There needs to be a serious retribution here or this will become widespread. Anyone can see this.
"Ahmed Obayid, 38, a commercial truck driver, said the ambush was carried out by three insurgents who drove into town on a large truck. He said the insurgents, who he described as mujaheddin, Arabic for holy warriors, cleared the area by detonating an explosive device that created a loud noise but not did not cause any damage. Shops were shuttered and pedestrians fled."
They were being tracked, they knew they were coming.
" Obayid said the attackers soon departed as townspeople went on a rampage."
These 'townspeople' must pay a very heavy price.
I want to see President Bush, not his press secretary or other mouth piece on TV today. I want to hear from his mouth that there will be a response to this deployable act. I want to hear from Kofi Annan denouncing these acts of terror. Then I want to see the town wiped out on live TV.
"I want to see President Bush, not his press secretary or other mouth piece on TV today"
Me too but after these "people" are dealt with. In other words, I don't want to hear threats, I want to see him explain that this is what happens when you screw with us.
"I want to hear from Kofi Annan denouncing these acts of terror."
That will never happen because he wouldn't want to 'offend' anyone. I want to see Kofi resign.
We all know that the UN will say and do nothing unless Israel has taken down another terrorist. They have shown their true bias many times.
The best thing Bush could do will be to come on TV and announce that bombing has begun.
Immediately declare martial law in the whole district. Confiscate any weapons found - search house-to-house. Shoot to kill any one threatening in any way. Arrest anyone who even blinks funny.
I'm at a loss at how to deal with this. We could turn the whole place into a crater within an hour. We could do what you proposed and go in under a marshall law scenario. We could cut the area completely off from the rest of the country, or we could covertly plant special ops people to infiltrate and destroy these monsters.
Whatever way they choose to do it, they'd better do it fast.
Two things. First, the next time this happens I want to see the corpses (or pieces thereof) of these animals bouncing off the ground each time a bomblet detonates from cluster munitions. If they want to bounce up and down in celebration after an attack I say we help them.
And next (or first actually) I say we lock down the whole city, nobody in and nobody out. Give them a chance to give up those that were involved. (future deterrence)And if they don't, then let them have it.
Read the latest issue of American Enterprise Institute for a great article by Zinsmeister explaining how our troops deal with similar situations to this. You will need to buy the magazine to get the full story (or wait for Zinsmeister's new book in June). As usual, our media do not generally report the effective tactics that our troops have developed for these situations. The short of it is that we will methodically track down anyone who had any level of participation in the scene, and that there WILL be retribution. Here is the excerpt available online:
http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.17964/article_detail. asp
The Iraq War at One Year
By Karl Zinsmeister
These are two excerpts from a 27-page article presenting
photos and reporting from Baghdad and
Fallujah. Subscribe now, or order a single copy of the
April/May 2004 issue to read the full report.
*****
In Iraq, the roles of good cop and bad cop must be filled by
the same American soldiers, and today it is time for the
82nd to rap some knuckles. Two of the most inflammatory
imams in southern Baghdad--Sheik Akram of the Mekkad al-
Mokarama mosque, and Sheik Riyad of Abu Bakr--have been
summoned to appear before Col. Fuller. Despite being called
to the police station on Wednesday and read the riot act by
Lt. Col. Haight, both imams repeated thinly veiled threats
against Coalition forces in their latest Friday sermon.
Something has got to give.
The U.S. commanders don't know exactly where the imams live,
and aren't sure they will show up for today's meeting,
though Iraqi Police have been dispatched to each mosque with
a summons. Finally, perhaps a half hour late, they arrive.
Sheik Akram wears a kind of dished turban on his head, and a
floor- length cream tunic. In two long meetings where I have
a chance to observe him, Akram strikes me as a deceiver, and
a bit simple. His eyes shift rapidly and he often shrugs his
shoulders and cracks pained satirical smiles. Sheik Riyad,
chubby and dark-bearded and wearing a white shawl over his
head and shoulders that always holds an exquisite little
crease where it falls above his nose, is brighter but even
less transparent. He is openly haughty, arrogant, and
dripping with disdain.
Once again, the American commanders exhibit bottomless
patience--if anything, erring on the side of being too
enduring, in my judgment. They earnestly lay out American
concepts of faith, toleration, and free speech. Col. Fuller
has studied the Koran this summer, and he asks the two
clerics to explain their understanding of what the book
counsels on religious belief, Godliness, jihad, and killing.
