Six killed in US attacks on Falluja

[Eye and Monkey]

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/88D7C538-F69C-4126-B179-21DB50621787.htm

Friday 16 April 2004, 0:37

At least six people have been killed and more than 23 wounded during overnight attacks by American warplanes in Falluja, which the US has described as "contained".

US forces were now containing the situation in Fallujah, with southern Iraq "largely stabilised", Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld insisted on Thursday.

In Falluja, Aljazeera's correspondent said explosions continued throughout the night on Wednesday with the warplanes striking several districts over the city.

Hospital officials said the casualties were from the Shuhada, Jolan, Shurta and Askari quarters. Three paramedics were also wounded when US warplanes struck an ambulance which was on its way to assist the injured in the Shurta district.

MORE -

[fairfaxvadem]

1. war planes?

You've got to be kidding me. "Contained" my butt...

This is awful.

[AskAlice]

2. Why does aljazeera only "report" on non-combatant casualties?

It seems strange that nearly all of aljazeera reports only claim innocents get hurt by US action. Is it possible aljazeera has an agenda against the US?

[MGKrebs]

3. Who else is there?

[dArKeR]

5. We'll askalice after she has 1000 posts then we know she is serious.

Keep up the work.

[JaySherman]

6. That's like asking if *Bush has an agenda against Iraq.

Does a bear fart in the woods? Seriously, AlJazeera loves reporting on civilian casualities, but U.S. military casualties barely merit a mention. However, in spite of its bias, AlJazeera is still one of the few media outlets that doesn't censor it's war footage. As long as you keep the bias in mind, that makes it a valuable enough resource.

[AskAlice]

8. doesn't censor it's war footage??????

They won't show an innocent dead hostage but they will drag out some undocumented photo of a dead child to push their cause.

Aljazeera doesn't censor it's war footage indeed.

[DrWeird]

9. I think you have an anti US agenda.

Why do you hate america?

[AskAlice]

I think your handle fits

Why did you choose it?

[DrWeird]

13. Because I got mad skilllz.

My freepdar's more powerful than and AWACs and I'm unsurpassed in my ability to confound and frighten the enemy.

Just wait and see.

[AskAlice]

19. Same here except I have few if any enemies

I have learned that by giving respect one often gets it in return.

[stepnw1f]

43. You Have Crack?

Because you really act like you need some therapy. You claim to know you have no enemies?

[Eye and Monkey]

16. And your handle - it comes from down the rabbit hole?

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all

Go ask Alice
When shes ten feet tall
And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know your going to fall

Tell them all who come
Smoking caterpillar has given you the fall
Poor Alice when she was just small
When the men on the chess board get up and tell you where to go

And you just have some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving around
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen four feet
And the white knight's talking backwards
And the Red Queen Says off with her head
Remember what the door mouse said

Feed your head
Feed your head

[AskAlice]

18. You would be right

The head feeding is more mental and less physical now days tho...

[Eye and Monkey]

20. Perhaps you should visit with the Caterpillar and chill a bit.

[AskAlice]

26. cough cough

:-)

[Eye and Monkey]

28. Attitude adjustment? There.

If you're a legit newbie, welcome.

If you're trolling, well, I recommend that you keep up that attitude adjustment until it does the trick.

[AskAlice]

30. I'm cool

How much money did I owe you again man? Do you take cash?

[AskAlice]

31. A short missive on trolling...

Everyone trolls. Some troll for acceptance, attention, nourishment, sharing, caring, scaring, argument, religion, relation, contemplation, elation, relation, constipation, salvation...

I'm here to enjoy life and nothing more.

[Eye and Monkey]

32. Not that kind of trolling. The act of being a troll.

As in a Free Republic troll, lurking, lurking.

I don't accept cash. Pass along some good karma to someone instead. It's the honor system.

[AskAlice]

33. I troll at FR

That does not make me bad does it?

[Eye and Monkey]

34. Not necessarily. Are you a freepy troll?

[AskAlice]

35. Not sure what that is

I'm here (at DU) for kinship and I troll FR for those with hope.

[Eye and Monkey]

36. I think you're trolling barren waters at FR.

Post a bit here, kindred spirit shines through as easily as troll-hood.

I'm going to move on to another topic. No offense, we're somewhat artificially bumping this topic.

[TorchTheWitch]

45. lil correction on the lyrics there

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice when she's ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
He'll call Alice when she was just small

When the men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low
Go ask Alice I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen softly dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's off with her head
Remember what the dormouse said
Feed your head!

Personally, I wouldn't trust lyrics compiled by someone who got the song title wrong... it's "White Rabbit", not "Go Ask Alice".

