It's hell....everything will be destroyed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1206705,00.html

'It's hell...everything will be destroyed'

Military accused of violating Falluja ceasefire

Luke Harding in Baghdad
Friday April 30, 2004
The Guardian

After two nights of bombardment by US jet fighters, the Ahmed family had had enough. At 7am on Wednesday Fadhil Ahmed ate his last piece of flat bread before bundling his wife and children into their Chevrolet.
They set off out of Falluja and down a dusty unpaved track. The streets were empty. After avoiding the Americans the Ahmeds got stuck at a US roadblock, and had to sleep in a neighbouring village.

Some 24 hours later, Mr Ahmed made it to Baghdad. "It's hell," Mr Ahmed said, minutes after arriving at a refugee camp set up by the Iraqi Red Crescent on a roadside football pitch.

"The Americans have violated the ceasefire. They are attacking us with jet fighters, tanks and artillery. The US snipers are on every roof and minaret. They don't care who they shoot. They are shooting old people, women and children.Where is the UN in all this?"

....

how many women and children have to die before Bush calls off the dogs. My God this bothers me.

. . . I've been following it for a couple of days but didn't post it because of the source. I don't know if it's true but then I don't know much of anything anymore. :grr:

Further details on the execution of 17 American snipers on 26 April in al-Fallujah.

The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam with the Iraqi Resistance in
al-Fallujah written to add further detail to the report carried on Monday,
26April 2004 about the execution by Resistance fighters of 17 American
snipers atop a building in al-Fallujah during an American incursion into
al-Jawlan neighborhood in the city.

Mafkarat al-Islam's correspondent writes that after the occupation forces
violated the cease fire that had been signed on Sunday and attacked
al-Fallujah's al-Jawlan neighborhood, the occupation troops planted a
number of snipers atop a villa overlooking the as-Saddah Bridge crossing
the Euphrates River. The bridge links the city of al-Fallujah's al-Jawlan
neighborhood with the rural areas surrounding the city. The villa in
question was a two-story structure going by the name "Double Manyo," and
appears to have belonged to one of the wealthy residents of the city who
left after the aggression began.

The group of snipers on the roof of the villa had the job of covering the
aggressor tanks as they advanced into al-Jawlan district. The snipers sowed
terror and fear among the families and people of al-Fallujah who were
crossing the bridge in their attempt to return to their homes. The snipers
fired at the civilians as they crossed the bridge, killing and wounding a
large number of women and children.

The Iraqi Resistance threw back the American attempt to penetrate al-Jawlan,
counterattacking the occupation troops and forcing the tanks to retreat
before their blistering fire. The fighters' intense resistance with
rocket-propelled grenades, and gunfire left the villa isolated and exposed,
the 17 snipers on its roof cut off and stranded. About 35 Resistance
fighters stormed up into the building, filling the beleaguered snipers
with the terror of certain death. Their primary job was to serve as sharp
shooters, not to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the Resistance fighters.
Besides that, they were no doubt in terror of the anger of al-Fallujah and
its residents.

The Resistance fighters lay into them, killing every one of them by slitting
their throats, filled with intense fury over the way that the snipers had
terrified and killed children and women despite the cease fire agreed to
between the two sides.

It should be noted that the website Mafkarat al-Islam (www.islammemo.cc)
is the only media outlet that has a correspondent on the front lines of the
battle in al-Fallujah, bringing live and precise information from the front
line of the field of conflict. No other outlet, be it a newspaper or
satellite TV company is covering this front line sector of the battle.
Besides that, only one Arab satellite TV company has been covering the
humanitarian sides of the siege and aggression on al-Fallujah and the
effect they are having on the residents of the city whose lives have turned
to tragedy. Because of the pressures under which they operate, pressures
exerted by the occupation forces and the occupation regime, that satellite
TV company largely limits itself to the humanitarian side of the conflict
offering only a relatively small amount of information on the actual fighting.
The efforts of that TV company have had tremendous impact and deserve our
thanks for exposing the crimes committed by the occupation forces against
the civilians, women and children, who are not serving as Resistance fighters,
contrary to what the aggressor occupation forces claim.

http://www.freearabvoice.org/Iraq/Report/report82.htm

TYY

I commented on that story when it first emerged. I place no more stock in that source now

. . . in my post that I questioned the source but now I'm starting to wonder. That story has been updated by its author, and considering that other stories from that source have panned out, I wonder about the one about the snipers. Granted, I still haven't heard anything from credible news sources but I guess we'll find out. After what we've been finding out about the Americans and the British soldiers . . . that had previously been kept silent . . . I wonder. The Iraqis had been saying it all along. Now, as news trickles out about how crazy our guys were in Fallujah . . . well, like I said. I guess we'll find out.