He asks them to be specific about who are "the enemies of
Islam" (which they refer to ritually in their sermons). The
conversation snakes its way through an Army interpreter,
somewhat painfully, over a period of two and a half hours.
Fuller allows Sheik Riyad a long speech on the American
deficiencies that create armed resistance in Iraq. After
hearing him out, and explaining the rules under which he
operates, Col. Fuller gets to the heart of the matter.
"While we go to great lengths to be respectful, and avoid
embarrassing people, you must understand that our actions
are often a matter of life and death. I am responsible for
stopping terrorists who have killed and hurt hundreds of
people in this area. And I need the help of all good people
in the community.
"Unfortunately we know that there are imams who support
terrorists, and who actually encourage terrorist attacks.
Many of the terrorists we see act on religious grounds. You
must know that the freedom of speech carries with it great
responsibilities. In particular, you cannot incite violence.
A real holy man would never do that anyway.
"So I need to know today whether you are my ally or my
enemy. I suppose you will say you are not my enemy, as you
have in the past. But then in your public statements to your
audience you call for death to the enemies of Islam, and
violent opposition to occupiers, and so forth. What am I to
do?"
Akram recognizes that this is a climactic conversation, and
finally answers carefully: "Iraq is our country, but it is
now occupied. We must accept the status quo. So I am going
to try to avoid these subjects that have created
misunderstanding."
Haight confronts him forcefully: "But you told me that on
Wednesday. And then you went right out on Friday and
conjured up more violence anyway. You know what? You may
deny you are instigating attacks, but when you say people
should attack 'infidels' and 'the enemies of Islam' they
think of one thing: this uniform [tugging hard at his own
sleeve]. And you both know that!"
Akram: "In my Friday prayers I asked God to 'kill the
enemies of religion, wherever you find them, split them,
destroy them, wherever you find them.' I did not say
Americans or British."
Fuller, exploding: "I don't care who you said to kill! You
cannot tell people to kill others. No holy man would do
that! Where does the Koran sanction such a thing?"
Akram: "I have been doing that for 20 years. Saddam never
objected to this."
Haight: "Then you've been wrong for 20 years."
Akram: "OK. I'm not going to say it from now on."
Fuller: "Yeah, and you promised that last time, then broke
your word just a few days later."
Akram: "When you asked me to this meeting I consulted with
my mentor at the Religious Science Organization. He
counseled me to avoid words like 'enemies,' 'unbelievers,'
and so forth, so I am going to try. I will preach only about
patience, the Koran, and such. I will leave the problem
alone now."
Dodging, rationalizing, and backpedaling when forced to,
Akram and Riyad are skating at the brink of arrest for
inciting violence. But American officers throughout Iraq are
striving mightily to avoid such detainments. They are
bending over backward to show respect for imams, mosques,
and the Muslim religion, so as not to feed paranoia that the
U.S. presence in Iraq is part of a crusade against Islam.
Col. Fuller later tells me he thought he would have to
arrest the two sheiks at this meeting. In the end, though,
he issues another stern warning and sends them home. Whether
these men are active partisans of the resistance or just
religious fanatics too zealous to care about the effects of
their words on their congregations is not clear. Also
unclear is whether they realize how close they are to being
locked away and charged. But they will get no more free
passes.
"That's it," says the colonel to his officers after they
leave. "If those men cross the line again, you roll them
up."...
*****
This morning I'm picked up bright and early by the men of
1st Battalion of the 82nd's 504th Regiment--the "Red
Devils." I'm back with the infantry. In the words of my
transport crew, the transition from the brigade headquarters
to their Camp Mercury is like "heading off to the redneck
stepchild's house." I actually find it a comfortingly
familiar layout of a few concrete buildings, lots of gravel,
a bank of porta-johns, some noisy generators, and tents.
To help patrol the roads for IEDs and lend some heavy
firepower to certain operations, there is a detachment of
armor here out of Fort Riley, Kansas--always a bit of an
oddity for paratroopers (the tanks, that is, not Kansas).
Off in another corner is the "Red Devil Roof Inn," the
concertina-wire-ringed detention tents where the two
companies operating from this location can hold prisoners
for up to 72 hours. Hundreds of Iraqis have been processed
through this facility since the battalion arrived during the
summer. About a quarter typically get released after a few
days; the rest are sent to the brigade level for further
interrogation. From there the most hard-core go to nearby
Abu Ghuraib prison, the country's principal lockup, which
sits about an hour west of Baghdad and currently hosts about
6,500 guests of the U.S. government.
