U.S. Marines Seize Center of Najaf, Fighting Rages

[0rion]

Aug 12, 10:42 AM (ET)

By Khaled Farhan

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. marines backed by tanks and aircraft seized the heart of the holy Iraqi city of Najaf on Thursday in a major assault on Shi'ite rebels, but they kept out of a site sacred to millions of Shi'ites around the world.

Warplanes and Apache helicopters pounded militia positions in a cemetery near the Imam Ali Mosque, igniting protests in at least two other cities as an uprising that has killed hundreds across southern and central Iraq entered its second week.

The assault against the Mehdi Army of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr could spark a firestorm for interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who needs to assert his authority and crush a rebellion that threatens to undermine his six-week-old government.

US Marines Seize Center of Najaf, Fighting Rages

[Barrett808]

1. Beginning of the End... n/t

[okieinpain]

oh, it's not the end. we have a ways to go yet.

[annxburns]

2. Stand-off in Najaf.

We are between the rock and the hard place now.

The Sadr forces will pull back to the shrine and basically the American and Allawi forces will have to lay siege to it. If the Iraqi forces invade - they will get killed in large numbers plus the shrine will be desecrated. Every day we lay siege to it increased the animosity of the Arab world.

Nice job Bush.

[papau]

21. Overhead photo of area

[BJ]

3. Ahh, the Marines..........

Looks as if Dubya's li'l Waffen SS is pouring gasoline on an already very hot fire.

[madrchsod]

5. waffen ss ?

no they are our sons and daughters, husbands and wifes, put in this battle by george bush. if they had their way ,they would be home with their families..

[Dhalgren]

7. The Waffen SS was

"sons (and daughters), husbands (and wifes), put in" battle by Hitler. If the US is going to behave in this way, then all of its agents will have to share the blame. This includes you and me. If we are not in the street fighting this inhuman regime we call a government, then we are supporting it. If we accept the legality of the current administration (and we do or we wouldn't be waiting for an election to rid ourselves of it), then we are responsible for that regime's actions. The soldiers doing the killing for Bush, are doing the killing - any way you slice it.

[jpgray]

9. Even the Waffen SS were guilty of some war crimes in combat

Though they were mostly an elite military unit, as compared to the "Death's Head" SS-Totenkopfverbande

[wtmusic]

11. As are, without a doubt, our GIs

let's put a rest to the "we're better than them" myth

[jpgray]

15. Where did I say that?

I don't believe ethnic background has anything to do with soldiers' behavior. We have carried out our own campaign of dehumanization and blame towards Arabs and Iraqis in particular, so similar behavior wouldn't surprise me.

[BJ]

13. The USMC's conduct in Iraq has been deplorable.

"What I mean by lighting them up, we were discharging our weapons, 50 cals and M-16's into the civilian vehicles"former USMC Staff Sgt Jimmy Massey in a May 24 interview with Amy Goodman in Democracy Now.

Jimmy Massey at least had the decency to retire after twelve years in the Corps. Yet there are many, many more who support and justify their actions in Iraq. (Can anybody come up with the source for the infamous quote from a Marine Corps sergeant, "The chick was in the way, so I greased her?")

[atreides1]

16. Yes They All Seem To Use The Same Excuse

"I was just following orders", to justify their actions. :(

[0rion]

24. Not many remember the oath they took when enlisting.....

you are obliged not to obey illegal orders given by anyone, commander in chief, officers or anyone else. You have the RIGHT to disobey illegal orders from anyone, especially if such an order is against your own moral and ethical values.

[MindPilot]

41. Oh yeah, that sounds very nice and moral and we were all told that

but the reality is that you do NOT get to decide what is a legal order. An order from a superior is legal because it came from a superior.

The enlisted face courts martial for following "illegal" orders because officers are fundimentally incapable of accepting blame or responsibility. The first thing officers learn is when something goes wrong, find and enlisted man to fuck over.

[0rion]

60. It's a failing of all ranks to disobey their CONSCIENCE.

Basically, that's it.

[Sloppyfourths]

26. You were/are not there-You do not know

Your's is the first post I saw. It caught my attention. This isn't about being against the war of for the war. I know a few marines. You don't know what you're talking about. AT ALL. Please remember that.

[Mikimouse]

40. I read an account recently that sounds like what you are quoting...

The work 'Generation Kill' is replete with statements just like that one. Written by an embed with 1st Recon. Interesting and very damaging to the image of the action in Iraq.:evilfrown:

[saigon68]

28. FOLLOWING ORDERS WILL GET YOU IN THE DOCK

As a War criminal

here is one below



Notice the Smirk on the face of Specialist Sabrina Harman

She is in My Humble opinion, A War Criminal

The GIs who killed this man and those who covered it up are WAR CRIMINALS


Those young people who are eagerly joining up today to KILL RAG HEADS are potential WAR CRIMINALS

[leanings]

23. posts like these

and the ones that follow inflame this little teeny part of me that hopes Bush wins in order to keep you people as far from the levers of power as possible.