Hey, you can even buy the White Rabbit lyrics authentically hand-rendered and signed by Grace Slick here:

http://eshop.msn.com/eshopframe.aspx?merchId=2699&catId=1672&u=http%3a%2f%2fwww.neimanmarcus.com%2fstore%2fcatalog%2fprod.jhtml%3fitemId%3dprod01972%26parentId%3d%26masterId%3d%26navCount%3d0%26navAction%3djump%26cmCat%3dmsn

May be a bit costly, though. ;)

[Eye and Monkey]

12. IT does censor - per request from the US military & government. (link)

"Al-Jazeera has said that they will honor a U.S. request to not show US casualties until families are notified. The US media, however, have no such restrictions against showing Iraqi casualties."

http://insomnia.livejournal.com/2003/04/05 /

[gottaB]

17. Aljazeera shows all kinds of dead people

The truth is that more civilians than soldiers have been killed since the onset of hostilities. If your trusted news sources aren't showing you that, your trust is misplaced.

Dead civilians are particularly newsworthy given the claims being made for the accuracy of US weapons, and the special care that is being shown towards civilians by US armed service personell. Since few in the US media are willing to openly criticize Centcom, any evidence contrary to their claims is especially valuable and deserves to be brought to our attention.

[Skittles]

44. Alice, weren't you correcting the word IT'S in another thread

you are using it wrong; in this context it is ITS.

[Eye and Monkey]

11. I think Al-Jazeera expresses a perspective, not necessarily an agenda.

BushCo clearly has an agenda. It may be a fine distinction.

The search engine on Al Jazeera's English site isn't working properly, but a quick websearch on +"al jazeera" and +"US casualties" does show Al Jazeera pages with US casualties enumerated.

Also this comment:
"Al-Jazeera has said that they will honor a U.S. request to not show US casualties until families are notified. The US media, however, have no such restrictions against showing Iraqi casualties."
http://insomnia.livejournal.com/2003/04/05/

[jmcgowanjm]

41. The US doesn't mention US casualties

Have you got a source of wounded Marines for
the past two weeks?

Someone w/ creds here mentioned Landstuhl is full and medivacs are being sent elsewhere in Europe.

I'd appreciate a source for Landstuhl-BTW. I've got Howard
Zinn
and UPI talking about Landstuhl. That's it.

By extrapolation from the 18000 medivacs talked
about by pentagon to armed services committee
in March, there must be over 20000 by now.

[IndianaGreen]

7. People live in cities. If you bomb a city, you are going to kill people.

Color of skin and religion does not make Iraqis' lives less valuable than ours.

We are committing war crimes in Iraq from the day we invaded.

Never forget!

[bemildred]

10. Here, this will make you feel better:

Marines Use Low-Tech Skill to Kill 100 in Urban Battle


FALLUJA, Iraq, April 14 - American forces killed more than 100 insurgents on Tuesday in close combat in a small village in central Iraq, Marine commanders
said Wednesday.

The battle, classic urban combat that raged for 14 hours, was one of the heaviest engagements since the invasion of Iraq last year. It showed not only the intensity
of the resistance but an acute willingness among insurgents to die.

"A lot of these guys were souped up on jihad," said Lt. Col. B. P. McCoy, commander of the Fourth Battalion, Third Marines. "They might as well been suicide
fighters."

Marines fought house to house, roof to roof, doorway to doorway. They repelled attacks of machine-gun fire, volleys of rockets and repeated charges by masked
fighters, Colonel McCoy said. Two marines were shot but their injuries were not life-threatening.

NY Times

[Imperialism Inc.]

37. What , again, in the f&ck is a

suicide fighter?

[bemildred]

38. We stopped trying to make sense some time ago.

I gather they just string the words together in
any order now; as long as the right cognitive buttons
get pushed, it's considered to be a good construction.
I thought this piece was a particularly egregious piece
of propaganda, the sort of stuff one expects to see from
the captive press anywhere. In this particular case I
would assume "suicide fighter" is an alternative to
"terrorist", which is losing some of it's punch through
repetition.

[Maestro]

23. Of course

I think Al Jazeera is the equivalent of Faux News here. I would take what they report with a grain of salt.

[DemoTex]

4. Air superiority.

Nothing like owning the air. Herein lies a major difference between Iraq and Vietnam that I had overlooked (bigtime). The weather. The Marines in Hue (that bad February in 1968) could not count on close-air-support from the Marine F-4s in DaNang because of the weather. Socked-in, low-vis fog, shitty WX. Iraq, sand-storms notwithstanding, has weather more like SoCal or Arizona.

We had better factor that into the equation whenever we try to compare Iraq to RVN. It just hit me. I haven't heard anybody else mention the big differences in weather.

[Eye and Monkey]

14. About the sandstorms.

Up to 30 sandstorms are expected in Iraq's January to March wet season every year, when storm systems bring not only rain but sustained high winds.