At that level the Coalition considers the prison "full,"
though Saddam, less fastidious about humanitarian issues,
reportedly packed 40,000 enemies of his state into the main
lockup--40 or 50 to a cell. He also carried out many
executions at Abu Ghuraib. In the fittingly gloomy light of
dusk I visited the death chamber, where prisoners were
hanged two at a time, then cut down to fall into a pit where
their bodies were burned. Uday and Qusay Hussein would often
preside over the executions, the M.P.s now running the
prison have learned, and liked to operate the gallows
themselves, sometimes even entering the holding cells to
simply shoot prisoners when the executions fell behind
schedule.
One company of 504 soldiers are long-term residents at Abu
Ghuraib themselves--they secure the region surrounding the
prison. Just one week before I visited, President Bush
released 500 of Abu Ghuraib's "least dangerous" prisoners as
a gesture of good will. Apparently these prisoners weren't
non-dangerous, though. Soldiers told me that the amnesty
brought an immediate spike in mortar attacks on the prison,
as the parolees apparently offered up information on the
facility's layout, or launched attacks themselves. The
soldiers' own quarters took numerous hits, pulverizing the
roof tiles, but fortunately not penetrating the heavy
concrete over their living area.
The brain trust of the 1-504 gathers every evening for a
Battle Update Brief which summarizes events of the last 24
hours and lays plans for the future. These require "Secret"
security clearance, but here, as in many of my other travels
with the 82nd, the battalion commander accords me the
privilege of sitting in. This night's proceedings provide
clear evidence that there is still much fighting to be done
in this country. Just within the last day, this area
experienced a mortar attack, two IED incidents, and
explosions thought to be 122mm rockets that were launched
from nine miles away.
How is it known where the rockets came from? Courtesy of the
powerful new Q36 and Q37 radar systems, which lay down a
thick blanket of radar extending for many miles in every
direction. Any time something flies upward through this
blanket and comes down somewhere else, the system captures
the entry and exit points and the land impact point,
calculates the trajectory backwards, and almost instantly
yields the coordinates of the launch site.
A response can be dispatched with a single radio call.
Should soldiers be patrolling near the firing point they
will chase the shooters down. Otherwise, the coordinates are
sent to U.S. counterfire batteries--either a mortar or
artillery team kept on station at all times. Within minutes,
they rain fire down on the Iraqi attackers. That takes all
the fun out of launching an assault on an American position.
The Iraqis have figured out ways to reduce their chances of
getting punished, however. They shoot and scoot--popping off
a handful of rounds, sometimes right from the back of a
truck, and then hightail it out of there. Other times
they'll launch from an area where they know American decency
will protect them-- amidst a residential neighborhood, or
next to a busy highway. Before the counterfire batteries are
let loose U.S. soldiers check their maps to see what's
located at the coordinates given to them by the Q36. If
there's a significant chance of hurting innocent people, the
shelling is cancelled.
Insurgent rockets can be particularly hard to respond to.
For one thing they can be launched from further away than a
mortar. And because they fly horizontally rather than
looping steeply upward and then down like a mortar, they
sometimes evade radar detection. Of course, rockets require
careful aiming, and the improvised launching systems the
Iraqis have had to resort to have not been very precise.
They are improving, though.
"These latest rockets landed just outside the walls of our
camp," warns battalion commander Marshall Hagen. "I want you
to watch out. These guys know what they're doing." ...
(To read the full report, click here to subscribe or here to
order a single copy of the April/May 2004 issue.)
Time to adopt the methods of Andrew Jackson and create an Islamic Trail of Tears.
1. Cordon off the city.
2. Execute every clymer identified on the video footage we have of the incident.
3. Everyone else in the city gets force marched to the nearest border and told they'll be shot on sight if they ever set foot in Iraq again. Tatoo a U.S. flag on their foreheads for easy identification purposes.
Good post. Thanks.
This tells me that they've had their chance. The 82nd is gone and now the Marines are there. Shut down the city and take it from there.
They need an "object lesson". The town needs to be absolutely obliterated. And President Bush needs to make a statement that this is what will happen anytime anyone commits act of atrocities against our citizens or our troops. This is the only thing that the people of Iraq understand. The gloves have got to come off and stop the politically correct claptrap. The bottom line is, they hate us and want to kill us, so we've got to pound them into submission with no let up. That's what it will take, but I'm not holding my breath until it occurs.