[Sloppyfourths]

27. Thank you!

I wonder where the true loyality of some of these people really lies sometimes.

[Dhalgren]

42. You do realize that the US is in a foriegn

country murdering innocent civilians, right? You do realize that even though Bush is giving the orders, the soldiers on the ground are the ones doing the killing, right? Now you can try and disparage the people on this board all you want. But to simply say that regardless of what US soldiers do in Iraq we can't blame them is absurd. Some of us have served in the military and know how difficult it is or would be to go against orders, but some heroes have done so, and we can only hope that more will follow suit.

[saigon68]

29. Who is "you people" ??????????

[Sloppyfourths]

30. He means..

People who compare US Marines to Waffen SS troops and/or Nazis.

I thought that was obvious.

[coalition_unwilling]

32. Important to distinguisn between enlisted and officer corps\policy-makers

While I believe there are parallels between Waffen SS and Marine behavior, most of the anger here should be reserved for those in the military's 'managerial class', i.e., Colonels and above. The enlisted troops are 'working class'. One of the truly sad ironies of what is going on in Najaf and elsewhere is that our working class is fighting their working class for the benefit of U.S. and Iraqi managerial class. The working class of each country have more in common with one another than with the 'managerial class' of any country.

[saigon68]

33. Oh you mean like this?



The More Things Change the More They Remain the Same.

[coalition_unwilling]

35. Your second photo didn't make it

Part of being an adult is (I think) the ability and willingness to make moral distinctions, rather than engage in the Manicheanism of BushCo's "us vs. evildoers" thinking.

If we could back away from the WaffenSS for just a moment, I think we'd agree that a private first class who was part of a maintenance batallion posted to guard duty at Abu Graib who executed illegal policy (while never having received formal training in provisions of the Geneva Convention) bears proporionately less moral responsibility than Maj. General Jeffrey Miller who was sent there to 'Gitmo-ize' intelligence gathering. Are you seriously saying that Calley bore as much moral responsibiltiy as Medina and McNamara?

The more important question to ask, it seems to me, is whether Miller bears the same responsibility as Rumsferatu and Bush.

[saigon68]

43. I never said anything about Rusty Calley wtf

Those Dog handlers and their bosses are not PFCs

They are not in the seven who are currently being deal with under the UCMJ

HERE'S THE NEXT SHOT

ENJOY

[coalition_unwilling]

50. You're right--you didn't bring up 'Calley'

I did and it was in the context of asking whether different gradations of moral responsibility for the carnage apply here, when the question is whether the U.S. Marines constitute some sort of Waffen SS.

And I was trying to place that question within my larger observation that Iraqnam is a war where the ruling class (or, as I called it in an earlier post, the "managerial class") is using a working class army to battle Sadr's militia, the majority of whose members are poor, working class people. It is here that I think the obvious parallels to Vietnam (working-class draftees fighting Vietnamese peasants) are unmistakeable.

But maybe my earlier posts weren't clear enough--somehow I think I'm responding to your response to my response which I think I had intended for another post in this thread on the question of whether the metaphor of Waffen SS is relevant.

[saigon68]

64. I understand now

sorry I was rude to you

[Dhalgren]

46. If you can't see that this whole invasion is one big crime,

with the slaughter of thousands as the dividend, then maybe you should vote for Bush - if you agree more with him on these issues, then he's your man.

[leanings]

48. lol

yeah, the reason I'm going to vote for Kerry is his anti-war stance. :eyes:

I await with baited breath DU cries to throw out John Kerry the war criminal when the Marines keep on doing what they're doing in Iraq throughout 2005.

[Dhalgren]

61. LOL - right

You were the one who said "part of me that hopes Bush wins in order to keep you people as far from the levers of power as possible." All I said was go ahead and vote for him - everyone should vote for whomever he/she supports. Even "us people" get to make up our own minds. :hi:

[neverborn]

65. Waffen SS? Watch your fucking mouth.

For god's sake. Throwing around those terms is WRONG. Bush is not HITLER. The Marines are not the WAFFEN SS. Republicans are not NAZIS. The Air Force is not the LUFTWAFFE.

You are diminishing the PURE FUCKING EVIL that was the Third Reich.

Not to mention the fact that you're calling the men and women in our Marine Corps equivalent to Hitler's army is beyond offensive.

I know quite a few Marines, and I dare you to say it to one of their faces.

