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To: AmericanYankee
DVDs of beheadings on the bridge are distributed free in the souk. Children prefer them to cartoons. "They should not watch such things," said one grandfather, but parents appeared not to object.

In the "good old days", we would have razed the village and salted the earth. Now, we think we can win their hearts and minds. Yeah, that'll work really well when the kids prefer to watch beheadings over cartoons.

10 posted on 06/01/2006 9:22:12 AM PDT by thecabal ("Now die monkeys and stop saying Muslims are terrorists,we are peaceful people!")
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To: thecabal
In the "good old days", we would have razed the village and salted the earth.

Yep. This is a catch-22: to build up iraq and do business there we have to go through organizations and companies owned by people who hate us in some places. Haditha would seem to be such a place. Only one answer to a Catch-22: eliminate the underlying premises - to your point.

40 posted on 06/01/2006 9:51:09 AM PDT by gotribe (It's not a religion.)
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To: thecabal

No, we just need to get the Iraqi government on its feet, and in a few years let the Iraqi Police raze the village.


44 posted on 06/01/2006 9:56:24 AM PDT by Dead Dog
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To: thecabal
In the "good old days", we would have razed the village and salted the earth.

Surround Haditha at night with an overwhelming force. Close off all avenues of escape, and then bomb, shell, and rocket the entire town until it's a smoking pile of rubble and dead bodies. Then the people of the next town the insurgents try to take over will fight back.

Making an example of a town or city like that is a very harsh remedy, but it's been the normal way of putting down insurgencies or rebellions in the Arab/Islamic world for 14 centuries, except for the modern weaponry of course. Lord Kitchener's Egyptian troops used repeating rifles, bayonets, gunboat artillery, and Maxim machine guns to put down all opposition in the walled city of Omdurman in 1898. The hostile towns farther up the Nile heard of the massive slaughter and destruction from Omdurman's terrified refugees and would not allow the Mahdi's Dervish forces retreating helter skelter from the rout at the Kherri Plain to occupy their towns.

In much earlier times Mohammed's or Saladin's troops would have used swords, arrows, and lances to accomplish the same end. Arabs understand that kind of bloody tactic because it's their traditional way of waging war.

83 posted on 06/01/2006 2:26:58 PM PDT by epow
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