From April onwards, storms became almost impossible to predict because high winds can no longer be linked to patterns but to subtle pressure differences instead.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s819339.htm

[burrowowl]

15. The type of sand is different

from NM, Ariz or Cal. Very fine, difficult to filter. More duststorms than here and have to fly in said duststorms in stead of having a choice like here in the SW. And even here in the SW the sand is treacherous, but equipment can be maintenanced, there, Boo$hie is giving them the means to do proper maintenance.
Boo$h and Co. don't seem to be supplying enough spare parts, etc., wear is much greater with sand, much, much greater. it is even eating up tanks, engines, etc.
Other factor, with all the electronic equipment used, grounding is a problem in very dry areas, along with the sun that fucks up HU displays and other, shit, here in the SW give me a damn analog camera. You can't see a thing outdoors with a digital one to even aim what you are shooting at.

[DemoTex]

21. Good points. Why aren't we at the Pentagon?

Another point. Dust storms are low to the ground. They obviously affect all mechanical units on the ground, helicopters to a lesser extent at their always-low-altitudes, and higher-altitude aircraft (fighters, attack, ECW, and transports) to an even lesser extent.

[Eye and Monkey]

22. LOL. If they only knew, what rings true, to this here motley crew.

[burrowowl]

24. Well I guess those

high-up a$$holes never had to do any technical writing, nor review problems in the field. Nor in the 80's did they read the 'Defense' magazine, whereupon weapons systems sold to the Iraqis and Saudis had grounding problems. First idiot recommendation: Pour bucket of water around stake (soldier's view, I need to drink some water, in 10 minutes or less the moisture around the stake will be gone.); the next suggestion: plant grounding stake in latrines. Trouble is now, KBR is not giving our troops enought to drink (water) to make the latrines a viable solutin.

[DemoTex]

25. Is that true? KBR and H-2-O?

Need to know for an article I'm working on. Cite sources if you can.

Thanks,

Mac

[burrowowl]

27. Last year, during the 'war'

I remember some articles and DU posts wherein the water ration during the war was cut from 3 liters a day to 2. Ask punpirate, he might remember.
Some of this was in the Nation and some research done by public integrity (public-i) or something. The Computer I had the references on died and I don't have them on the new one. Search alternet, corpwatch, the corporatization of war(making).

[Eye and Monkey]

29. Last year, Camp Bushmaster, chaplain giving baptisms to thirsty troops

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/5554317.htm?1c

Posted on Fri, Apr. 04, 2003





Army chaplain offers baptisms, baths

BY MEG LAUGHLIN

[e-mail]


CAMP BUSHMASTER, Iraq - In this dry desert world near Najaf, where the Army V Corps combat support system sprawls across miles of scabrous dust, there's an oasis of sorts: a 500-gallon pool of pristine, cool water.

It belongs to Army chaplain Josh Llano of Houston, who sees the water shortage, which has kept thousands of filthy soldiers from bathing for weeks, as an opportunity.

''It's simple. They want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized,'' he said.

And agree they do. Every day, soldiers take the plunge for the Lord and come up clean for the first time in weeks.

''They do appear physically and spiritually cleansed,'' Llano said.

First, though, the soldiers have to go to one of Llano's hour-and-a-half sermons in his dirt-floor tent. Then the baptism takes an hour of quoting from the Bible.


MORE -

[Jackpine Radical]

42. OMG. I had forgotten all about that story.

What an asshole! Like the missionaries in the Far East and their "rice Christians." In this case, "water Christians." If my taxes helped in any way to put him over there or to supply him with water (I'm sure both are true), then his behavior was absolutely criminal and I would take great joy in seeing hm prosecuted. I dunnow what the charges would be, but there's gotta be something. To deny water to troops in the desert, to force your primitive delusional system on them....

[0007]

46. ....and that one bring to mind about the army officer call Boykin or

Boykins (sp)

[catmandu57]

39. The siege of Fallujah

There are three battalions of Marines sitting outside Fallujah, they have built defense works to try to control who goes in and out. They tried assulting the city, and got swatted pretty good, now, we have sorties probing the Iraqi lines. It would appear that most of the damage inflicted is through air attack.
It also seems that this will be the strategy applied to Najaf as well, in the long run, I believe it will fail. Mostly because there isn't sufficient numbers to enforce a siege, and if we push things, especially in Najaf, the shiites will raise an even bigger army and the opposing force will be encircled and crushed.
Fuck you gw*.

[jmcgowanjm]

40. Falloojah is only 35 miles from Baghdad

That means CNN can just go to the top of their hotel,
point the camera to the West, and we'd know more in 24 hours
than what they've been telling us for the past month.

Just now, CNN says explosions heard in Falloojah.
Heard from Baghdad?

And of course you could see nightly explosions at the airport
and helos being shot out of the sky. And convoys,
bridges destroyed.

No commentary from Arraf,Penhaul, or Clancy
needed.

the Marines in Ramadi and Fallujah. Among those killed
by Marines in Fallujah were many wearing police equipment.
In Ramadi, a Knight Ridder photographer with U.S.
troops witnessed Iraqi police and soldiers among those
who twice ambushed a Marine company, which killed
14 Marines in one week.

In the second ambush, some of the Iraqi soldiers - officially
there to help the Marines maintain peace - were wearing old
U.S. Marine uniforms and body armor.

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/world/8440924.htm