Filth like this makes me not want to come back to DU.

I'm fucking disgusted.

[LeftHander]

4. Iraq was never going to be "free"....

It was not going to be free until it was turned into rubble.

We all knew this. How could they not have known.


Now we stand at the brink of a regional escalation of this stupid war.


Won't be long before Bush's war will have killed more Americans than 911.

[coalition_unwilling]

6. We had to destroy the village in order to save it

Last Saturday's print edition of the NY Times had an eerie front-page photo that showed US Marines deployed inside the ironically named Valley of Peace Cemetery. I had this total Full Metal Jacket flash.

[Worst Username Ever]

8. Let me win your hearts and minds or I'll bomb your fucking houses.

/sarcasm

[skip fox]

10. There were only two options: go in and get al-Sadr or back off again.

Both were miserable choices. But it we backed off, the country could have torn itself apart before the end of the month. Anyway, that was very likely. Getting him (dead or alive) might ignite the entire Shiite population, which would be disastrous, or with luck (and use of Iraqi troops), such an action might defuse the situation after initial protests and spasms of violence &c. I think we have chosen the second and have done so wisely. But we must remember who brought us to such a juncture where we have only such choices to make. (Not to mention what the war has cost the nation in terms of lives, national credibility, and deficit spending).

[wtmusic]

12. Might "defuse the situation"?

There's nothing in the current US strategy which will defuse the situation. Nothing.

[skip fox]

14. I was going to qualify that: where "defuse the situation" means

. . . blah, blah, blah, but I thought it detracted from the central thrust of my point: that we've come to such a choice, where one desicion has potentially less horrific consequences than the other. You can fuss with the rest all you want.

If you're interested in our thinking about this issue yesterday:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=742832&mesg_id=742832

It answers a number of questions like Why now? etc.

[Dhalgren]

17. I agree.

The only way to "defuse the situation" is for the immediate withdrawl of US forces from Iraq. The idea that the Iraqis are not capable of governing themselves is completely wrong-headed. The people we are killing, right now, want to govern themselves; we don't want them to. We want them to be governed by someone who will govern in the US best interest, not the Iraqis best interest. It is sickening to hear people speak about what would be "disasterous" - disasterous to whom?

[demoman123]

22. The Iraqi people are not capable of self governance. We aren't, either.

So we should let them mess up their own house and we should mess up ours.

[hunter]

18. Well, yeah, now we unite all of Iraq *against* us...

... also Iran, and possibly the rest of Islam too.

I don't think this is the solution to the problem the American people were hoping for.

In my mind the Bush Administration is a symptom of the mindless cancer that is probably going to kill the economy of the United States.

We are now in the same place the Soviet Union was just before it collapsed. The people in countries we now occupy are going to be dancing in the streets when we pull out our forces in a doomed attempt to quell the fire we started in Iraq.

[coalition_unwilling]

20. Where have we heard that before?

Maybe it's what Lord Cornwallis said about George Washington?

[skip fox]

31. Or maybe people aren't thinking through the alternatives.

Al-Sadr was enflaming his followers and symphathetic Shi'ites to rise up against the US and its puppet government. The country was ready to split in two. With this decision (to capture or kill al-Sadr) there is at least the possibility of maintaining the current government a while longer.

Of course if you'd rather not have a reasoned analysis, then by all means, listen to yourself scream.

[Dhalgren]

37. You do not deny the distinct

possiblity that killing al-Sadr will only make things worse - as in creating a hero for the resistance? (Even more than he is one now?)

[skip fox]

38. Right.

I did not deny that. I only said that this decision (to get al-Sadr) is the only option which does not NECESSARILY have a horrific outcome. Not that it can't.

[Dhalgren]

44. I'm not attacking you - really

I don't altogether disagree with your comment (just maybe in part). But I have to ask you, "horrific outcome" for whom?

[skip fox]

52. In major ways it will be horrific for everyone who

wishes for stability of any (even temporary) order. Including Iraqis and United States.

I wish it wasn't so, but we have to try our best now to quiet the hornet's nest we disturbed by invading Iraq. I agree with Kerry. (But Kerry has to defend a vote he was "forced"--by the pressure of the period--to sign. I'm not. It was Bush's misadventure, and if it could backfire on him and his neo-con friends without destabilizing the region and losing more American and Iraqi lives, I'd pray for failure. But that is not the cse.)

[Dhalgren]

62. I'll simply put forward the proposition

that the very presence of US troops in Iraq is destablizing. That if true "stability" and putting a stop to the wanton slaughter are the goals, then the withdrawl of all US and "coalition" troops would be the first, best move. We and our co-conspirators along the the rest of the less guilty world could then start helping in every way we can the government that the Iraqis establish (or the various governments that they establish).

