The BBC last night showed an American flattened mosque

[Swede]

in western Iraq. The women were crying,the men where in a line removing books and documents from the rubble. Really winning over the hearts and minds seems to be a forgotten concept.

[babylonsister]

1. And sadly, you'll only see that kind of news on

the BBC. God forbid we're 'entertained' by that kind of spectacle. :eyes:

[DrDebug]

2. Bomb the mosques. That'll make you popular n/t

[JohnyCanuck]

3. Who needs hearts and minds when you've got

F15s, bunker busters, Apache attack helicopters, A10 Wart Hogs and M1A1 Abram tanks coming out the ying yang.


Deadly firefight in a desert town shocks marines
Tony Allen-Mills in Washington and Ali Rifat in Baghdad

<snip>

At one Baghdad hospital, an Iraqi woman described how her left leg had been amputated without anaesthetic after a missile fired from a US Apache helicopter exploded near her in Saadah. “I was walking back to my house when the next minute I was on the ground unable to move. When I saw that part of my leg was blown off I started to scream,” Um Ahmad said.

The helicopter returned to strafe the street with machinegun fire. “I started to wave and shout that I am an old woman, not Zarqawi,” she said. The nearest hospital had been destroyed in earlier bombing, so she was taken to a house used by local doctors. After the operation she was taken to Baghdad.

American officers acknowledged that they may merely have succeeded in redistributing insurgents to other parts of the desert. Some, like Zarqawi, are suspected of hopping across the 350-mile Syrian border when danger threatens. Um Ahmad’s son said insurgents in Saadah had left the day before US troops arrived, apparently given plenty of warning once military convoys began heading their way.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1612884,00.html

[oblivious]

5. A few random comments about that fascinating report

1. What it takes to clear one house:

Step 1: tank fires bunker-busting shells, which ignited a propane container, engulfing part of the house in flames

Step 2: F18 drops 2 bombs on the house. One missed, the other failed to explode.

Step 3: marines fire rockets to collapse the remaining walls of the house on top of the insurgents’ bunker.

Step 4: Marines drop a grenade into the crawl space.

It turns out the "bunker" was just a crawl space beneath the thin concrete floor.

2. How foreign fighters are identified:
The marines could see the bodies of at least two insurgents, both foreign-looking, but were reluctant to move them in case they were booby-trapped.

Just wondering how they can tell a Syrian from an Iraqi looking down at mangled bodies in a crawl space. Yet these two I suppose will be listed among the 35 foreign fighters caught.

3. Not really a success. Is that the same as failure?
Yet it was far from clear that the coalition could claim a significant military success.

4. The frustration of the people killed and maimed in the search for the fictional Zarqawi. This is a quote from an old woman who was hit and had to have her leg amputated without anaesthetic because the hospital was destroyed:

The helicopter returned to strafe the street with machinegun fire. “I started to wave and shout that I am an old woman, not Zarqawi,” she said.

5. Intentional pun about Zarqawi missing a leg?
American officers acknowledged that they may merely have succeeded in redistributing insurgents to other parts of the desert. Some, like Zarqawi, are suspected of hopping across the 350-mile Syrian border when danger threatens.

[JohnyCanuck]

9. Good catch

Some, like Zarqawi, are suspected of hopping across the 350-mile Syrian border when danger threatens.

[izzie]

4. This battle has been really shut off the news.

When it gets out it will make us look even worse than before. What is it with our gov? I liked it better when we were the good guys.

[Karenina]

6. Errrraaaa...

WHEN was that? WWII??

[Terran1212]

7. More destruction subsidized by us

Worthless and disgusting.

[Disturbed]

8. Winning hearts and minds has been shit canned.

The new plan is kill as many Iraqis as needed be killed and destroy their cities, towns and villages. The Iraqis will bow down to U.S. colonization or be killed, imprisoned &/or improvished. No more fooling around with fake talk about freedom/democracy or liking the U.S. for liberating them from Saddam.