TYY

. . . I'm not sure why I should consider them an less credible than anyone else. Propaganda is propaganda. Truth has been the biggest casualty in this war. If that source says 17 snipers were killed and our side says no one was killed . . . I'm inclined to believe that at least 8 or 9 snipers were killed. IMO

TYY

But now that the pictures are in the public domain, it makes you wonder about other things that we have heard during this whole fiasco. Every source has its agenda, but the Islamic sources have probably been no worse than most U.S. sources. They exaggerate their gains and minimize their losses, U.S. news sources do the same for U.S. forces. They emphasize uncivilized behavior on the part of the U.S. military (e.g. snipers shooting civilians), while the U.S. media does the same against the Iraqis (insurgents killing hostages).

Snipers traveling in packs now? Nope, no way would either the brass or the snipers themselves bunch up like that.

He may be saying "snipers" when he means "riflemen." There's a big difference militarily, but it would be hard to tell the difference in a dictionary or thesaurus.

has shown many GI's on one rooftop shooting downward. Anyone else see that.

just doesn't decide to put the screws to us in protest of our little excursion into Iraq. We could easily become the worlds pariah.

There are protests all over the world against this Washington cabal.

Start dumping US bonds, driving interest rates sky high.

Start contracting for oil in Euros, rather than dollars.


The "rest of the world" is financing the US military

They will view the demise of the American dollar as the only way to stop the atrocities

by calling in their chits.

matter of time.

for 18 months now. The current events in Iraq could be the fuel to the fire to cause the world to finaly divest itself from us

up the pace on dumping the dollar as the world's only reserve currency. They need to insulate themselves from the fallout. The US will be allowed to die a slow, agonizing financial death.
But remember, no nation goes down into poverty without a fight. WWIII anyone?

doesn't the british control basra, the only sea port out of the place? and baghdad is pretty much one of the few big airports, controlled by USA and the coalition, right?

it would be very bad if basra fell and our troops had difficulty getting out. logistically it is not a fun job to figure out how to get out of there in a hurry.

a devalued dollar with higher interest rates would just stop us dead on top of that.

souls in the elite halls of power that did this need to be flayed mercilessly in the bowls of hell for this.

...and its people. Then there are the co-operative leaders of those people. look at the US. We have a unelected government out of control.

whom they shoot; they get an adrenaline rush out of each "kill" and come home to brag about their count to their buddies in "Deliverance" country.

Some have been known to kill so many Iraqis that they can't count that high yet. Only seventh graders know numbers that high.

.

But I do recall reading one article (WaPO or NYT?, can't remember) where a marine sniper related having his confirmed kills up in the 20's. I don't know if he was boasting exactly, but he wasn't showing any qualms about it. He claimed that he only got fighters, but from a kilometer or more, I doubt he could really be that sure.

about them only finishing sixth grade, but you and I must have read the same article about the sniper.

Believe me, a lot of the snipers are disappointed that the Falluja deal has been called off.

I think they must be on some pretty stout drugs as well as there are allegedly photos of them circulating with smiles on their faces and even laughing as they are about to be killed by the "resistance."

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-rupert-iraq0430,0,6570064.story?coll=ny-worldnews-headlines

Outisde Fallujah, fears for what might be inside Fallujah

Fallujah, Iraq -- I've spent the past three days on the edges of Fallujah, trying to find a way in. I'm afraid at what we're going to find when we get there. Today, I was able to get just inside the city, to a checkpoint where U.S. Marines are vetting families who are trying to leave.