[bpilgrim]

68. don't forget the MOABS

everything is on the table... acording to *



peace

[Minstrel Boy]

19. Attention - newsflash from the Malabar front!

"Attention! Your attention, please! A newsflash has this moment arrived from the Malabar front. Our forces in East Asia have won a glorious victory, retaking the center of Najaf once again from the clutches of the enemy. Remnants and dead-enders, together with foreign fighters in league with the arch villain Emmanuel bin Goldstein, are reported to have been killed in the hundreds by our brave fighting boys, who sustained no casualties. CNN is authorized to say that the action we are now reporting may well bring the war within measurable distance of its end. Here is the newsflash -"

Bad news coming, thought Winston.

[daleo]

45. A round of Victory Gin, on the house! n/t

nt/

[hellhathnofury]

51. ...

Speaking of which, take a gander at this:

http://protempore.net/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/calvins/goodspeak.py?url=http://www.cnn.com/

[daleo]

56. I like it!

Scarily convincing.:toast:

[0rion]

25. It's Ironic we are fighting those we were supposed to Liberate, the Shia..

of Iraq who were so brutally prosecuted by Saddamn Hussein, we are now engaged in killing and about to attack their most sacred holy site.

[saigon68]

34. It was never about 'LIBERATING" anyone

It was all about CORPORATE LOOTING OF NATURAL RESOURCES and

exploitation of the Labor of the native inhabitants.

[0rion]

36. I know, I was being sarcastic.

We're liberating their resources and dignity...

[saigon68]

49. I thought so-- I just like to be obtuse at times

The whole process is so disgusting it makes you want to vomit.

[Zenaholic]

39. Excellent statement Orion

I hope more Amurikan's wake up to this very fact.

[Barkley]

57. Brilliant insight Orion!

But the Iraqis are better off without Saddam ...
and we're better off with 900+ dead GIs
Insanity!

[cal04]

47. Aljazeera is reporting that half of

Najaf city council is resigning in protest of Us Invasion

http://english.aljazeera.net/Channels/

[skip fox]

53. Funny how we have to go to foreign sources for such news . . .

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10429706%255E1702,00.html

[Fovea]

54. Will somebody please explain

to the authors of this Charlie Foxtrot that at first it is impossible to determine whether you have scored a real victory, or a pyrric one.

This tars Allawi fatally, I fear with the outrage of Imam Ali. Even if the rank and file Iraqis (whatever they are) were secular enough to shake this off, I doubt that Shia conservatives in Iraq and Iran will be as liable to back down.

[Tight_rope]

55. DAMNIT....I thought Bush said the, "Mission WAS Accomplished"

[Barkley]

58. Yeah, and the last time someone listened to Bush

folks wondered the desert for 40 years!

[Disturbed]

59. The Hand-Over That Wasn't:

The Hand-Over That Wasn't: Illegal Orders give the US a Lock on Iraq's Economy
by Antonia Juhasz

Officially, the U.S. occupation of Iraq ended on June 28, 2004. But in reality, the United States is still in charge: Not only do 138,000 troops remain to control the streets, but the "100 Orders" of L. Paul Bremer III remain to control the economy. These little noticed orders enacted by Bremer, the now-departed head of the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority, go to the heart of Bush administration plans in Iraq. They lock in sweeping advantages to American firms, ensuring long-term U.S. economic advantage while guaranteeing few, if any, benefits to the Iraqi people. The Bremer orders control every aspect of Iraqi life - from the use of car horns to the privatization of state-owned enterprises. Order No. 39 alone does no less than "transition from a … centrally planned economy to a market economy" virtually overnight and by U.S. fiat. Although many thought that the "end" of the occupation would also mean the end of the orders, on his last day in Iraq Bremer simply transferred authority for the orders to Prime Minister Iyad Allawi - a 30-year exile with close ties to the CIA and British intelligence.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0805-07.htm

* I am guessing that most Americans beleive that Iraq is now a "sovereign" nation. The "insurgents" are fighting the legitimate Govt. of Iraq is the new LIE!

[saigon68]

63. Well said this is the WAY IT IS !!

Our children ie:

The miners kids from Tennessee and Kentucky

The street kids from Motown, Harlem and Compton.

The low riders from LA and Houston and all the rest of the lower class will die in this

CLUSTER-FUCK


Because a Clueless Sock-Puppet of a President named the CHIMPANZEE and his criminal NEOCON friends have decided to exploit a whole country's resources and people for their own personal gain.

[0rion]

66. Did Sadr really get wounded?

???

[LauraK]

67. Yes, he gets hit by shrapnel, we withdraw...

a human chain forms, and Kerry becomes president.