where all Iraqis could read it ...

and for those of you who continue to support Democrats who believe that something, anything, can be achieved in this hellhole, understand that when i read things like this, i see Democrats endorsing a murderous policy no matter how well-intentioned they may be ...

source: http://www.watchingamerica.com/azzaman000033.html

For nearly a week early this month, U.S. troops attacked the city of Haditha, 270km northwest of Baghdad. The city’s 90,000 residents were targeted by massive shelling from helicopters, tanks and artillery. This article is written by a resident of Haditha who saw what went on in one of its neighborhoods. The writer’s name has been withheld for security reasons.)

It was Friday, August 5, when the bombs started falling on our city. They came like heavy rain and their thunder broke the silence and early morning calls to prayer from the mosque’s minarets.

The Pentagon called this new military offensive Operation Quick Strike. There were warplanes, tank explosions and shrapnel. Many of us began reciting verses from the holy, Koran pleading with the Almighty to save us from U.S. fire as we had nowhere to hide and nothing to defend ourselves with. We were subject to a terror attack by the United States. The operation could be called nothing but terror. <skip>

When the shelling subsided, U.S. commanders ordered their Marines to storm the city. They searched Haditha quarter-by-quarter, house-by-house and arrested scores of young men and even women and prevented us from holding Friday afternoon prayers.

In one bloody incident I saw the Marines kill two unarmed people. One of them was in his bed in the Sheikh Hadid district, where Sumaidi was born. The second was killed as he strolled in his garden. More residents began falling. In our area alone, the Marines killed five people, all of them unarmed and having no connection to the insurgents. For us, those killed by the United States are martyrs. The long line of Iraqi martyrs is growing, as innocent blood flows out or from the Iraqi artery the U.S. has torn. <skip>

We have set our own standards on how to deal with them. Since the government supports the U.S. occupation forces, whose fire tears the bodies of our martyrs into pieces, there is nothing it can do to regain our trust.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. For what it's worth.... the voice of someone who lives there....

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/



Three decades of tyranny isn’t what bombed and burned buildings to the ground. It isn’t three decades of tyranny that destroyed the infrastructure with such things as “Shock and Awe” and various other tactics. Though he fails to mention it, prior to the war, we didn’t have sewage overflowing in the streets like we do now, and water cut off for days and days at a time. We certainly had more than the 8 hours of electricity daily. In several areas they aren’t even getting that much.

“They are doing that by building the institutions of a free society, a society based on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and equal justice under law.”

We’re so free, we often find ourselves prisoners of our homes, with roads cut off indefinitely and complete areas made inaccessible. We are so free to assemble that people now fear having gatherings because a large number of friends or family members may attract too much attention and provoke a raid by American or Iraqi forces.

As to Iraqi forces…There was too much to quote on the new Iraqi forces. He failed to mention that many of their members were formerly part of militias, and that many of them contributed to the looting and burning that swept over Iraq after the war and continued for weeks.

“The new Iraqi security forces are proving their courage every day.”

Indeed they are. The forte of the new Iraqi National Guard? Raids and mass detentions. They have been learning well from the coalition. They sweep into areas, kick down doors, steal money, valuables, harass the females in the household and detain the men. The Iraqi security forces are so effective that a few weeks ago, they managed to kill a high-ranking police major in Falluja when he ran a red light, shooting him in the head as his car drove away.

[welshTerrier2]

2. powerful ... thanks for posting it ...

here's another from last January ... this is nothing new ...

source: http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/01/308127.shtml

we have totally alienated innocent Iraqis to get them to "rat" on the "insurgents" ... most of them are just trying to survive ...

[AuntPatsy]

7. This is the person that people are concerned about since

they haven't been heard from in a month?

[kerrygoddess]

3. Have you read the piece

from the Guardian yesterday - http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1553781,00.html

[welshTerrier2]

4. heh ...

i cross-referenced this thread in the post you made about Daou's article ... i read the Guardian article after reading your post ... i hadn't seen it before ... thanks for posting it ...

like two ships passing in the night ...

[mikelewis]

5. Yeah but without the freedom we gave this guy, he could never have voiced.

any dissent before. Saddam could have killed those people and he wouldn't be allowed to even write about it. At least now, he can bitch about the people who are killing his people. That's freedom on the march. Of course, one could argue that we shouldn't be killing his people either but then you'd have to ask yourself, "Why so you hate America? Because of our freedoms?"

[wli]

6. there's nothing the US govt. can do to regain OUR trust either

To the Hague with them all!

[welshTerrier2]

8. off with their Hagues ...

storm the Bastille ...

Vive la France ...

sorry, got carried away ...

[wli]

9. Far from carried away, sounds perfectly in line to me.

I personally don't endorse any violent tactics, though. I favor instead prosecution, legal procedures, etc.

[welshTerrier2]

10. nor do i ...

although i could probably be talked into letting some of those Abu Ghraib victims guard them in prison and let the chips fall where they may ...

i'm strongly opposed to the death penalty in ALL cases ...

[kentuck]

11. This would have been a couple of days after we had a number of GIs...

killed near Haditha. It was one of the deadliest days for casualties, I think there were over twenty GIs killed in just a couple of days. Then we swept Haditha...