Posted on 11/01/2003 2:25:04 AM PST by BlackVeil
An Iraqi civilian (R) hits an Iraqi policeman during clashes between residents of the flashpoint town of Fallujah, 50 kms west of Baghdad, and policemen guarding the municipal offices.(AFP/Marwan Naamani)
Hmmph! Just like the media to focus on the death of our soldiers..
It takes more than leaflets to terrorize a population.
How to convince the Iraqi people to ignore most of the free press, the EU "poll," the world? Closed off from the outside world for two decades, they now have satellite dishes...and FoxNews playing the same pro-Saddam propaganda videos that were used by Saddam (backed by real violence) to terrorize them before.
Having a hard time forgiving FoxNews for this. This same video - played almost daily on FoxNews - drove me to go to war against the press last June.
It breaks my heart today, too.
The tape itself, I watched Al Jazeera yesterday and they had a program about the tape. And there were eight Iraqis called, if I remember correctly. Seven of them, they said, "We really hate this tape; why you played it? It's really hurt our feeling to listen to it. We don't want to hear this guy again. We despise him. We hate him." Briefing on Post-War Developments in Iraq ^ | July 7, 2003
8 Iraqis Still Fear Hussein [DoD & my response to our 'objective' press] ~ DoD | 7/29/03
~~~
For all of Saddam's saber-rattling, promoted by our press - in a nation the size of California, with over 23 million Iraqis (5 million in Baghdad alone), and over 130,000 US troops on the ground - 11 brave US troops were killed and 38 were wounded last week, including 16 casualties in last Sunday's Al Rasheed attack, and 7 that may have been counted twice by CENTCOM on Oct. 27. For all the reports of potential IED's called in to our EOD guys around Baghdad alone (from Iraqis, too) - 4500 in the last three months - we lost 7 troops and 9 were wounded when their vehicles hit IEDs last week across all of Iraq - in Mosul today, Khaladiyah yesterday, north of Balad, on Oct. 28, and in Baghdad on Oct. 26.
It appears to me that our awesome military prevented far more attacks, riots, etc, than they suffered by our enemies last week.
I need historical perspective. Help.
Oct. 26: One U. S. soldier * Lt. Col. Charles H. Buehring, 40, of Fayetteville, N.C.,* assigned to the Coalition Provisional Authority was killed and 15 other Coalition personnel were wounded in a rocket attack against the Al Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad at 6:08 a.m. Oct. 26.
Oct. 28: An 82d Airborne Division soldier * Pvt. Algernon Adams, 36, of Aiken, S.C., * died of a non-hostile gunshot wound at a forward operating base near Fallujah at approximately 12:10 a.m. on October 28.
Oct. 31: One 82d Airborne Division soldier was killed and four were wounded in an improvised explosive device attack in the Khaladiyah area, west of Baghdad, at about 8:45 a.m. on October 31.
The latest attacks came after rumors swept Baghdad that bombings or other resistance action would strike the capital Saturday. A leaflet attributed to Saddam's ousted Baathist party declared Saturday a "Day of Resistance," and called for a three-day general strike.
It was difficult to gauge public response to threat. Many shops in this city of 5 million people were open, but morning traffic appeared lighter than usual. Many parents kept their children home Saturday, the first day of the Iraqi work week.
~~~
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An Iraqi teacher gives a lesson to a student in an empty class room at a school in Baghdad. Baghdad was semi-paralyzed amid fears of new bloodshed fueled by rumors that opponents of the US occupation of Iraq would mark a "day of resistance." The usually congested traffic was reduced to a trickle in the morning, and several schools were completely empty after parents, sometimes acting on the advice of school authorities, opted to keep their children at home. Several businesses shuttered their doors and numerous civil servants did not show up for work, while guards and Iraqi police were posted around schools and public buildings.(AFP/Sabah Arar)
A U.S. Army bomb squad's robot moves in to retrieve a suspected explosive device (at bottom) in the Baghdad suburb of Sha'ab, November 1, 2003. A bomb blast outside a police station in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul Saturday killed at least two U.S. soldiers, Iraqi police at the scene told Reuters. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi
U.S. soldiers guard the center of Baghdad, Saturday, Nov 1, 2003. Security stepped up after rumors swept Baghdad that bombings or other resistance action would strike the capital Saturday. A leaflet attributed to Saddam's ousted Baathist party declared Saturday a 'Day of Resistance,' and called for a three-day general strike. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
US soldiers, right, stand next to blast damaged vehicles in Mosul, northern Iraq, Saturday Nov. 1, 2003, in this image taken from TV. A roadside bomb killed at least two U.S. soldiers in Mosul on Saturday. It is not known if any person in the vehicles seen here were killed or injured. (AP Photo/APTN)
A TV grab taken from exlusive footage aired by the Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV show members of a previously unknown group called the 'Organization of Jihad Brigades in Iraq.' Hundreds of militant Muslim men from Europe and the Middle East are heading to Iraq to fight the US-led occupation, a leading US daily newspaper reported, citing counterterrorism officials in six countries.(AFP/File)
I need historical perspective. Help.
Compare the incidents you've compiled of incidents involving attacks on US troops with the counter-campaigns of bombings by the OAS and FALN [and probably a few other factions as well] in Algeria during the time of the anti-DeGaullist activities there. Even those on opposite sides were united in their contempt for Le Grande Charles.
Before it was over, the plastique bombings would visit Paris itself, and French army tanks were deployed around the Chamber of Deputies and other governmental buildings, lest General Massu's paratroopers assault the city and sieze the government.
I don't think the relatively few bombs so far successfully detonated in Iraq have had anywhere near that sort of effect yet.
Read this interesting essay and view the film The Battle of Algiers, read this one, and then consider Jean Larteguy and Roger Trinquier's respective fictional and historical books of the period, with Fredrick Forsyth's Day of the Jackal for dessert. It's nowhere near like that for us in Iraq. Yet.
In comparison, what we're undergoing is just a soft Autumn breeze. But just in case things do get a little windier, the background they'd provide you would let you ride out the gale-force winds that could indeed come, but have yet to blow. -archy-/-
An Iraqi policeman and U.S. soldiers look up for intruders suspected of looting the Foreign Ministry in the capital Baghdad, November 1, 2003. Guerrillas killed two U.S. soldiers Saturday in a bomb blast in northern Iraq, and in Baghdad schools were closed and shops shuttered due to fears of more bloodshed and suicide bombs after a string of attacks. REUTERS/Akram Saleh
BUMP for Sabrin!
This picture says alot? Not really. Here, what this 17 year old really says more;
"We heard that they want to bomb schools, but we weren't afraid," said Sabrin Talib, 17. "I came to school today."
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