Fallujah in Pictures
Some are graphic; visit at your own risk.
And, from the Los Angeles Times today, a report from a doctor on the scene. Haunted by Those He Couldn’t Save
Blogging Fallujah
About the Democratic Party
I don’t talk party politics much. I’m not a member of the Democratic Party, and can’t remember the last time I was a part of any organized party at all. But for now the only opposition we really have against Bush and his administration are the Democrats. So here is the only thing I have to say to them, copied from a private post I made elsewhere this evening.
The Dems need to stop worrying about winning and start thinking about telling the truth. The truth and nothing but the truth, told as cleanly and clearly as possible, over and over again. There’s more at stake here than winning an election. We’re losing our soul.
Fallujah conquered, but in ruins
Well, something had to be done about Fallujah, I guess, though I don’t think we’ve made the situation any better overall. Once we count up all the deaths, if they are counted honestly, I think we’re going to find that the toll on civilians was very high. The city itself has been fairly well destroyed, and the local population has been terrorized. In a land were tribal and clan relationships are the basis of the social structure, you can be sure that every home demolished and every woman and child killed will spawn another round of hatred for the U.S. and for our troops still on the ground.
With heavy fighting now underway in other Sunni strongholds such as in Mosul and Baquba, it’s clear that while we have destroyed some insurgent nests and taken some of their weapons, it hasn’t been enough to stop the insurgency, or even seriously slow it down.
American commanders say they expected that the fight for Falluja, coinciding with the end of the holy month of Ramadan, would set off a surge in violence across the country. But the scope and size of the attacks in Mosul last Thursday stunned American officers who were scrambling Sunday to regain the initiative.
Another discharged soldier recalled
You may recall an earlier story of a soldier who was completely finished with his service being recalled by the Army. Well another soldier who had finished his service is being told he’s a deserter because he didn’t respond when the military tried to forcibly re-enlist him, even though his reserve obligation had been met. That’s no way to support our troops, now is it?
The military these days reeks of desperation. They have too few soldiers, spread way too thin, in a senseless mission with no end in sight. What a mess our Commander in Chief and his incompetent Defense Department have created!
I’d call this a war crime
From the SF Chronicle, on the use of white phosphorus weapons in Fallujah:
“Usually we keep the gloves on,” said Army Capt. Erik Krivda, of Gaithersburg, Md., the senior officer in charge of the 1st Infantry Division’s Task Force 2-2 tactical operations command center. “For this operation, we took the gloves off.”
Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.
Kamal Hadeethi, a physician at a regional hospital, said, “The corpses of the mujahedeen which we received were burned, and some corpses were melted.”
This might be one, too.
This soldier thinks we are committing genocide.
The moral values that drive us
Zogby has a new study out, examining moral values that Americans say are important to them when it comes to voting. The results show that we’re more interested in war, greed, and poverty than with abortion or gay marriage, even when you narrow the polling to Catholic voters only.
The Zogby poll shows that when voters were asked to list the moral issue that most affected their vote, the Iraq war topped the list (42%)
Iran agrees to stand down
Under pressure from the United Nations and the European Union, Iran has agreed to halt its uranium enrichment program. The agreement will remain in place while talks with the EU continue. Iran has denied that the enrichment program was a front for building nuclear weapons, but it’s widely believed that they want to secure those weapons for themselves. Now the EU needs to figure out what package of enticements will bring the situation to a more permanent resolution.
UPDATE: But apparently this article show that Jane’s Intelligence Digest thinks that Iran is just buying time until they have a fully functional nuclear weapon. In which case, this is a head fake. Via BOP News
And they say they’re pro-life
400 wounded
since the start of the Fallujah offensive.
31 dead.
And we’re fighting insurgents in Mosul now.
Oh, and we haven’t caught the leaders yet.