(Women, children and the elderly may all leave, but any family may take only one male, aged 15 to 50, with them. The Marines say they will hold all other men of fighting age in the town until they can set up a process to check them and ensure that they have not been fighting with the guerrillas.)

The streets were utterly empty. In an hour and a half, no car passed within view on the city's main street. People say they have little or no food left, have had no electricity for weeks, and little water. The hospital is reported in chaos.

And while we (Western journalists) have not been able to get into the center of town, the Arab television networks al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya have been there, and their pictures of civilian dead and wounded (on their websites, for example) are horrific.

The world is divided into two universes on this -- the one that speaks Arabic, can watch Arab TV and thus has obsessed about this humanitarian disaster 24 hours a day for the past weeks. And the part that does not speak Arabic, hence does not watch al-Jazeera, and for which the horrors of this siege are largely hidden. It is a dangerous divide.

<http://www.aljazeera.net/news/arabic/2003/3/3-22-26.htm>

Yes?

Cool off.

even after seeing these pictures:

http://home.wi.rr.com/davef/iraq.htm


it's just that one photo on the page you linked to with the child bleeding from his/her eye. i don't know if i've ever seen anything more heartbreaking.

what we have subjected the poor Iraqis to. You would think that we are beyond this, I guess not. Do you reckon we will ever win their hearts, I can't see it happening. Just for a moment put yourself in their place. All I can say is Mr Kerry has his work cut out for him, but you know what, I think he is more than up to the task.

So sad because this war was based on lies. Americans and Iraqis both died because America rolled over and let an idiot steal the 2000 election.

We could shut down this country -- we should shut down this country until this brutality stops.

Are the snipers hired mercenaries too? Snipers-R-Us?

http://www.wgoeshome.com

Special Report:
www.albasrah.net on secret attempts by US to contact Arab Baath Socialist Party of Iraq.

What are the background and reasons for the latest American initiative
vis-à-vis the Baath Party?

Part 2.

Exclusive article for al-Basrah.net by an informed writer.

(For Part 1 of this article, please see the Iraqi
Resistance Report for 26 April 2004.)

Thus the Americans realized that the predicament into which their occupation
of Iraq had got them had begun to take a course that they never imagined it
could - particularly not in the heady triumphalist days after they occupied
Baghdad and staged the melodrama of toppling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's
statue.

The Americans contacted the United Nations and asked the UN mission headed by
Mr. al-Akhdar al-Ibrahimi to return to Baghdad and undertake an initiative to
relieve some of the American predicament and to allow it get past their
bottlenecks. The US asked the UN mission to confirm that it was possible
for the US to enter into a dialogue with the leadership of the Arab Baath
Socialist Party. The US allowed the United Nations plenty of room in which
to maneuver freely so that it could come up with some means to serve the
central American goal - the reduce the human losses that had begun to grow
more and more serious.

A new contact was made between that same intermediary person and the Baath
in a European capital in search of a clear and well-defined vision that could
serve as the basis on which the next round of talks - which the United Nations
team insisted on holding in Iraq - would focus. The Party reaffirmed its
total rejection of dialogue with the Americans:

First, so long as Iraq continues to be occupied,

Second, so long as sacrileges, arrests, and indiscriminate killing of
civilians continues,

Third, so long as the legitimate top leadership of the Iraqi government
remains in prison,

Fourth, so long as American support for the Zionist Entity continues, in
the course of which Washington gives the green light to assassinations and
large scale murders of the Palestinian people and its militant leaders,

Fifth, so long as America maintains its bases on any Arab territory from the
Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Gulf,

Sixth, in rejection of sinister plans that the US is pushing such as the
"Greater Middle East" plan.

At the end of March this person took these firm positions of the Baath Party
in order to deliver them to the concerned parties in the United Nations or
in the American Administration. He promised to give specific answers and
hoped to develop a dialogue directly with the top leadership of the Baath
Party, on the basis that this Party leadership, authorized to make specific
commitments, would determine the time and place according to the security
considerations that it regarded as necessary for itself.

Sources in the United Nations say that on his latest visit, Mr. al-Ibrahimi,
the emissary of the United Nations, and the delegation that accompanied him,
were surprised when they arrived in Iraq and met with Paul Bremer, because
the latter took steps that could only lead to further aggravating the
situation and close the door to any possible solution, as the United
Nations saw it.

Observers say that Bremer had resolved to expand the puppet governing
council from 25 corrupt members to 50 corrupt members. In its new form
it became a council of ministers rather than a governing council. At the
head of the puppet council of ministers was the thief Ahmad Chelebi who
relied on rabble such as Muwaffaq ar-Rabi'i (for security affairs) and
'Ali 'Alawi (ministry of defense). The rest of the shares of the Iraq
pie were divided up among the remainder of the gang of traitors such as
the stooge "Da'wah Party," the apostate "Islamic Party," and other such
deviants, in particular the two Kurdish separatist Parties.

The delegation of the United Nations rejected these steps in whole and in
part and threatened to withdraw and return to New York if this charade
continued. They also rejected all the excuses that Bremer advanced for
these steps, pointing out to him that these measures, no matter how nice
his lackeys might make them look to him, cannot get Iraq out of its problems,
but will in fact only worsen the security situation faced by the American
forces in the country.

The position of the United Nations mission became firmer (and this is to
the credit of Mr. al-Ibrahimi and his delegation) when, despite Bremer's
insistent requests, they refused to meet Ahmad Chelebi, Muwaffaq ar-Rabi'i,
and Iyyad 'Alawi. After familiarizing themselves with the situation in
Baghdad they met again with the Americans and brought the following conditions
for the continuation of their efforts in Iraq:

First, the formation of a technocrat government in which there would be no
members of the governing council (and the number of whose members would not
exceed 25), so that they could really get to work on their duties without
waste.

Second, that the members of the new government be known for their honesty
and patriotism and that they be chosen on the basis of their competence
and expertise.

Third, that the law on "uprooting the Baath" be nullified, because freedom
of ideological identification is a legitimate thing.

Fourth, that all prisoners and detainees be released. If there are some
against whom there is proof and evidence of their having committed specific
crimes, then they should be brought to just and legal trial and their cases
reviewed later.

Mr. al-Ibrahimi and the UN delegation departed Baghdad, leaving Bremer and
the American Administration face to face with reality, as the stooges at
this point became enraged - particularly the thief Ahmad Chelebi and the
lackey "Da'wah Party." In accord with US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
they launched a defamation campaign against the United Nations and Mr.
al-Ibrahimi. Rumsfeld's position had become more difficult as a result
of increasingly grave US losses, compounded by the defiant resistance of
the heroes of al-Fallujah, in particular, and of the real men of Iraq in
general. Making matters worse for him was the emergence of the current of
Muqtada as-Sadr, who apparently felt equally marginalized by both the
Americans and the Iranians and sought to take "revenge" by moving towards
the Iraqi street - which is boiling with rage over America's disgraceful
excesses.

The Baath, informed of all the developments, was asked by the intermediary
person what the Party's opinion was of the conditions laid down by the
United Nations for cooperation with the Americans as laid out above.
The response came in the Statement issued by the Baath Party on 23 April
2004, reaffirming the firmness and correctness of the patriotic and Arab
Nationalist position taken by the Party.

Despite the initiative that the Americans now clearly enunciated (Boucher
and Bremer's statements), incontestable facts show that the Baath Party
informed its Party branches and mass membership in Iraq and throughout
the Arab homeland of the real reasons for the new American position,
which the Baath rejects in whole and in part. The return of the Baath
will never take place in any situation other than by way of the liberation
of Iraq; the attainment of its pan-Arab national goal of the return of
Palestine, free and Arab from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River; and
the defeat of sinister plans like that of the so-called "greater Middle East."

The Baath Party affirmed, the informed sources say, that it had actually
begun the liberation operations, the dimensions of which are known to the
Americans in the field - not only in heroic al-Fallujah - and which will
continue and escalate quantitatively and qualitatively to constitute the
beginning of the end of the traitors and stooges, and of the tyrannical
Zionist-American era.

We will in effect have surrendered. Can this be so.
____________________________________________________________
"Third, so long as the legitimate top leadership of the Iraqi government remains in prison,"
_____________________________________________________________
Wonder who they are talking about here?